Importance of board breaking

They actually look just like the ones in the link. But I break those so easily, I don't understand...

Because you tell yourself you can't, so you don't. It's in the mind. The board is already broken.
 
They actually look just like the ones in the link. But I break those so easily, I don't understand...

Confidence. Commitment. Technique.
What color is the one you're breaking? Look at the back, the scale is there telling you what each color matches.

Because you tell yourself you can't, so you don't. It's in the mind. The board is already broken.

Bingo.
 
Confidence. Commitment. Technique.
What color is the one you're breaking? Look at the back, the scale is there telling you what each color matches.

Im breaking the brown one
 
Im breaking the brown one

Brown is, if memory serves, like 1.25 or 1.5 boards. If you're breaking that with ease, but failing on a single board, then either there's something drastically wrong with your rebreakables (which seems unlikely, in my experience) or it is purely a mental thing. You're not committing. You've talked yourself into failing.
The brown board is more difficult to break than a single pine board. Get that into your head. Remember how easy you broke the plastic board. And go right through the pine.
 
Brown is, if memory serves, like 1.25 or 1.5 boards. If you're breaking that with ease, but failing on a single board, then either there's something drastically wrong with your rebreakables (which seems unlikely, in my experience) or it is purely a mental thing. You're not committing. You've talked yourself into failing.
The brown board is more difficult to break than a single pine board. Get that into your head. Remember how easy you broke the plastic board. And go right through the pine.

Yeah that sounds about right. I think they are like 1.25 of a board. I figured taht after 8 years of the board being used, it may be overly broken in, and easier to brake due to that.
 
What sort of plastic rebreakable boards do you have? I ask, because the ones we have (from a company called UMAB - Ultimate Martial Arts Boards) are pretty well engineered. I've broken them in series and I cannot tell any difference between them and wooden boards. .

I'm not sure what brand of re-breakables we use, but they do get looser over time, and they get marked with one or more X's to indicate which ones are looser. As a general rule any kids over primary school age (11) break the black boards. As far as gradings go it's usually 3 single board breaks for geup ranks, and 10 single board breaks for dan gradings.
Single board breaks are really just a test of accuracy for adults and most of the kids- hit the board in the middle and it will break so long as you strike through it.

for heavier breaking - multiple boards or re-breakable bricks, I find it useful as a test of focus. you have to hit through, you also have to hit it right. hitting the brick with a palm strike wrong and it hurts. Towards your limit there's that mental barrier - it will hurt so you don't want to hit too hard, but it hurts much less it you hit it with everything and obliterate your target.
 
Yeah that sounds about right. I think they are like 1.25 of a board. I figured taht after 8 years of the board being used, it may be overly broken in, and easier to brake due to that.

While that is certainly possible, I still think it's mental, not physical. Some of ours have been broken literally hundreds of times and are not notably easier to break.


Sent from an old fashioned 300 baud acoustic modem by whistling into the handset. Not TapaTalk. Really.
 
While that is certainly possible, I still think it's mental, not physical. Some of ours have been broken literally hundreds of times and are not notably easier to break.


Sent from an old fashioned 300 baud acoustic modem by whistling into the handset. Not TapaTalk. Really.

I was thinking about buying one of them for myself , but I just saw that one of the boards costs like $70 so that's a no go.
 
I was thinking about buying one of them for myself , but I just saw that one of the boards costs like $70 so that's a no go.

You may want to look into the tongue-and-groove kind, which are cheaper. They don't hold up well in the dojang getting broken like 30x a week, but if it's just for your personal use at home, I think it should be fine.

Edit: Also, that whole confidence thing! People think a solid wood board is going to be more difficult, because unlike the plastic one, it doesn't have a line down the middle where you can see it breaks apart. So they get a little bit afraid of the wooden board and hold back, and then have a hard time breaking it....
 
You may want to look into the tongue-and-groove kind, which are cheaper. They don't hold up well in the dojang getting broken like 30x a week, but if it's just for your personal use at home, I think it should be fine.

Have you tried any of these? I bought a couple, 7-8 years ago, and after maybe 70-80 breaks, they could be broken with your pinky.
If there is a brand you've used that holds up better, I'm sure people would like to know which one it is. :)
 
Have you tried any of these? I bought a couple, 7-8 years ago, and after maybe 70-80 breaks, they could be broken with your pinky.
If there is a brand you've used that holds up better, I'm sure people would like to know which one it is. :)

I've gotten the tongue and groove ones from Dynamics, and I think got at least twice that much use out of them. Which, in a school setting, still means buying new ones every few months, but for one person trying to get ready for one belt test, it would probably be fine IMO.
 
The blue and reds from Blitz are good and sturdy but VERY difficult when they are brand new. I've broken the blue one close to 100 times and it's still equivalent to about 2x2cm boards. The red I have broken a few times, and I can still only get through it with a massive back kick.

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I think I was struggling just because I wasn't focused and I wasn't striking through the boards. I was stopping right at them. Testing for me is next Saturday, and I think I'll be just fine. I think we are filming this testing to start a YouTube channel for the club to help promote it etc. If we do I'll share it and y'all can critique/criticize whatever y'all want on the video.
 
I've gotten the tongue and groove ones from Dynamics, and I think got at least twice that much use out of them. Which, in a school setting, still means buying new ones every few months, but for one person trying to get ready for one belt test, it would probably be fine IMO.

Oh sure, it probably would be.
On the other hand, since this particular person seems to have a mental block on pine, but blasts through plastic, they might be better off heading to Loews.
 
The only time board breaking will be important to me is the day I'm attacked by a plank of wood
 
The only time board breaking will be important to me is the day I'm attacked by a plank of wood
Like when something like this happens:

far_side-karate-web.jpg
 
Proper bone alignment, applying torque and body weight and using the natural weapons of the body correctly lead to some awesome skills. Every healthy karate man should have a variety of breaking skills he can demo to prove his insight into the leverage applied in the given technique. This makes it clear that if given the chance the karate practitioner can finish the opponent with one blow. If one is to have any real chance against a weapon one needs to be able to kill with one blow. (along with a few other skills) There should be a bed a nails a sledge hammer and plenty of 2X4s and cinder blocks and pine boards in any well stocked karate dojo for such training. I do not consider breaking to be an advanced art. From my stance it is an intermediate skill that is important for those who wish to be advanced martial artist.
 
Umm... why a bed of nails? I've honestly never seen any reason to lay on one of those.
 
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