Breaking

[Tryak]

At what level do you do breaking in your dojang, is it mandatory, what style do you practice and when did you break your first board?
Breaking here at my ITF school is only mandatory for black belts but we also have optional breaking seminars. Plus board breaking is done for demonstrations, open house night, special school events etc.

I am about 2/3 of the way through white belt and I asked permission to break a board today during the competition at our annual barbecue and cut through that sucker like butter with a palm-heel strike. Master Dan signed it for me

The mens winner broke 7 boards with a side kick, he probably could have done more but the holder only went up to 7 boards so he did a 4 board multiple break after that instead with different technique/tool each time. The women's winner broke 4 and the kid's winner broke 2.

 

[Windsinger]

I was talking to out Sabum Nym, and breaking at our school starts with yellow stripe, with the exception of special occasions. For example, last Saturday, we had a training day in one of the local parks. Everyone (even Lowly Little White Belts™ like me ) got to do some breaking.

One thing that strikes me as interesting: I first started taking TKD many moons ago, and the school I was at then (I don't know if it was WTF, ITF, or something else, because I didn't know there were different organizations at the time) had brick breaking as part of the test to advance to yellow stripe. You only had to break 1, but still, it surprised me that they had brick breaking that early.

 

[Kacey]

We came from the ITF. We start breaking at white belt - students testing for 9th gup have to break with a front kick and a forward elbow strike. Tiles (bricks - in our case, concrete roofing tiles) become a requirement when testing for I Dan. All students (adult, child, male, female) have the same breaking requirements in regards to the techniques used, but the number of boards/tiles is varied depending on the age/gender/size of the student. Breaking is required at each rank, and breaks are the only thing you can miss at testing and make up later without having to retest - usually within 2-4 weeks of testing, depending on the testing instructor.

I broke my first board as a white belt, at a demonstration, using a forward elbow strike that my sahbum taught me in the hall on they way into the demonstration. Of course, if you do the elbow strike correctly, you can break a board by leaning on it - but I didn't know that at the time, and neither did the audience.

 

[exile]

I think I did my first break in testing for seventh gup or something like that. We don't do it often, and it's not mandatory, although it's built into certain belt tests. It's something I've worked on a lot by myself, and tried to experiment with, but it doesn't form a really central part of our curriculum.

 

[Twin Fist]

Here is where I leave the usual TKD mind set.

I think most breaking is crap.

it teaches you nothing, it accomplishes nothing.

Most breaking is an optical Illusion anyway. It looks cool, but thats about it.

I am required by my instructor to require it of my students, otherwise? I wouldnt require my students to do it. Breaks are required at 4th kyu/gup

 

[Kacey]

Breaking is like patterns - if you see no purpose in it other than as a requirement to be gotten out of the way, then that's all it will ever be.

Does breaking serve any real purpose in self-defense, if that is your ultimate goal? On the surface, no, it doesn't; after all, boards are consistent in a way that an attacker will never be - they are held still, at a height and distance of the breaker's choosing, where an attacker is (one assumes) constantly moving. Boards are, generally (although not always) a consistent strength - an average inch-thick pine board of a certain dryness and grain is going to require the same skill and strength to break as any other similar board, whereas (one assumes) attackers will come in all sizes, strengths, and levels of ability.

So what is the purpose of breaking? What part does it play in the martial arts, if any? Well, here are a few:

