When and how do you add another board to the stack?

[exile]

I'm interested in how those of you who work systematically on your breaking skills determine when you're at the point where it's time to move on—or rather up—and add another board to the stack, and also, how you go about adding that board. I'm assuming that most of us who break are using the standard-issue 10X12" or 12X12", 1"-thick pine board (if you do multiple brick or slab breaks, I'm not quite ready to talk to you yet! ). And if you're like me, when you think in terms of advancing to a higher stack, you're thinking in terms of adding another 1" board.

So at what point do you decide that it's time to up the ante? Do you add a board as soon as you feel that there is absolutely no question about what will happen at your current board height? So if you wake up one morning and think about the three board stack you've broken every day for the past two weeks without the slightest doubt that you'll do the break with no problem, first try—is that when you add the next board? Or is there some other sign you wait for? ... ?

And when you do add the next board, do you go right away to a full 1" board? Or do you do it by a graduated thickness method: add a 3/8" or 1/2" thick board first, get that stack up to 100% success rate, then add another board the same size, get that up to 100%, and then replace the two thinner boards with a single 1"? (Because boards are often not absolutely perfectly flat, it's not uncommon to get a slight space between the boards that could make the break `unfairly' easy, so I know that two 1/2" boards isn't the equivalent of a single 1" board.)

I'm currently making the transition from a 3-board stack with knifehand strikes, using the graduated approach just described—but I'm very curious what other breakers do to advance to their next level...

 

[stoneheart]

Exile, this is perhaps not the answer you seek, but I'll share my thoughts.

My sensei is a believer in form leading to function. Thus, we don't really practice breaking per se, but since tamashiwara is an expected parlor trick for karate-ka, we perform it in public from time to time.

Not sure if you know the kata Rohai or not, but in the versions I practice there's a downward pierce within it that can be adapted into a knife hand strike. For a demo once, my sensei placed 2 concrete slabs (probably the equivalent of 6 boards) onto a couple of cinder blocks for me to break while running Rohai. I had never actually broken like this before, but my sensei insists on kata practice being as realistic as possibly so we always block or strike with intent, so in a fashion I had really done this hundreds of times before. I broke the concrete slabs easily, and I really think 1 or 2 more would have been no problem. No damage to my hand at all other than a bit of stinging on the edge.

I guess I'm trying to say that the amount of boards you increment by is probably irrelevant. I know you are a methodical person by your posts. You pursue learning opportunities in a logical and incremental fashion. Sometimes though the martial arts is not about empirical observations. It's about feeling and instinct and mind/body awareness.

If the strike is true, you can break 1-8 boards no problem. For that reason, I wouldn't focus on the boards and how many I should add at each step of development. I'd rather work on feeling and sensation and duplicating what a perfect strike feels like over and over again. Some of the drills I practice are striking makiwara, piercing a bucket of rice, punching a candle flame, piercing or palm heeling the water inside a swimming pool. All of these targets give different feedback as will a stack of boards. The key is to develop a strike that can penetrate them all.

 

[bignick]

I feel sometimes you just have to make a leap to see how far you can go. You said you didn't want to talk about bricks yet, but the same theory applies, I think. In the video below I take a shot at 10 bricks. It was for a demo and I sat in a car for 4 hours prior to the demo and hadn't practiced this break at all.

My previous highest for bricks was 5. The first time I had to break bricks was at a test when an instructor made me break 3 with no spacers. I've never methodically trained to increase...just every once and a while you make a jump.

[yt]qTD9HczavQU[/yt]

Also a fact I'm quite proud of, I broke 9/10 without cheating and jumping to use my body weight. The power all came from the mechanics of the strike and not gravity.

 

[exile]

Not sure if you know the kata Rohai or not, but in the versions I practice there's a downward pierce within it that can be adapted into a knife hand strike.

Rohai is the kata I'm currently studying—my TKD instructor uses many Japanese forms in our curriculum—and I think I know the part in the kata you mean.

