Making your own training equipment; "Tire Makiwara"

"Just finished assembling the Tire Makiwara"

In Karate and early Taekwondo the training was usually divided up largely by training and perfecting basics, forms and impact training on the striking post. In the west it is undoubtfully better known as "Makiwara"
which is a Japanese term meaning wrapped straw (take that translation with a grain of salt as it is me writing from memory) while in KMA (Korean Martial Arts) it is known as Kwon Go or Dallyon Joo. The latter term meaning forging post and the former meaning "Fist" and something:p (sorry but I have never seen the Hanja or Hangul for Kwon Go).


Basics and forms have allways been a huge part of my martial education, and impact work has also always been something I have used every oppertunity to do when I had suitable equipment available but my experience with "Makiwara training" has been sporadic to say the least.. In fact the closest thing I have been so far is a half dead tree near the house I grew up in. It provided a small flat surface and the tree had some "give" when I struck it. I used to go to that tree and strike it with my forefist, open hand, knife hand and back fist strikes when I had the time. After moving avay from home as we all do sooner or later I have not seen anything fitting that part of training anymore and I have not had any garden of my own to make a traditional

Bolt nutts and the rings I am talking about. I have two rings
one on the inside and one visible on the outside.

striking post. Likewise a floor bolted one has also been a none issue since I have untill last year been renting places to stay and the houseowners do not take kindly to bolting stuff Down on the floor. Wall mounted striking targets has also been something I could not do as they are likely to damage the wall they are mounted on.

After reading a book on Hojo Undo ("The art of Hojo Undo" by Michael Clarke) I finally saw a design that could be something I could use:-) A tire type Makiwara. It is mounted on a wall, but it is not likely to damage it. It provides the same feedback a traditional Makiwara does because of the tire resisting and acting as a spring. It does not require a lot of room either as it can be mounted straight on the wall and best of all it is damn cheap to make (my Budget was just about 10 bucks).

I will not go into training with it since frankly I do not see myself competent enough yet to provide any advice but I will try to gather some resources in a future post for those interested. I will only provide the instructions on how to make one for your self if you want to do this kind of traditional impact training but like me do not have a large budget or training space etc.

A list of what you will need in materials:

• A tire (obviously:p )
• A sturdy wooden board
• 4 bolts
• 8 rings
• 4 nutts
• hockey or duct tape
• padding and leather (or other material you want to cover the padding with)
• some strops or other stuff depending on how you want to mount in on the wall.
• (optional) 1 eye bolt)

First I got an old tire from an auto repair shop next to my work. There should not be any problem aquiring one since they have to pay to get the tires collected and disposed of so they are often very happy to give away old tires to people who need them. At least that is my own experience:-) Since tires are dirty things the first thing I did was to hose it down and wash it. I then let it dry for a few days.

The next thing I did was to tape it with black duct tape. It was a little time consuming but it is great to do this as you no longer have to worry about getting your white Dobok dirty if you and a partner take turns holding this striking target and hit it. It is not necesary though if you do not mind a little dirt. I covered the outisde of the tire with tape and folded and taped around half of the inside of the tire. Do not tape all the way around the tires profile because that will diminish the "spongy" give that you need for it to work as a Makiwara. Just cover the outside with tape and thats it:-)

Cargo strops make mounting the tire makiwara on a tree easy

After taping it I sawed the board so that it was just a little less than a diameter of the tire. I then preceded with drilling 4 holes in each corner of the board and 4 corresponding holes in the tire. If you are as bad at measuring as me you can simply do like me and place the board on the tire and drill straight through the board and tire. Just be carefull not to move the board as you are drilling because that defeats the purpose of doing it this way:-)

I then fastened the board on the tire using some bolts, rings and nuts. The rings (not sure what you call them) are there in case wear and tear could make the holes bigger and then the bolt and nuts would not keep the Makiwara together.

I personally had a wall type striking post with industrial rubber which I then fastened to the board using 4 wooden screws. You can buy that from e-bay for a few dollars or you can use some other kind of padding. 

Ready for practise at 05:00 AM

I fixed and eye bolt at the top of the tire makiwara to facilitate hanging since I believed I could use it when it was fixed to the wall, but after a few test shots (I smacked it a little around) my neightbours came running

believing that some vandals were tearing down the house. Therefore you should only use this if you have your own house, garage or something similar where neighbours are not around. Personally I now use it by attaching it to a tree using cargo strops:-)

I keep the tiremakiwara in my car and before work I park my car next to a forrest and fix the tire to a tree and start practising:-)Great way to start the work day;)

Here is a video of a guy making the same type of eqipment if you do not get the description I wrote above:

Like I said, I will not go into training in this post, but I will in not the too far future gather some tips, videos and resources. My friend and fellow blogger Colin Wee actually made a 20 minute video for me after I told him I wanted to start with this kind of training, If you read this Colin: Thank you:-) For the rest of you "regular readers" the film can be seen below:

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