The Makiwara Training Log

Mat Manual companion guide to "The Makiwara Bargain: Conditioning a Fist Without Wrecking Your Hands." Print it. This book is the dose system for makiwara work: the surface and force ladders with their advancement rules, the alignment checks to run every session, a session log that records strikes per hand, surface, and force, and a hand-health tracker with the stop-signals built in, so your own trend is visible before your joints announce it. It is built on one rule: conditioning is earned at moderate doses, and the log is how you prove the dose stayed moderate.

Name: ______________________________ Gym: ______________________________ Coach: ______________________________

BEFORE ANYTHING: THE SAFETY FRAME ☐ Stop-signals end the session, every time: sharp joint pain, tingling, numbness, swelling, a folded wrist, broken skin, or pain still present the next morning. ☐ No makiwara work with arthritic hands, an uncleared fracture, nerve or circulation problems in the hands, or hands still growing. The pad version in Part 5 teaches the same lessons. ☐ Force is earned by the ladder in Part 3, never by enthusiasm. Nobody in this book trains above seventy percent except as a rare, coach-set test. ☐ Torn skin is wrapped and the session ends. Conditioning through broken skin is an infection risk, not a tradition. ☐ Persistent joint pain, numbness, or loss of grip strength is a clinician conversation, and it happens before the next session, not after the season.

Part 1: Know Your Board — The Equipment Card

No two boards train alike, and the equipment card exists because dose cannot transfer between boards until the boards are described. Flex is the governing variable: a board that gives ten centimetres at full force is a different instrument from one that gives three, whatever the striking surface is made of. The card's flex measure, taken with a luggage scale or a known push and a ruler, takes ten minutes to record and makes your log portable: a student who changes dojos, builds a home board, or returns after a break can match the new board's flex to the old one and keep their ladder positions honest instead of starting folklore over. Boards also change. Timber dries and stiffens across seasons, padding compresses and thins, mounting bolts loosen a fraction at a time, and a board that was kind in spring can be measurably harsher by winter. Recheck the card's numbers at the start of each quarter, and treat any sudden change in how a familiar dose feels as a board question before it becomes a hand question. The hands keep the records in this book, but the board writes some of the entries.

Mounting deserves its line on the card. A wall-mounted board returns force differently from a floor-standing post, and a post set in loose ground will forgive what a bolted post will not. Note the mounting, the height of the striking centre relative to your own solar plexus, and whether the board can be adjusted; a board fixed at the wrong height teaches a rising or dropping punch with every repetition, and no amount of alignment checking will fully outvote ten thousand slightly wrong angles.

Not all makiwara are the same tool. Record what you actually train on.

Rule: a board with no flex is a wall with a pad on it. If your board does not give at moderate force, train on it as a hard surface under Part 2's hardest rules, or use the pad.