For a demo once, my sensei placed 2 concrete slabs (probably the equivalent of 6 boards) onto a couple of cinder blocks for me to break while running Rohai. I had never actually broken like this before, but my sensei insists on kata practice being as realistic as possibly so we always block or strike with intent, so in a fashion I had really done this hundreds of times before. I broke the concrete slabs easily, and I really think 1 or 2 more would have been no problem. No damage to my hand at all other than a bit of stinging on the edge.

Just out curiosity, how much breaking experience did you have prior to achieving this break? Had you ever broken concrete before?

I guess I'm trying to say that the amount of boards you increment by is probably irrelevant. I know you are a methodical person by your posts. You pursue learning opportunities in a logical and incremental fashion. Sometimes though the martial arts is not about empirical observations. It's about feeling and instinct and mind/body awareness.

I agree that awareness is crucial, and the ultimate goal of training. The question is, how is that awareness to be trained and developed? It doesn't come out of nowhere, or we wouldn't need to study our MA to acquire it, so it seems as though there need to be methods whereby it develops. It's like skiing: running a tight slalom on a steep slope is something you can only do by feel and sense—you can't possibly think your way through the gates, they're coming up way too fast. But learning the necessary skills that go together to make a great slalom run—carving your turns, transfering weight from ski to ski laterally, stepping up the slope to adjust your line, absorbing terrain irregularities to keep your ski edges in constant contact with the snow—those critical skills are things you have to work on and develop over time, they're technically difficult and there are specific drills we teach students to get them to do that. So in a sense, if you think of board-breaking itself as such a training method, then each additional board corresponds to another increment in your acquisition of the necessary awareness skills, a kind of monitoring of your progress in judging accuracy, precision, focus and the maximum striking speed. But my own experience has been, these things don't come all at once, but emerge gradually, like balance skills in kicking and efficient power in strikes.

If the strike is true, you can break 1-8 boards no problem. For that reason, I wouldn't focus on the boards and how many I should add at each step of development. I'd rather work on feeling and sensation and duplicating what a perfect strike feels like over and over again.

No argument there, a technically perfect strike should be able to break any number of boards (assuming you supply the necessary energy to generate a shock wave that can travel through the whole stack). But reaching the stage where you can deliver such a strike at will seems to me something that one needs a good deal of time to develop. And the thing is, how will you know what a perfect strike feels like unless you're actually able to identify the feeling as one which demonstrably corresponds to the breaking of a stack of boards? So for example, I have a much better sense of what a good strike should feel like now than when I started and was only able to break one board, but that's because, in moving from one board to three 1" boards plus a 1/2" board, my own sense of the kinæsthetics and body mechanics involved has had to be refined as a result. I'm quite sure that as my technique continues to develop, I'll be able to move up to a full stack of four 1" boards, but I don't believe I'm there yet. If I keep practicing just the motions of the strike that I can do now, what will provide me with the necessary information to make the small but crucial adjustments that will correspond to an improvement in my technique?

Some of the drills I practice are striking makiwara, piercing a bucket of rice, punching a candle flame, piercing or palm heeling the water inside a swimming pool. All of these targets give different feedback as will a stack of boards. The key is to develop a strike that can penetrate them all.

I agree, these kinds of drills and methods can provide valuable ways of assessing and refining your force-delivery skills (which for me is the point of breaking: it plays roughly the same role wrt force delivery that free weights do in development of explosive strength—both a way of quantifying your current level and a training tool to gradually take you to the next level).

Many thanks for these interesting ideas and your description of your own breaking experience, stoneheart! :asian:

Note to BigNick: sorry, we cross-posted—will respond as soon as I can!

 

[stoneheart]

Just out curiosity, how much breaking experience did you have prior to achieving this break? Had you ever broken concrete before?

I've done my share of boards in my TKD days as a teenager. Never broken concete slabs like these before that occasion. My sensei winked at me and told me it looks more impressive than it really is. And he's right.

