subject: Three Board Breaking Techniques [print this page] Board Breaking: Three Techniques Board Breaking: Three Techniques
By Robert P.Borsody
This will be description of three techniques for breaking boards that I think I invented. Let me tell you who I am and why I did this. I'm a martial arts practitioner and have been practicing tae kwon do for about 45 years off and on. For the last 20 years, I have been steadily ascending through the ranks and I am now afourth degree black belt
I have a slight frame, about 150 pounds, and at this point, I'mover seventy. I never was strong enough to punch or kick through four or five boards like some of the bigger, stronger, younger members of my school. Also, when I attended tournaments where those big, strong young guys smashed cinderblocks as well as multiple boards, I thought to myself, I'll never be able to do this. Moreover, since I would like to continue the use of my hands and feet for things other than smashing boards, I didn't want to try those techniques. So, in order to credibly compete in the tournaments and also for my own feeling of success, I thought I would try and come up with some board breaking techniques that no one else did.
My particular school and style of karate focused on a lot of board breaking. Starting with small, single 7 inch wide boards for the yellow and green belts and, as they progressed, more boards and more complicated breaking techniques. All the boards were, of course, standard 1 inch thick pine boards. There were also 1/2" thick boards sometimes used for particular speed techniques and, more commonly, for the younger students. The older students and the more advanced belt levels used the standard 10" x 12" and 1 inch thick pine board. That's what I used, and there's no way that I could put my foot through more than three of them, although I think I did go through four of them once on a turnaround side kick.
I put myself to thinking up some breaks that would look good; be difficult to do; it would not require me to go through three or four boards, which I could not do. Especially as I achieved the black belt rank and then second degree black belt it was expected that, for demonstrations or on the periodic "stage tests " in between the belt degree tests, I would do something that was special and somewhat spectacular. Also, I thought it was the only way that I was going to bring home any prizes at the tournaments.
I came up with three different techniques: the double reverse elbow break combined with a double palm heel break; the "tower of power"; and "the triple." One of the interesting things about these three techniques is that the hardest one looks the easiest and easiest one looks the hardest. I've never seen anyone else do these breaks and I've seen a lot of tournaments; in person and on television and I've read some books on martial arts techniques including breaking.
In all the books on breaking they all focus on breaking the largest number of boards or cinderblocks or one of those techniques that I could never do, such as a flying side kick, jumping over five or six young students crouched in front of the boards. That always looks great when it's done right, although I really feel sorry for those poor guys who often get squashed when the fellow attempting to break lands short. The breaks that I will describe to you, I've never seen anywhere else so, maybe, I invented them. As you will see, they're not particularly difficult but they look great.
Let me now explain these breaks in detail and, unlike some of those things you see on television that say "don't try this at home" you should try this. If you're reading this article you must've come to this site because you are a practitioner or interested in becoming one and so I assume you can fend for yourself.
REVERSE ELBOW AND PALM BREAK
As we all know, an elbow break is not, of course a break with the elbow. One never breaks a board with a bone. It hurts and it's not the best way to break. Although it's called an "elbow" break, one actually does it, when doing a forward break, with the forearm, and not the side of the arm (which would be hitting with a bone) but with the top of the arm. However, I am talking about a reverse "elbow" break. That break is done with the back of the upper arm.
The holders stand in back of you and its best to have two holders for each set of boards. I use two boards on each side but you should start off with one board on each side. Even for a single board it's best to have two holders to give you the stability when you break. Otherwise, the Board may twist when you hit it, dissipating the force of your blow. To do good breaks you will need good holders. I usually stand in a horse stance for this break, since you have to be symmetrical when you strike on both sides at once.. The boards would be positioned parallel with your body, about 3 or 4 inches out from your shoulders and just about at the level of your body so that, at the fullest extension of your strike, you would pass a couple of inches beyond and through the boards. In any break you want to end up, at the fullest extension of your strike, several inches beyond the broken board. The boards should also be tilted or slightly inclined inward. You chamber for the strike with both arms extended straight out in front of your body; and then bring them sharply and forcibly back through the boards. That is a simple reverse elbow strike and that's the way I started out with one of my "fancy breaks."
However that quickly got old and I had to combine it with something else so I added a double palm heel strike. Sometimes I do a punch but it always hurts my knuckles when I punch through a board and so I hate to do it. A palm heel strike is much kinder to the hand and, as I mentioned, I am not about to injure my hands or feet to win any kind of a prize at a tournament. As every practitioner knows, of course, a palm heel strike is done by bending the knuckles back as far as they will go and striking with the palm of the hand.
I combined a double palm heel strike with my double reverse elbow strike. The holders for the double palm heel strike (again, two holders for each set of boards) would stand in front of me, with the two sets of boards held about a shoulder length apart so that, as I did the double palm heel strike, I would hit directly in the center of the boards. As you will have guessed by now, one of the drawbacks of this break, is that you need a lot of holders; eight to be exact.
