How is breaking most important to you

[ZeRo]

i try and condition my hands up alittle so it doesnt hurt so much, but ive heard quite abit about how old people who conditioned alot cant pick things up? is this true coz it would give me a whole new look at conditioning.

[Stold]

True...boards don't strike back (that popular saying of Lee's) but I don't believe he was 'against' breaking I just believe he didn't believe one should focus on a single skill (like kata) and ignore all other facets of your training.

 

Breaking develops "impact power" an important skill a martial artist cannot acquire through sparring alone.. Breaking develops your confidence. Either you can break or you can't (okay so it's an ego thing -- big deal)...and when you can do it, that "confidence power will be there for you when you need to tap into it.

 

Do you know that this power doesn't decrease as you age. You do happen to lose a certain amount of your speed, some flexibility(if you don't keep at it) but you don't lose the powet in your striking ability in fact sometimes it increases. The purpose of all that focused impact power is to break bones .. would you rather do that to your sparring partner? I think NOT!

 

Breaking has been equated to the roadblocks and challenges we face in our life.

 

If you don't break at first try.... you keep trying. You are not successful until you break the board..... you don't give up!

 

Believe it or not this skill can be incorporated into your everyday lifewhen you come across a challenge or difficulty

 

... you inspect it, measure it, focus on it, and hope for an impossible solution, until the problem is resolved.... or "until the board breaks"!

 

Last time I checked the text books, natural physical striking power peaked at around 30 years old. Anyways....

 

I did break while I was at my school, and I was good at it. I couldn't do single boards because they would not clean break, but splinter and cut my foot. I don't really see how breaking develops impact power. Unless you do it repeatedly, and that's quite a few boards for just one person. A punching bag is much more suitable. Most breakable bones don't require massive force to break. The ones that do, you would sooner break your knuckle than the bone when fighting a bigger opponent. There are exceptions such as the jaw, but the jaw gives a little upon contact because it is attached to the head.

 

Like I said, all breaking boards does is develop ego. That's not a bad thing per se, but I would rather have the ego from kicking the shit out of my sparring partners(Full force but with pads and gloves) than breaking boards.

[KickChick]

well, I disagree .... but that's ok

 

It's the power of physics. Break a board with your bare hand, without ma training and you may break a finger. Punch it with the proper force, momentum, and positioning, and you'll break the board.

 

In the late 1970s, Ronald McNair, (who later died tragically while working as a scientist-astronaut aboard Space Shuttle Challenger.) did a study to see just how fast is a karate punch? A strobe light was set up that flashed either 60 or 120 times per second. Then various kicks and punches were photographed as they were being done. The speed of a punch was calculated by counting how many times the strobe flashed until the fist hit its target.

 

He found that beginning students can throw a karate punch at about 20 feet per second...just enough to break a one-inch board. But a black belt could break it at 46 feet per second. At that speed, a 1 1/2-pound hand can deliver up to 2,800 newtons (one newton is roughly equal to the force exerted by the weight of an apple). Splitting a typical concrete slab 1 1/2 inches thick takes on average only 1,900 newtons.

 

Bone can withstand 40 times more force than concrete, and a cylinder of bone less than an inch in diameter and 2 1/3 inches long can withstand a force of more than 25,000 newtons. Hands and feet can withstand even more than that, because their skin, muscles, ligaments, tendons, and cartilage absorb a great deal of impact. As a result, a well-kicked foot can absorb about 2,000 times as much force as concrete before breaking.

 

When you broke that single board ... you obviously didn't align it with the grain running parallel to the strike, so that it cleaves easily.

 

A punching bag is "suitable" for conditioning ... but where is the follow through??

[kchenault]

SO THERE!!!

[kchenault]

Seriously though, that is quite a piece of information there KC!

 

As Mr. Spock would say, "Fascinating."

[Stold]

Yes, and how is it possible for the boards and bricks to be broken? They are held firm by either the ground, a stand, or 6 students. The fact that the karate practitoners punch is fast and strong has NOTHING to do with his "board break" training. But his inflated ego probably does. Anyways, as I was saying, even if you have an opponent against a wall his body is always going to give. You mix this with an opponent actively moving, and I don't care how much hard stuff you can break, your target will almost always give befoe serious damage is done. Why don't you see people's skull's collapsing in the UFC? Same reason.

 

You can flash all the numbers you want, but breaking your knuckle against someone's forhead or cheakbone is not uncommon. Mike Tyson broke his hand, through a boxing glove and a hand wrap, on that one dude's nose.

 

I didn't align the board, my holder's did.

 

A punching bag has a much more realistic follow through. Rarely in life will your target "snap" real quick then offer no resistantce.

[KickChick]

Of course, those UFC "guys" can punch as quickly and powerfully as any black belt. Why don't they break skulls? The answer lies in the nature and "style" of their punches. When they throw their fist the movement ends with a follow-through. This gives the punch maximum momentum (golf and tennis players follow through for the same reason), and it can help knock an opponent down. But the impact itself is diffused. It is mean't to wallop their opponents head, not crack his skull. But when doing a "break" with a punch you reach maximum velocity when the arm is about 80 percent extended, focusing your punch in your mind mentally so that it follows through rather than just on the surface. To achieve the maximum "impact power" , you want to make contact before your punch slows down.

[Stold]

I'm not sure I understand. If a UFC fighter could indeed break someone's skull (or anybone for that matter) with a punch, why wouldn't he? What are the physical differences between, say, Ken Shamrock's punch and your instructor's break punch? Aside from the time to prepare and set things up for the break.

[rb]

i try and condition my hands up alittle so it doesnt hurt so much, but ive heard quite abit about how old people who conditioned alot cant pick things up? is this true coz it would give me a whole new look at conditioning.

 

Breaking should not hurt. I would rexamine your techniques as well. Note conditioning is a very long and systematic process, be sure you know what you are doing when you go about doing this.

[niel0092]

Yes, and how is it possible for the boards and bricks to be broken? They are held firm by either the ground, a stand, or 6 students.

 

What about suspended breaks where the board is loosely held by the finger tips of one hand or even dropped? Don't seem to remember those boards staying intact after they were hit...

 

yes, opponents do move and are not "solid" but give to a certain degree. But this does not make board breaking a waste of time, it is just another of a myriad of training techniques to go along with sparring. As far as the UFC goes, there have been noses and other things broken so it's clear to me that they are punching effectively just differently then some of us do. different is not "wrong".