• Dallyon (forging) is a key part of many martial arts - toughening the surfaces of the various bodily tools so that, when in use, they will not break, strain, sprain, or otherwise become less useful in a self-defense situation. Preparing for breaking involves dallyon - or, at least, it had better, if you want to avoid hurting yourself doing the actual break - many people who have the technique but have not forged the tool find themselves in pain following a successful break - pain that could have been avoided by proper forging
• Self-control is also a key part of many martial arts; after all, if one allows oneself to become angry, cocky, scared, or otherwise emotionally distracted in a self-defense situation, one's chances of survival - much less surviving reasonable unscathed - drop noticeably. Breaking, when done at testing (a deliberately stressful situation) forces one to concentrate on the task at hand, to put aside emotional distractions that might detract from focusing on the break - generally, people who miss their breaks and get angry will sit there and pound away on the board or tile, hurting themselves in the process and frequently doing little or no damage to the breaking materials.
• One of the issues that comes up frequently is "does this work". Well, supposedly, if one can break "X" number of boards, one can also break bones of "X" thickness - not a precise comparision, to be sure, as boards are not protected by flesh - but at the same time, one can practice on boards to determine for oneself if a particular technique "works".
• Another issue that comes up frequently is "why have belt ranks - why test at all" - and an answer that comes up frequently is motivation. Breaking is motivating for many students. Beginning students look at a piece of wood, or a rebreakable, or whatever is being presented, and say "I can't do that" - until they are led through exercises that bring them to the point where they can. Then they want to do more - because it can be a lot of fun to break things; it can also be very therapeutic, if one visualizes properly when breaking (just don't tell your sibling, parent, SO, coworker, teacher, etc. just who it was you were visualizing during that last successful break :lol. For more advanced students, breaking forces them to work on more difficult techniques, with an eye to application - if you can't apply a technique to a stationary target of known properties, how can you expect to apply to a moving target of uncertain properties? It also forces students out of their comfort zone - there comes a point (at least for our requirements) where a student can't keep doing that same technique with one more board, because that technique isn't one of the options for testing.

So... as I said when I started, breaking is much like doing patterns; if you see no purpose in it, then it will have no purpose for you. But not everyone sees breaking that way.

 

[exile]

One of the issues that comes up frequently is "does this work". Well, supposedly, if one can break "X" number of boards, one can also break bones of "X" thickness - not a precise comparision, to be sure, as boards are not protected by flesh - but at the same time, one can practice on boards to determine for oneself if a particular technique "works".

For me, this is the particular value of breaking: it's a way of quantifying effective force delivery, and also training effective force delivery—the ability to concentrate high impact in a sufficiently small area to effect damage to the target. I see boards in TKD as comparable to weights in resistance training: how much you can lift in a given fixed routine gives you a measure of your strength increase from session to session, and at the same time, provides a means for increasing your strength—progressive weight training, after all, makes you significantly stronger. In the same way, breaking gives you a relative measure of current abilities, and a technique for improving those abilities as the number of boards you can break, in good form, increases.

 

[Twin Fist]

Kacey,
I see what you are saying, but if I may?

Over the 24 years I have been in the arts, i have seen a LOT of breaking. Heck, i have gone to breaking events, competitive breaking. Thats a hoot to watch.

Conditioning the body is important, but breaking doesnt do this. Breaking is a demonstration that the conditioning has already taken place.

As a test of concentration, I see breaking as being usefull, but not the most usefull stress test. But, that is a good point.


"does this work" for me is answered by sparring.

You make good points however, and I thank you for replying.

 

[YoungMan]

Breaking allows you to see, in a way that doesn't injure fellow humans, whether or not your technique actually works.
I've no doubt there are many demos that are rigged so that the material will easily break. I also hate those paper thin boards many Koreans use in their demos.
But I've also seen people get injured when their hand or foot hit a board and bounced off. Now, if that technique bounces off a board, what will happen when you use it against a person when your safety is at risk? At our testing, no break no pass.
Not perfect, but the best option I can think of.
We don't officially break until 1st Dan test. I didn't break my first board until one week before I tested. My Instructor didn't break until his testing.

 

[igillman]

We break boards for every belt test and if we bring boards to class then we can practice during class too. Each belt has a different board breaking kick.

White - Front Kick.
Yellow - Side Kick
Orange - Jump Side Kick.
Green - Axe Kick
etc...

 

[girlbug2]

The first time I ever broke a board was at the finish of one semester of a general self defense class in college -- a "chop" to a board held on top of two cinder blocks.

The second time was during a Hwa Rang Do orange belt test, same thing except the board was held by a junior instructor. I was surprised at how relatively easy they were and that there was only a mild "sting" on the flesh that went away quickly.

Now fast forward to Kenpo a little while later and I noticed that the sensei doesn't have his students breaking any boards. He tells me there are two main reasons:
1. After having his students break boards for a few years he came to believe it was harmful to the bones at the point of contact particularly in developing young children. He then stopped requiring it, reasoning that it was not really proving anything anyway, all it did was provide an impressive show for spectators and a quick ego fix for the breaker. The board is a stiff, brittle material compared to the flexible flesh and bones striking it, as a matter of physics of course the board would break with relatively little force applied. So repeated board breaking over time was harming flesh and bone to little purpose.

