I'm pretty close to Al on this one too.
I used to have a makiwara and will make a new one in or near my new house, meanwhile I use old cartyres as substitute (a bit hard on contact, but with good give).

be careful because if you hit it too much you will lose your flexibility later in life. I still condition my hands but only hit something hard about once a week and the other times a phone book. Not only that but if you train for that tense karate power than you will be trained not to have the relaxed shocking power. You should train both kinds and learn how to relax your muscles and then converge not just tense and hit really hard. I had to untrain myself for about a year and a half after 5 years of karate to develop the different kind of explosive power for silat.

Proper makiwara training will give you power to knock back a 2000 lb heavy bag, as opposed to proper bag training will give you enough power to knock back the amount you train on, ie if you train on a 100lb heavy bag, dont expect to be able to knock back a 300lb bag.

The makiwara must be properly made and trained on though, not very many people do this, most people just take a big ole 2x4, slap it into the ground and put some rope around it.

The heavy bags best aspect is the development of distancing, timing, and foot work, along with attribute training - power, speed, agility, endurance, etc...

i think striking something is good. Striking something hard is good but not too often. I mostly just hit a phone book while i am sitting on the floor with all parts of the hands. The point more than conditioning is to develop power and hit "through" it. I think you can develop more relaxed power too if you hit something not so hard. ALso practice hitting it about an inch away and without using more tension gradually build up power.

Quote by Sanchin -

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Proper makiwara training will give you power to knock back a 2000 lb heavy bag,

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BWA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

I sure hope that was a typo, my friend. Makiwara training is hard on the joints and has not been proven to be any more beneficial than bag work.

Makiwara is beneficial in an other way than bagwork, and it has not been proven to be hard on the joints (for all I know)

Quote by nenipp -

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Makiwara is beneficial in an other way than bagwork

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How so? Please explain.

I train on the makiwara twice a week for about 20 minutes a time. I have done this for just over 6 months. befor ethat it was a sand when but not regular.

I do tsuki, uraken, shuto, enpi, tetsui both hands and use dit jow lotion after (spelling!).

Personally I think it has improved my karate, definatly improved my strikes focus and timing, being relaxed and tense correctly, I was far to tensed before and working against myself. definatly more power being generated now with less effort. also the hands feel stronger.

I also train on the bag and that has its place as well but for me the maki has its own unique benefits.

I also highly appriciate the 'mental' discipline that the maki brings and feel that it helps me to 'focus' before a lesson, weird kind of meditation.

Its important to have a flexiable makiwara correctly padded to avoid injury IMO.

For me its an important part of okinawan karate and shouldnt be overlooked.

Does anyone know of a good site that shows how to build a makiwara? I found this one....But it seemed pretty vague..

http://www.ctr.usf.edu/shotokan/makiwara.html

this is a superb resource for quality tips -

www.karatetips.com/articles/howtomakeamakiwara.asp