I agree that awareness is crucial, and the ultimate goal of training. The question is, how is that awareness to be trained and developed. It doesn't come out of nowhere, or we wouldn't need to study our MA to acquire it, so it seems as though there need to be methods whereby it develops. It's like skiing: running a tight slalom on a steep slope is something you can only do by feel and sense—you can't possibly think your way through the gates, they're coming up way too fast. But learning the necessary skills that go together to make a great slalom run—carving your turns, transfering weight from ski to ski laterally, stepping up the slope to adjust your line, absorbing terrain irregularities to keep your ski edges in constant contact with the snow—those critical skills are things you have to work on and develop over time, they're technically difficult and there are specific drills we teach students to get them to do that. So in a sense, if you think of board-breaking itself as such a training method, then each additional board corresponds to another increment in your acquisition of the necessary awareness skills, a kind of monitoring of your progress in judging accuracy, precision, focus and the maximum striking speed. But my own experience has been, these things don't come all at once, but emerge gradually, like balance skills in kicking and efficient power in strikes.

I don't really disagree with you, Exile. Your approach is measureable indeed and is perhaps the most easily understood way for many of us.

Do you believe in strikes that have more penetrative force than can be measured by just breaking boards? I do, although yes I know the topic can be controversial. All I know is that I been punched in the gut by two different people with roughly the same size and power. One punch was strong indeed but nothing I thought was out of the ordinary. The second punch performed by my sensei seemed to flow from my front through my back and I felt blinding pain that took me to my knees.

I can't explain the difference scientifically, but I know which punch hurt more, and it's that type of striking that I am trying to develop.

No argument there, a technically perfect strike should be able to break any number of boards (assuming you supply the necessary energy to generate a shock wave that can travel through the whole stack). But reaching the stage where you can deliver such a strike at will seems to me something that one needs a good deal of time to develop. And the thing is, how will you know what a perfect strike feels like unless you're actually able to identify the feeling as one which demonstrably corresponds to the breaking of a stack of boards? So for example, I have a much better sense of what a good strike should feel like now than when I started and was only able to break one board, but that's because, in moving from one board to three 1" boards plus a 1/2" in board, my own sense of the kinæsthetics and body mechanics involved has had to be refined as a result. I'm quite sure that as my technique continues to develop, I'll be able to move up to a full stack of four 1" boards, but I don't believe I'm there yet. If I keep practicing just the motions of the strike that I can do now, what will provide me with the necessary information to make the small but crucial adjustments that will correspond to an improvement in my technique?

And that's a fine training regimen you are trying to set up. It will surely take you to your goals. My sense of breaking boards however is that it doesn't necessarily train you to produce the type of blow I have described above if that's the primary method of assessment you have chosen though.

I really wish I was more knowledgeable and articulate so I could discuss this more meaningfully. As always, I enjoy your posts and surely there are others who do as well.

 

[Kacey]

I generally add one board or tile (cement slab) at a time - I don't own a power saw (to cut 12' boards narrower) and lumber is expensive, so for me to add partial boards is way more effort than it's worth to me.

Breaking can be practiced in numerous ways to build experience and confidence - including rebreakable boards (which come in a wide variety of difficulty), focus pads (to develop focus, timing, and distancing), heavy bags (for kicks, every 6" you can move a heavy bag is another board), with newspapers (have you ever tried to punch a hole in the middle of a suspended piece of newspaper without pulling the paper out of the hand of the person holding it - try it sometime - this is good for power, but also especially good for speed/technique breaks), and so on.

But in the end, no matter how much you practice... sometimes the boards win.

 

[Dave Leverich]

Exile, you know I love breaking
If you're consistantly doing 3? add one more. I think you're putting more thought into it than is needed on that. Are they spaced? I'm assuming you said stack so they're like for a knifehand/hammerfist etc? If they're not spaced then you're looking at a very substantial break, if spaced then it shouldn't be an issue.

On concrete, it all depends on the slab size and whether or not you use spacers. The above break of 9/10 looks like 1 inch slabs 16x4 or so? (Btw Big Nick, I dig those, were those a Home Depot type? If so I'd love dimensions they look fun )Very different from a x6 type break, or a 8x16x2 size. I've seen some that do the 24x2x5 (scalloped) as well.

There are so many different materials available to break, each with it's own nuances and difficulties, as well as sizes and shapes available.

Even with wood, heck especially with wood... how green the board is (pitch content vs dried), ring density, knots, curvature, all will affect the breaking difficulty.