2.He also admitted, boards aren't free -- it had gotten darned expensive to have all his students do breaking demos on a regular basis!

 

[Deaf Smith]

Actually girlbug2, I think your sensei has alot of sense (no pun intended.)

In college, in Taekwondo Moo Duk Kwan, we started at 3ed red. We broke a single 1 inch thick x 12 x 8 adobe type bricks. 2nd red same thing with a punch. 1st red, two 1 inchers with a chop.

I've broken many a board. They are real crowed pleasers. But I've seen one man get a broken finger holding a board for a red belt to break with a spinning heal kick. Had my fingers banged many times. Holding boards is very hazardious!!

It's the crowd pleaser thing that keeps dojo's doing the breaking thing. A more definitive test would be a standard sized punching bag and seeing how hard they could hit it. But that just doesn't excite the crowds.

Deaf

 

[girlbug2]

It's the crowd pleaser thing that keeps dojo's doing the breaking thing.

Yes, I think that's the key.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Interstingly, Girlbug2, Chuck Sullivan expressed similar reservations regarding breaking in a recent interview.

To answer the OP, breaking is required at all of our test. Personally, I subscribe to the idea that breaking simply shows that the technique and conditioning are already there, thus I do feel that it is appropriate as part of a test. And as everyone else has noted, it is fun and looks cool to the onlooker.

Daniel

 

[YoungMan]

I don't know about the "looks cool" part. I judged at several Master-level testings where there was no audience, just the testers and us. All of them still had to break. They obviously weren't doing it to impress the crowd, because there wasn't one. They did have to show high technique.

 

[Twin Fist]

Hey, whatever ties your belt for ya......

I disagree.

But then i am a maverick, i think testing someone for anything over 3rd or 4th is silly too.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

I don't know about the "looks cool" part. I judged at several Master-level testings where there was no audience, just the testers and us. All of them still had to break. They obviously weren't doing it to impress the crowd, because there wasn't one. They did have to show high technique.

I didn't say that breaking is done to look cool; it looks cool to the onlooker. With no audience, onlooker perception is nonexistent. But the fact that breaking looks cool to an audience is a nice fringe benefit.

Daniel

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

But then i am a maverick, i think testing someone for anything over 3rd or 4th is silly too.

Fourth dan is the level that one needs to be to sign dan certificates within the KKW. I believe that fifth dan and up is where KKW accords one the title, 'master'.

I'm not too concerned with rank or title, but as an aspiring school owner, signing my own students' dan certificates within the organization is something I'm concerned with. Anything beyond that, for me at least, is not important.

Daniel

 

[exile]

I view breaking as a technical exercise, nothing more (or less). If you can break two boards, but not three, with a knifehand strike, the difference must reflect a mix of power generation issues and concentration of force on impact issues. In going from two to three boards, you're addressing those issues, and in the process training yourself to strike more efficiently. And so on up. Sure, you could do the same thing with a bag... but it would have to have sensors built in, measuring both the quantity and the distribution of the applied force, and that kind of equipment doesn't come cheap. Boards are way more affordable.

It's true, children whose bones are still soft and developing probably shouldn't do any kind of serious breaking. But for adults, unless you're careless, or compulsive, breaking is probably no more dangerous than close-in SD-oriented sparring, I wouldn't think.

 

[YoungMan]

That is not true, actually. Breaking is a product of the physics behind it. Depending on the material to be broken, you are either generating a minimal amount of power (demonstration boards for example), or a whole lot of power.
If you try to break, say, one board with a knife hand strike, and you fail, that energy rebounds back into your hand and up your arm. A knife hand strike can absorb a certain amount of power, so you most likely will not break any bones, unless you are very young.
However, if are trying to break several boards, patio blocks, ice, or bricks, you have to generate a considerable amount of power. If you fail, and that energy rebounds back into your body (and it will), you can easily shatter the hand or foot doing the break because of the physics involved. It would be not unlike ramming you hand or foot into a hard surface at 30 miles per hour. If the boards don't break, your hand will.