DIY Training Equipment #3 - kakete striking post (wooden dummy)
This is actually the first piece of DIY training equipment I made. It's just over a year old now. I have long been attracted to the mook jong (wooden dummy of Wing Chun kungfu, and have often thought it would be useful somehow to a karateka. But until I started doing goju, with its emphasis on close-range technique, I hadn't been able to quite work out how. While the primary inspiration for me was the Wing Chun mook jong, I actually based the main part on the Choy Lay Fut mook jong which has a counterweight arm. Under this, I put Wing Chun-like lower limbs, creating a hybrid I felt would be useful to practice the range of karate technique I wanted to. Then, in doing some research, I came across Mario McKenna's blog (listed on the left) in which he makes mention of the kakete. Right! I thought, it's a valid thing to do for karate! (and it has a name into the bargain) So I set off to make one. It's very, very hard to get an untreated round pos...