THE SILENT TEACHER

 by Phillip Starr

It's your best friend but oftentimes, it seems as if it hates you and everyone else. It doesn't care what style you practice; it hates everybody equally. But it will teach you a great deal in a very short time. If there's a flaw in your technique, it'll point it out to you in a way that you won't quickly forget. Some years ago, I conducted a training session at my home and everyone was politely introduced to my personal striking post. One student even started off by giving it a kiss and a hug but it didn't matter. It still bit him...but through its vicious exterior, it taught him.

The striking post was once one of the most common pieces of equipment in most training halls and/or the homes of martial arts teachers. Whether they taught forms of bare-handed fighting or swordsmanship, there was almost always a striking post nearby and if you think hitting one with your fist is a pain, try it with a wooden sword!

An old friend of mine, Sherm Harrill (who trained under the founder of Isshin-ryu, Tatsuo Shimabuku), once said, "Any karate school that doesn't have a makiwara in it is just teaching dancing." It is my opinion that he pretty much hit the nail on the head. All hardcore, traditional karate dojos sport at least one makiwara and its pad is usually adorned with plenty of dried blood, which is a testament to the spirit of those who tempered their bodily weapons on it. Even in modern Okinawa and Japan, there is usually a makiwara in or near any karate dojo.

From "day one" in America, the striking post has been almost unknown. Americans didn't like to practice basics over and over; they wanted to learn how to fight. They didn't, and many still don't, get the connection. If your basics are weak or incorrect, you have almost no chance in a real fight.

Trust me, if you want to know if you can really knock an opponent down with your thrust or strike, try it out on a striking post. The odds are good that you'll find a flaw in there somewhere and that you're not really hitting as hard as you thought. When you start out, don't hit it full-power! If you do, you won't do it a second time. Start off gently with, say, 25 good punches and strikes. Gradually increase the power and number of blows as you're able. Take your time! When I train(ed) with my post, I perform(ed) 500 thrusts (with each hand) per day. I also practiced 50 to 100 of other type of strikes, which included the sword-hand and backfist. By the time you've worked up to 100 strong thrusts per day, your punch will be stronger than you might think. When you hit an opponent he'll stay hit, believe me.

I have often heard students and even instructors of various forms of karate and kung-fu declare that one of the primary reasons for makiwara training is to develop thick callouses on the striking surfaces of the hands and feet (and some traditionalists also practiced hitting it with various kicks and even elbow strikes). This is usually their excuse for not emphasizing the use of this simple device; it's not practical anymore because we don't need heavy callouses with which to punch through armor.

Foo.

Regular, correct use of a striking post will not build thick, heavy callouses. Rather, it will toughen the flesh on the striking surfaces of your bodily weapons, which reduces the risk of injuring yourself when you smack some scumbag. The fact is that most martial arts practitioners are afraid to hit something with full power because they fear injuring themselves and the resulting pain of delivering such a blow. Oftentimes, they’re not even consciously aware of this fear; it’s below the level of consciousness. Subconsciously, they know that if they ever hit anything with full power they’ll injure themselves. Because of this, the mind simply does not allow the body to strike full strength. It causes the practitioner to “hold back.” For obvious reasons, this can prove to be a real problem when the chips are down. However, a person who trains regularly on the striking post harbors no such fear and will happily strike his opponent with every ounce of power he can generate.

Some people fear that they will permanently damage their hands if they train with this piece of equipment. Stories abound about well-known martial arts teachers whose hands were supposedly rendered into little more than bludgeons on the ends of their wrists. The world-famous master, Masutatsu Oyama, is often cited as an example. But the truth is very different. Oyama maintained full dexterity in his hands right up until his dying day. Certainly, I have known people who injured their hands on the makiwara and it’s because they were training improperly! You can easily injure yourself lifting light weights, using a heavy bag, or even using a toilet the wrong way! If you’re going to use a piece of equipment, learn to do it right or leave it alone.

So, why use the striking post? Well, let's have a look…

• The main thing that the post teaches you is to strike directly through your target and to focus your power onto a single point. This sounds easy enough to do but I’ve watched numerous senior martial arts instructors strike the post and discover, albeit very painfully, that their technique was incorrect. Oftentimes, their fists slid across the pad (which is wrapped in a type of straw rope), leaving some flesh and blood behind. With practice, you will learn to strike directly into your target flawlessly.

• The striking post lets you know - usually in not-so-gentle ways - if you have glitches in your technique. Hit her solid with a bad technique and she'll immediately let you know that you have erred. For instance, you may be striking with the wrong part of your hand. If this is the case, you’ll find out about it in a hurry. If your shoulder, elbow, or wrist is out of line, she’ll let you know. It's a painful, traumatic way of correcting your errors but it works! And many's the time that I didn't even know that I had a bug in my technique...until I hit the post. She didn't whisper it in my ear, either. She glared at me. Errors in your technique which are so slight that your instructor may not even notice are made glaringly obvious on the post.

