Breaking a board with a spear finger:

[Cybren]

I imagine this is possible, but i also imagine i'll have to condition my hands for atleast a year or two to do it reasonably safe (of course, ones interpretation of 'reasonably safe' may vary).

This originated more as a joke between myself and other students at the dojang, but now i'm curious as to the feasability of it.

[Brandon Fisher]

Look at the XMA video that discovery channel has out. There is a guy on the video that did that very thing using his 2 index fingers put together. It is possible. I still break using my big toe sometimes but it takes a lot of conditioning to do that.

[ps1]

Yes, it can be done. One of my instructors can puncture a full can of soda with his finger. I don't think you'll be busting bricks with it... but a 1 inch pine board... easily.

[Sohan]

Ouch. I've got pretty strong hands but don't think I'd risk it with something like that. One bad break and you'll have a nasty case of arthritis when you get older.

Respectfully,

Sohan

[lordtariel]

You can put a tremendous amount of force into a small point. It's the main reason why kevlar vests will stop a bullet but are completely innefective against a knife thrust. That being said, you'd probably have to condition and train your hand extensively to be able to do it without breaking or dislocating fingers. I have a small section of a book I purchased to suppliment my jian(tai chi sword) that is dedicated to training the hidden sword hand.(The off hand is held with two fingers out for spearing the throat, pressure points, ect.) You start by thrusting your two fingers into a bag of soy beans for a ridiculous amount of time. Then you proceede to do it in sand and then clay. The training regimine took years. I could see if I can dig up the book for more detailed info if anyone is interested.

[Aodhan]

You can put a tremendous amount of force into a small point. It's the main reason why kevlar vests will stop a bullet but are completely innefective against a knife thrust.

Actually, it has to do with the way the kevlar is formed. It's a weave pattern, and the knife point slips in between the fibers in the weave, whereas a bullet is too blunt.

There were rounds available a while back where the bullet came to a point, much like a hunting arrow, and those would penetrate the weave of a kevlar vest.

A lot of vests have gone to a kevlar weave with backing plates.

Aodhan

[Whitefeather]

Ya'know, I do not really think it would be a great idea to try to train yourself to be able to do that. There are a lot of cooler martial arts things that you could learn with the time you would spend, and, if you even slightly goofed once, as Sohan said, you would cause permanent damage that would come back to haunt you.

David

[karatekid1975]

I've only seen one person for real do it. One of my instructors. He's a big guy naturally. But he does it now so it LOOKS like he's doing a spear finger break. He touches the boards with the spear finger, then at the last second, turns his spear finger into a fist. It looks like he does the spear finger all the way through, but he showed us that he didn't. It was totally cool.

[Cybren]

Yeah, I've done stage magic, so that way wouldn't be that hard. I wanted to try to do it legit though

[rmclain]

I did this demo a few times in 1997-98. The first few times were fine, but my finger joint ended up getting sore and started hurting after the last time.

So, I stopped doing this demo. Don't want any arthritis when I get older.

R. McLain