I usually use a bath-towel...it's longer than wide; after only the first week, you'll have compressed the fibers so there is little padding left. The only real function it serves at this point is to provide a training surface you can hit without scraping the snot out of your knuckles on rough bark (I started on a pine tree, then switched to a maple, and finally ended on a big-ole aspen).
Take the power level to your comfort level, and stay there for awhile. Eventually, you'll have either a bad day to blow off steam from, or your body will let you know it's ready for more by keying for you to push previous boundaries and find a new reference point. I hit one level wherein I was sure anything harder would fracture my meta-carpals. Stayed there about a month. One evening, beating on the poor tree, it occurred to me I could go a little harder, the a little more, and so on. Found a new solidity with which to hit.
What is the difference btw a percussive strike and a concussive strike? Concussive = heavy bag training = you hit the guy, aim deep into the target, and displace the target from it's original position with the strike; hit him so hard, you knock him off his feet. Percussive strike = makiwara = strike AT the surface of the target (or just behind it) so that the target stays right where it was, but the surface that was struck is fractured or damaged. Used to do a lab with my students with the 1-gallon milk jugs with the plastic tops that pop off. Concussion: Fill it with water, set it on the top of a 5-foot 4x4 post, and whack it so you send it flying. Often the cap doesn't come off until the jug is on its lazy way down to the ground. Percussion: Deep snap punch the jug so that the water is compressed, shoots the cap off the jug and up into the air, but the jug remains seated on the 4x4...doesn't go anywhere, just empties 1/4 to 1/2 of its contents (it's actually quite hard to empty the jug without displacing it, but after you do, the percussive striking demo tricks all become infinitely easier...it's like your body finally gets it).
Makiwara training is good for a couple of things:
1. Not feeling pain in your hand when you hit a guy, and not damaging your wrist secondary to strengthening.
2. Cool percussive striking skills. Punch the guy in the face, and fracture teeth, nose, facial bones, etc., but he's still right there (if you're in a crowd and can't afford to John Wayne the guy into a group of people, but definitely have to do him enough harm to make him stop in his tracks).
3. Breaking what you hit. Board breaking in a stack with spacers = an exaggerated concussive strike. Breaking a board free-floating in space (tossed up) = percussive strike; the energy of the blow is dispersed maximally at the point of contact. Works for faces, ribs, joints and wrists (every block is also a strike), etc. I still have not found a Wooden man dummy built well enough to take makiwara-type training without falling apart. Instead, have taken 4-foot cuts of telephone pole, and hung them by rope or fastened them to fixed rigs. Next, take each block from Short Form One, and do it 100 times a day, each side, on the pole, progressively harder to tolerance. In sparring, replace checking off an attack before countering with a couple of these conditioned blocks. Do it to the first several attacks your partner throws, and you can watch them become trepidatious about throwing anything else. One of my first instructors really took the Funakoshi admonition to make your arms and legs like swords seriously. Said he never threw a punch in self defense; only blocks, and still broke bones. I never got that hard core, but did manage to reach a place where sparring partners hesitated about offensive sniper fire b/c the bruises they'd recieve. :uhyeah:
Train hard.
D.