 

[exile]

I feel sometimes you just have to make a leap to see how far you can go. You said you didn't want to talk about bricks yet, but the same theory applies, I think. In the video below I take a shot at 10 bricks. It was for a demo and I sat in a car for 4 hours prior to the demo and hadn't practiced this break at all.

My previous highest for bricks was 5. The first time I had to break bricks was at a test when an instructor made me break 3 with no spacers. I've never methodically trained to increase...just every once and a while you make a jump.

Nick, I am definitely not ready to talk to you about breaking! Beautiful break—but then, you'd already gotten to the point where you could do multiple brick breaks. At three and a half boards without spacers, I'm definitely not ready to move to bricks yet! What I'm curious about is, as you were working you way up to this point, particularly in the first couple of years when you were breaking, how did you determine when it was time to increase the stack? Just gut feeling, or did you have some kind of rule of thumb?

I've done my share of boards in my TKD days as a teenager. Never broken concete slabs like these before that occasion. My sensei winked at me and told me it looks more impressive than it really is. And he's right.

He probably figured that you were ready to do it, psychologically as well as technically. That too is a big component, I think...

Do you believe in strikes that have more penetrative force than can be measured by just breaking boards? I do, although yes I know the topic can be controversial. All I know is that I been punched in the gut by two different people with roughly the same size and power. One punch was strong indeed but nothing I thought was out of the ordinary. The second punch performed by my sensei seemed to flow from my front through my back and I felt blinding pain that took me to my knees.

I can't explain the difference scientifically, but I know which punch hurt more, and it's that type of striking that I am trying to develop.

I think that a very experience and technically advanced practitioner learns to deliver force not just efficiently, but in a way which exploits the defender's anatomical weaknesses. Very small differences in the way the impact lands, and where, probably account for a lot of the sensation the victim of the strike experiences. I can't explain what you experienced either, but I think that what you were feeling was decades of accumulated knowledge of how to create pain!

And that's a fine training regimen you are trying to set up. It will surely take you to your goals. My sense of breaking boards however is that it doesn't necessarily train you to produce the type of blow I have described above if that's the primary method of assessment you have chosen though.

It's certainly not sufficient. But I think many different factors are involved in what you described. My own way of learning things is, as you've suggested, incremental—built up in stages—and at each stage I try to develop what skills I can, before going on to something technically more difficult. I'll freely admit that I probably lack a lot of the intuitive ability that other people bring to the MAs; the approach I use has to in a sense compensate for that lack.

I really wish I was more knowledgeable and articulate so I could discuss this more meaningfully.

Hey, your posts are great[, stoneheart—you're plenty knowledgeable and articulate—I've got no complaints, and I very much appreciate your input!

I generally add one board or tile (cement slab) at a time - I don't own a power saw (to cut 12' boards narrower) and lumber is expensive, so for me to add partial boards is way more effort than it's worth to me.

I'm lucky, I have very good MA store about three minutes' drive away which sells precut pine boards of good quality in a variety of sizes and thicknesses. It's own by the same young woman who is chief instructor of a TKD and Gumdo dojang attached to the store, and breaking is a big thing of theirs, so they have excellent contacts and suppliers and can get 3/8, 1/2 and 1" boards in various widths. Very lucky, now I think about it—it's the only proper MA supply place in Columbus...

Breaking can be practiced in numerous ways to build experience and confidence - including rebreakable boards (which come in a wide variety of difficulty), focus pads (to develop focus, timing, and distancing), heavy bags (for kicks, every 6" you can move a heavy bag is another board), with newspapers (have you ever tried to punch a hole in the middle of a suspended piece of newspaper without pulling the paper out of the hand of the person holding it - try it sometime - this is good for power, but also especially good for speed/technique breaks), and so on.

Those sound like really good additions to my breaking program. I tried that kind of speed break a year ago without much success, but think I might be ready to go back to it. That's a useful tip about the heavy bag—I have access to one at the place I train, so will try it out next time...

But in the end, no matter how much you practice... sometimes the boards win.

