Board Breaking

[DWx]

Board breaking has always been optional in both of the dojos I have called home. It's a decent way to measure how hard you can hit something (takes about 115lbs of force to break one board and get's exponentially more difficult when you stack them without spacers) but it's mostly for novelty/fun or for demonstrations. I haven't broken boards in about a year, but I can assure you that if you don't drive through and align everything properly the boards will injure you, as DWx says.

Absolutely!!

Also, Spacers ease the break, while no spacer breaks require near perfection across the board [pun intended]. My only way I'll break anything is without spacers. I've used spacers before, but only when I was learning tameshiwara.

I don't think spacers are that bad (although I prefer without). No spacers requires you to hit hard while the same number of spaced boards requires you to maintain the power over a distance (even if its slightly less).

Try doing a speed break; it's not that easy, but becomes easier when one's trained to do it correctly and effectively.

Speed breaks are awesome In the far distant future when I next grade, I really want to come up with a nice speed/air break to do to show that bigger people can do them too.