• Third, the post teaches you to strike with the force of your whole body rather than just your arm. You should feel the recoil clear down to the soles of your feet. If your stance is unstable she'll let you know about it.

• And the constant repetition of striking the padded post gradually causes the bones of the striking surface to become denser and denser...until they're like iron. This is especially true of the old Okinawan/Japanese makiwara, which is tapered at one end so that it flexes back when it's struck. The vibrations from the flexible post travel up through the bones of the hand, through the wrist, arm, and to the shoulder, causing them to eventually become very, very dense. Think about this. A person whose weapons have been tempered on the striking post possesses very formidable weapons, indeed. His knuckles are as hard as ballpeen hammers (but they need not be calloused) and his other weapons - the sword-hand, pheonix-eye (second knuckle of the forefinger), and other weapons are similarly tempered. If you get hit with one of these weapons, you'll stay hit.

There are lots of different flavors of striking posts. For instance, the well-known “wing chun dummy” is a rather extravagant type of striking post. At the opposite end of the spectrum are various forms of kung-fu that simply use a bare post. And while many contemporary practitioners of the traditional neijia (internal martial arts of China; taijiquan, xingyiquan, and baguazhang) insist that using this device is detrimental to developing internal power and can be injurious to one's health, the fact is that their martial arts forefathers used various types of striking posts on a daily basis. If you dig deep enough into the history of these arts and the men whose skill in them became legendary, you can find numerous references to their use of the striking post. The Okinawan karate masters of times long past emphasized that training consisted of four parts (although most contemporary practitioners emphasize only the first three). These include kihon (basic techniques), kata (forms), kumite (practice with a partner), and makiwara.

The truth of the matter is that most people simply don't want to have to endure the initial pain (and scraped knuckles) of this kind of training. And too many internal stylists would rather intellectualize about striking with power - yada, yada, yada - than actually get off their duffs and put in the required pain and sweat. Actually, the pain eventually goes away as your weapons become better tempered but the sweat will always be with you.

I recall a story told to me by my friend, Chris Smaby, who trained under the reknowned karate master, Hidetaka Nishiyama. Back in the 1970's, Nishiyama and a handful of senior Japanese karate teachers were visiting various Shotokan schools around the U.S. At one such school the owner proudly displayed his five new makiwaras, which he had mounted inside his dojo. One of Nishiyama's classmates walked up to one of them and shot out a reverse punch...and the end of the post snapped off! He went down the line, hitting each one and breaking the ends off until he came to the last one.

"Please, sensei," the school owner pleaded, "Don't break this last one!" The senior karateka nodded in agreement. After the owner had thanked him and had run off to rejoin the rest of the group, the senior instructor saw that he was alone with the last makiwara. He fired out one last punch...and broke the end off the post! He looked around and quietly set it back up on the post, hoping that no one would notice right away. Then he skipped off to join his friends.

In Japan, a young man practiced diligently on a makiwara, which was mounted just outside of the karate dojo. He noticed an older man sitting on a nearby bench. The fellow was reading a newspaper but every now and then he'd glance over at the youngster. This made the karate student punch even harder. He'd show this oldster some real karate technique!

Finally, the old man walked over and informed the young man that his punch wasn't quite right. Exasperated, the karateka asked the old man what he meant. The gray-haired senior fired out a quick thrust and snapped off the top twelve inches of the post. "Do it like that," the old man said. And he walked off to get on his bus. The young karate student was so astonished that he didn't even get the old man's name.

There's a story about a famous xingyiquan master who, when he was yet a student, practiced hitting a post until he could break a tombstone with his piquan (literally, "splitting hand", which strikes with the little-finger edge of the palm). Mind you, this is a Chinese tombstone we're talking about and they're considerably smaller than the huge, heavy Western tombstones but still, it was no mean feat. His teachers wouldn't teach him another technique until he could successfully perform this feat. Talk about being picky!

So if you can, set up a striking post but be sure to build it correctly. You must never, ever practice hitting something that doesn't "give." Your force will simply be returned to you and you can injure not only your hands but your internal environment as well. So don't go out and start whacking the nearest tree. Don't be a lazy cheapskate. Build one and do it right.

I’ve seen world-famous karate masters demonstrating how they beat their hands on huge stones, trees, and similar immovable objects. There is a technical term used in physics that describes such practice. It is foolhardy! I don’t care who it is that does this kind of thing, who he is, how famous he is, what rank he holds, or anything else. It is a reckless, harmful way to practice! Do it right and do it regularly. You'll discover that the striking post is a wonderful, albeit a sometimes harsh, teacher.