Don't I know it—broke my hand on a three-board punch a couple of years ago, had it in a fancy space-age splint for five months before I could take the splint off safely. My one sense of satisfaction from the incident was that I did the break... I'd done it a number of times before, but misaligned my fist this time—too hasty; these days, I just do knifehand strikes!

Exile, you know I love breaking
If you're consistantly doing 3? add one more. I think you're putting more thought into it than is needed on that. Are they spaced? I'm assuming you said stack so they're like for a knifehand/hammerfist etc? If they're not spaced then you're looking at a very substantial break, if spaced then it shouldn't be an issue.

Hi Dave, yes, I know you're another breaking fan! I do a knifehand on 3 1" and one 1/2" boards—a solid 3.5" stack, no spacers, usually quite cleanly. But as you say, without spacers, even a little bit of a height increase means a lot more challenge in the break (for me, anyway...)

On concrete, it all depends on the slab size and whether or not you use spacers. The above break of 9/10 looks like 1 inch slabs 16x4 or so? (Btw Big Nick, I dig those, were those a Home Depot type? If so I'd love dimensions they look fun )Very different from a x6 type break, or a 8x16x2 size. I've seen some that do the 24x2x5 (scalloped) as well.

I'm not gonna be doing concrete for a while! I don't really like spacers, I think they make it harder to tell just what you've accomplished when you do do a break—would rather take longer to get there, and not use spacers.

There are so many different materials available to break, each with it's own nuances and difficulties, as well as sizes and shapes available.

Even with wood, heck especially with wood... how green the board is (pitch content vs dried), ring density, knots, curvature, all will affect the breaking difficulty.

Oh yes—the young woman, Laura Clements, I mentioned in my reply to Kacey does 8-board kicking breaks and 5-board knifehand strikes (no spacers, 1" boards, etc) and she tells me that she's encountered individual boards that she could not break. Single boards—I'll bet there are some major stories behind those! I'm just glad I've not encountered any like that yet...

Thanks, all of you, very much, for your advice and words of wisdom and experience—I do appreciate it!

 

[CuongNhuka]

Well Exile, since your about 500 years old, I would say you should be pulling boards away, LOL. Anyways... good question and I'm not really the best person to answer. I just wanted to post that little joke.

 

[Kacey]

Hi Dave, yes, I know you're another breaking fan! I do a knifehand on 3 1" and one 1/2" boards—a solid 3.5" stack, no spacers, usually quite cleanly. But as you say, without spacers, even a little bit of a height increase means a lot more challenge in the break (for me, anyway...)

I've never used spacers; we just don't.

I'm not gonna be doing concrete for a while! I don't really like spacers, I think they make it harder to tell just what you've accomplished when you do do a break—would rather take longer to get there, and not use spacers.

Concrete is, in some ways, much easier than wood. Unlike wood, concrete is a homogeneous structure, and has no grain. While concrete is denser than wood, it is also more brittle - so if you hit it hard enough in the correct spot, it will break.

Oh yes—the young woman, Laura Clements, I mentioned in my reply to Kacey does 8-board kicking breaks and 5-board knifehand strikes (no spacers, 1" boards, etc) and she tells me that she's encountered individual boards that she could not break. Single boards—I'll bet there are some major stories behind those! I'm just glad I've not encountered any like that yet...

My sahbum was testing for, I think, V Dan (maybe IV Dan, I can't remember) and the seniors running the testing floor set up his breaks for him. One of them was an 8 board side kick. He lined up, aimed, and hit the stack of boards with a beautiful kick... nothing... not even a crack in any of the boards. So he tried it again... still nothing, except for the pain in his foot. The boards were set aside, and the testing continued. Later, he went to look at the boards, to see if he could see why he hadn't been able to break the stack... in the middle was a board that had been cut from the center of a tree - the grain was circular. He put it in the holder by itself, hit it with all he had... and still nothing. He then put 8 other boards in the holder, and made his break without difficulty. Always check your own boards!

 

[searcher]

This is the progression I use for my students and it is the one I developed in my early days of breaking.

1 board
2 boards w/ spacer
2 boards w/o spacer
3 boards w/ spacer
3 boards w/o spacer
4 boards w/ spacer
4 boards w/ no spacer

and so on.

