Board Breaking

[PaulS]

My grandson and I attend our first board breaking seminar. We broke two boards each. One with a hammer fist and one with a front kick. Pretty cool.

[bushido_man96]

Sounds like fun. What did you learn in regards to breaking boards?

[pittbullJudoka]

Breaking can be fun especially when you start stacking up multiple boards. But as Bushidoman asked what was taught at this seminar in regards to breaking, mindset, technique, ect.

[PaulS]

We were showed three different ways to break boards. Hammer fist...front kick and side thrust kick. Then we could decide which two we wanted to use. It is not as easy you some think to break a board. The hammer fist was easy. For my other board I picked front kick. The first kick it did not break. The guy holding the board reminded me to kick thru the board at his chest. When I did that it broke. You have to hit it with the ball of your foot or it will not break.

[bushido_man96]

I tell my students breaking boards is about technique, not boards. Technique needs to be good to get through.

[pittbullJudoka]

As mentioned above you don't target the board it's self. You place your focused objective of striking something behind the board. This is commonly the biggest mistake those new to breaking make. If you focus solely on hitting the board hard that's exactly what you'll do hit the board hard, causing pain and possibly injury to yourself. The farther through the board you are trying to strike the easier the break will be, because you are trying to hit something four to six inches beyond the board. It's is practically mind over matter. In this case if you say kicking the board and you objective target is the person holding its chest.. Bang there you go a broken board.

A lot of people especially kids are intimidated by knowing the fact they are about to hit a wooden board, it's hard, and its going to hurt. They don't think about hitting something beyond the board because its going to hurt when they hit it.

[PaulS]

My daughter took a video of me breaking the board. When I watched it I noticed on the first kick I pulled kicked and then pulled back. The black belt holding the board told me to remember to kick thru the board. The next kick broke the board and my foot landed next to his. Another thing I noticed when watching this was that everyone in the room stopped to watch me. There were others breaking boards at the same time but they all stopped to watch me. The only reason I can think why they did this was that I was the oldest one breaking boards. Not to bad for 57 I guess!!

[pittbullJudoka]

PaulS I've done the same thing on breaks of pulling the technique I was using. After trying a six board break multiple times and only breaking four of the six. I then realized I was snapping the punch and not driving through. A six board clean break with a reverse punch is still my unicorn. I've been chasing it for years but I only try this break on special occasions, so it's not like I've been trying it week and week out for those years. But congratulations on trying something new and learning the proper way to do it. Next time try two boards and really challenge yourself.

[bushido_man96]

A 6 board punch! That's quite a challenge there! Brave to even try!

[Dobbersky]

Don't tend to break boards just Pool cues and baseball bats.

Last time I did board breaking I was a 4th Gup in Tang Soo Do.