Fungus
Black Belt
Is it? It's not how I though it of it's primary use. Maybe it has several uses.OK. I'm not a doctor. Here's my advice. No to makiwara.
One, it's not a necessary component of training; for anyone.
Two, it can be dangerous, as you yourself discovered.
Three, the basic premise of it is that it 'toughens' the hands by desensitizing nerve endings.
I think of it as giving an incremental backreation feedback, that teaches you when your bones and
body are aligned with the force. It does so more clearly than a swampy heavy bag. We have no makiwara in or club now, but sometimes I feel like I want to test alginment and then I hit a steel beam (part of the building) but I wear the sack gloves, to save my skin. But when doing this, I obviously do NOT give it my all, that would teach me nothing. And the purpose is not to damage my nerves, but to train the proper alginment of hand/arm/wrists in order to be able to hit hard, without damaging wrists or other joints?
I think noone should use a makiwara like a punching bag, that would be dangeours I agree.Adults of course are free to do as they wish; it's your body, after all. I am 100% against kids doing makiwara work.
If you do NOT learn how to hit HARD then whenever there is a real fight, I think the chance is higher than you really damage your hand or wrist, or elbow?