Youa can transition to one concrete paver after 4 boards if you want, but be prepared to start the construction of a patio. And maybe some flower beds.

 

[exile]

I've never used spacers; we just don't.

I've heard it said that breaking a five-board stack with spacers is really breaking a one-board stack five time. I think I read something along those lines when I was first getting into TKD, long before I could break anything, and it stuck with me; I've always felt that it was cheating, in a way, but more than that, it was tricking you yourself into thinking you were better than you were. So I've always felt a kind of distaste for them.

Concrete is, in some ways, much easier than wood. Unlike wood, concrete is a homogeneous structure, and has no grain. While concrete is denser than wood, it is also more brittle - so if you hit it hard enough in the correct spot, it will break.

Yes, brittle often trumps hard. I know that one of these days I'm going to have to take it on (again, I'm very interested in just how the breakers here came to the decision to go from wood to concrete. Did your instructors just put a slab in front of you on a pair of blocks and say, `Hey you—break this!'? Or did you just decide one fine morning that this was the day to try breaking concrete?)

The one I worry about is ordinary red house brick. I have to break one of those for my dan test, and from what I've heard, house brick is a different proposition entirely from concrete—and not in a good way, from the breaker's point of view.

My sahbum was testing for, I think, V Dan (maybe IV Dan, I can't remember) and the seniors running the testing floor set up his breaks for him. One of them was an 8 board side kick. He lined up, aimed, and hit the stack of boards with a beautiful kick... nothing... not even a crack in any of the boards. So he tried it again... still nothing, except for the pain in his foot. The boards were set aside, and the testing continued. Later, he went to look at the boards, to see if he could see why he hadn't been able to break the stack... in the middle was a board that had been cut from the center of a tree - the grain was circular. He put it in the holder by itself, hit it with all he had... and still nothing. He then put 8 other boards in the holder, and made his break without difficulty. Always check your own boards!

Master Clements, whom I mentioned earlier, told me about a board she... `retired'... by burying. It seems her own sahbumnim had a way of dealing with students who he though were a bit too chatty during class: he had a few boards which he had soaked in laundry detergent, and during the break, would hand them the board and tell them to break it. He did this with Laura once (she couldn't figure out why, as she hadn't said a word to anyone during that class, but something she did pissed him off, apparantly) and when she tried to break it, she wound up with blue-black bruises on her striking hand. She was breaking five-board stacks with knifehands in her early teens, but she could get absolutely nowhere with this board. Eventually her instructor told her what he had done to the board, which she had kept trying to break for months after he'd given it to her in class. At that point, she said, she took the board out to her garden, and gave it an honorable burial.

My own nightmare is something like that circular grain story. A freak of nature—the board that, contra Bruce Lee, really does hit back! That story about your instructor narrowing it down to the one rogue board in the stack is priceless, Kacey—may it never happen to you, me or anyone else who does breaking, eh?

This is the progression I use for my students and it is the one I developed in my early days of breaking.

1 board
2 boards w/ spacer
2 boards w/o spacer
3 boards w/ spacer
3 boards w/o spacer
4 boards w/ spacer
4 boards w/ no spacer

and so on.

OK, so you use spacers as the transition... hmm, I never thought of them in that light. But maybe.... hell, it's worth experimenting with—thanks for the idea!

Youa can transition to one concrete paver after 4 boards if you want, but be prepared to start the construction of a patio. And maybe some flower beds.

:lol:

See, my sense is, by the time people have gotten to a certain level of breaking skill, they kind of know what they're doing. They have a method, whether or not they've consciously formulated it, of determining their pace of advancement. I have a rudimentary sense of that, but I'm very interested in just what that small still voice knows when it whispers in your ear... `Hey, put another board on that stack... c'mon, you know you can do it...'

 

[Kacey]

I've heard it said that breaking a five-board stack with spacers is really breaking a one-board stack five time. I think I read something along those lines when I was first getting into TKD, long before I could break anything, and it stuck with me; I've always felt that it was cheating, in a way, but more than that, it was tricking you yourself into thinking you were better than you were. So I've always felt a kind of distaste for them.

Spacers give you a great deal more momentum, which decreases the difficulty of the break significantly, as the first board will flex as it breaks into the space between it and the next board, and so on down the stack. The opposite of this is to use 2" thick boards - much harder than 2 (or 3) 1" boards placed together without spacers.

Yes, brittle often trumps hard. I know that one of these days I'm going to have to take it on (again, I'm very interested in just how the breakers here came to the decision to go from wood to concrete. Did your instructors just put a slab in front of you on a pair of blocks and say, `Hey you—break this!'? Or did you just decide one fine morning that this was the day to try breaking concrete?)

It's a testing requirement for I Dan... sometimes used for overly confident students who are testing for 1st gup instead of, or in addition to, the other breaks required for 1st gup. So students tend to plan ahead for it... once they figure out which materials yard carries concrete roofing tiles, as many of the home improvement stores (around here, at least) don't carry them.

The one I worry about is ordinary red house brick. I have to break one of those for my dan test, and from what I've heard, house brick is a different proposition entirely from concrete—and not in a good way, from the breaker's point of view.

The thing to watch with bricks is to make sure you don't get a reinforced brick instead of an unreinforced one... having watched someone who didn't know the difference attempt to break a reinforced brick... ouch!

There are several things that make a brick - even one that's not reinforced - more difficult than a roofing tile. First, roofing tiles are much larger than bricks - which means that the supports are much farther apart, making it much easier to hit the roofing tile in the center, away from the supports; the closer you hit to the support, the less likely you are to break. Second, bricks are thicker than roofing tiles - considerably thicker when you compare the thickness to the surface area. Third, because the surface area of a brick is so small, the strike must be very precise and powerful - because missing by even a little will cause the break to fail.

 

[searcher]

exile the advice I will give on bricks is to put them in the oven overnight. It will dry them out and make them a better break for you.

 

[bignick]

On concrete, it all depends on the slab size and whether or not you use spacers. The above break of 9/10 looks like 1 inch slabs 16x4 or so? (Btw Big Nick, I dig those, were those a Home Depot type? If so I'd love dimensions they look fun )Very different from a x6 type break, or a 8x16x2 size. I've seen some that do the 24x2x5 (scalloped) as well.

Straight up scalloped edging bricks from Home Depot. I'm liking the discussion that's flowing on this topic, but I've been too busy over the last few days to contribute much.

Also, for those that said 10 bricks is a little too much for them right now, take heart. Although I may not have jumped for the gravity assist, I still had all 6' 5'' and 330 pounds behind that strike.

As for spacers, they definitely make it easier in some respects, but they do change how you strike. Without spacers, the power of you strike will transfer better to the other boards or bricks in the stack. With spacers you really have to make sure you sustain the power of you strike throughout the full motion. When I did the three concrete blocks with no spacers I hit the first one and they were broken before I could follow through. On brick with spacers I get the distinct feeling of pushing through the stack, rather than a good sharp strike.

 

[exile]

Spacers give you a great deal more momentum, which decreases the difficulty of the break significantly, as the first board will flex as it breaks into the space between it and the next board, and so on down the stack. The opposite of this is to use 2" thick boards - much harder than 2 (or 3) 1" boards placed together without spacers.

I'd far rather increase than decrease the difficulty of the break, as a training strategy. As I say, I've never used spacers, and I like the idea of a solid 2" board... but I'd have to get a board like that specially cut at a lumber yard, I think; I doubt that my MA store can get them. I think I'll wait till I can do a clean break with four stacked 1" boards before trying the solid 2" board...

It's a testing requirement for I Dan... sometimes used for overly confident students who are testing for 1st gup instead of, or in addition to, the other breaks required for 1st gup. So students tend to plan ahead for it... once they figure out which materials yard carries concrete roofing tiles, as many of the home improvement stores (around here, at least) don't carry them.

Yes, I'm planning to go to those roofing tiles once I can reliable do the four-board break. Again, I'd rather sneak up gradually on the red housing bricks. I think Lowe's may have the right kind...

The thing to watch with bricks is to make sure you don't get a reinforced brick instead of an unreinforced one... having watched someone who didn't know the difference attempt to break a reinforced brick... ouch!

Thanks for that tip—I didn't realize there was such a distinction—yes, that could hurt. I shudder to think what they're reinforced with...

There are several things that make a brick - even one that's not reinforced - more difficult than a roofing tile. First, roofing tiles are much larger than bricks - which means that the supports are much farther apart, making it much easier to hit the roofing tile in the center, away from the supports; the closer you hit to the support, the less likely you are to break. Second, bricks are thicker than roofing tiles - considerably thicker when you compare the thickness to the surface area. Third, because the surface area of a brick is so small, the strike must be very precise and powerful - because missing by even a little will cause the break to fail.

Right, the size factor looms pretty large—a very good way of reward accuracy: if you're just a small bit off... and yes, there's going to be a lot less length to get resonance effects in from the impact shock wave. So you're going to have to rely on the sheer brittleness of the brick itself... no, I don't want to think about it!

exile the advice I will give on bricks is to put them in the oven overnight. It will dry them out and make them a better break for you.

I might do this, again, as part of the gradual approach that I'm envisaging. First maybe do a few that have been baked, just to get the feel of breaking a brick, and then go on training with the unbaked ones, to ramp up the difficulty to the necessary level. I don't see anything wrong with starting off a little bit lax, just to get one's feet wet so to speak, but it's got to proceed to a more realistic standard of difficulty or it doesn't do any good, I don't think.

Straight up scalloped edging bricks from Home Depot. I'm liking the discussion that's flowing on this topic, but I've been too busy over the last few days to contribute much.

Ah, OK, we've got one of those near us too. You lay them on their side, I take it, so it's a 2" thick brick break?

Also, for those that said 10 bricks is a little too much for them right now, take heart. Although I may not have jumped for the gravity assist, I still had all 6' 5'' and 330 pounds behind that strike.

Yes, that is definitely gonna help! At 6' and 180 lbs, I don't think I'm going to get the same mileage out of my bodyweight! Even so, that was a hell of a break, Nick.

As for spacers, they definitely make it easier in some respects, but they do change how you strike. Without spacers, the power of you strike will transfer better to the other boards or bricks in the stack. With spacers you really have to make sure you sustain the power of you strike throughout the full motion. When I did the three concrete blocks with no spacers I hit the first one and they were broken before I could follow through. On brick with spacers I get the distinct feeling of pushing through the stack, rather than a good sharp strike.

Sounds as if there's a major difference in technique, and since the tests for first dan and higher are not, so far as I know, going to be using spacers, I don't want to get into the habit of that pushing-type strike you suggested, so that's another reason to avoid spacers. With the 3.5" of board I'm breaking these days, it has to be a fast takeoff move with a very strong acceleration not just up to the point of impact but into the stack itself, and I can almost feel the shockwave charging down the stack way ahead of me. That's the sensation I want to keep, because I strongly suspect the successful strikes on thicker stacks are just going to be the same thing, but even more so.

 

[Dave Leverich]

Good discussions, Bignick hit the nail on the head with regards to concrete and spacers/no spacers. I've never used them on boards, but I do on large amounts of concrete. It becomes a break with duration of applied force, I love it

 

[Kacey]

One other point - it's often hard to find roofing tiles at home improvement stores; I buy mine at a materials yard that is aimed primarily at contractors - so I tend to buy quite a few at a time and stack them in my garage, as they don't like selling small lots, the yard is hard to get to, and as long as they don't get wet, nothing really affects them. Just be careful about how many you get and how much weight you're putting in your car - those things are heavy.

 

[Dave Leverich]

Good post Karen!
I swear I've looked for those damned things for years and never found them in Home Depot etc. Have you ever found like 12x12 ones or larger? I've seen the broken on video but never found some to try.

 

[Kacey]

Good post Karen!
I swear I've looked for those damned things for years and never found them in Home Depot etc. Have you ever found like 12x12 ones or larger? I've seen the broken on video but never found some to try.

The standard ones are usually between 12 x 12 and 12 x 16 - they're often rectangular rather than square - and I set them up on a pair of cinder blocks; those are easy to get at home improvement stores.