So, here is the setup: assuming you start with single board breaks, you have two boards held directly in front of you at shoulder height, and two boards in back of you at just about the level of your shoulders, and tilted slightly forward.. You stand in a horse stance and chamber by stretching out your fists just touching the boards in front of you, then you do the reverse elbow break; bringing the arms sharply back and smashing through the boards in back of you and then, instantaneously, from the compressed bent elbow position, do a double punch forward through the boards in front of you; at the same time thrusting the upper body forward about a foot or so, carrying the weight and momentum of the upper body behind the double punch (or double palm heel, as I prefer.)
That's it. It looks great and is dramatic and, I guess if you're strong enough, you could do the breaks in sets of three for a total of twelve boards in all. The essence of it is the swiftness and simultaneity of the breaks. In about a half a second the arms are thrust backward and punched forward and there are broken boards all over the place.
After a while even this got a little boring and I added another refinement, which, however, I don't recommend. To the already crowded bunch of holders, I added another set of four holders, stationed in the middle, with boards inclined at about 60 angle from the vertical, for a double downward knife hand break. I would do the reverse elbow break then the forward palm heel break then I would bring my hands up in front of my face, cross them, and bring them down in a double knife hand, breaking the boards inclined up towards me at a 60 angle. The problem with this is that it took twelve holders and it was such a crowd that you couldn't really see the breaks clearly. I was really pushing the envelope to try to do something dramatic.
The break technique of the double reverse elbow with double palm heel looks difficult but it's really very easy if you follow it step by step as laid out above. Then I invented the "tower of power."
THE TOWER OF POWER
This one is a series of speed breaks combined with a double hammer fist. You can also do it as a single hammer fist when you start out. You set up the hammer fist break in the standard way. Two cinderblocks, upended, with the board suspended in between. I usually have just about a half an inch of the board on each cinder block. Some people put the boards for a hammer fist break higher up on two cinderblocks height to bring it to about waist height. As you will see, because we are going to put the boards for the speed break on top, you can't do this.
Putting the boards at this low level, about 18 inches above the floor, means that, to do an effective hammer fist strike, you have to drop down your whole body, bending your knees, as you bring your fist around in a full circle swing over your shoulder and down through the board.
I once did a hammer fist break like this through four boards, at one of the tournaments, and cracked a bone in the bottom of my striking hand because I did it the wrong way. It's important to sink the whole body down low as the fist is swung around the shoulder and brought down on the board so that the arm and the fist, at the moment of impact, are straight. If the fist is bent from the arm the bone could break. I happen to know that from experience.
Getting back to the set up for the tower of power, however, I should mention that, if you are going to put multiple boards between the cinderblocks to break, it helps to put spacers in between the boards. As all experienced "board breakers" know, spacers make it easier to break boards. In my subjective opinion, it makes it about half as easy. In other words, if you could break three boards without spacers, you could break five or six, with spacers. The spacers, of course, are placed on the outside edges of the board, directly above the cinderblocks. They can be pencils or strips of the boards themselves, about half an inch wide. For my breaks, I would build up three or sometimes four boards, with spacers, which would mean that there would be about a seven or eight inch high stack of boards.
As I developed the tower of power idea, I added a double hammer fist. Same thing as above except three cinderblocks and two separate stacks of boards. This was, of course, for a simultaneous double hammer fist downward strike through the boards. By this time you may be wondering where does the "tower" come in since, at this point, we just have a little squatty couple of cinderblocks with boards on them. But wait, there's more. Here come the speed breaks.
To do a speed break, without a holder, doing an "in-out" or "out-in" knife hand strike, you stand a board on end, and slice your hand through the board. Since this is a martial arts site that I am writing for, I suppose everyone knows what these kind of knife hand strikes are.
For the speed break part of the tower of power, I would set three boards on end, on top of one of the stacks of boards that were laid on the cinderblocks. The three boards would be spaced about half inch apart. After a while, as I perfected the technique, I put spacers in between the boards, set horizontally, and then taped the boards and the spacers together to make one solid unit. This became necessary also to keep the whole thing from falling over because, as you will see, this was just the first layer. On top of the first layer of three boards I put a second layer of two more boards, again spaced a half inch apart and on top of that second layer a third layer of a single board. If you don't tape the bottom two layers of boards together with spacers as I mentioned, you will have to put something, probably the same half inch wide spacers, on top of each of the first and second layers of boards, perpendicular to the boards, to support the layer above it.
This would be a lot easier to show if I could take a photo and upload it or draw a diagram, but try to picture this. You have the three cinderblocks with two stacks of boards stretching between them piled up, with the spacers, about seven or eight inches high. On top of one of the stacks you have three boards standing on end perpendicular to the stack of boards and spaced about a half an inch apart, and on top of that two more, and on top of that one single board.
This whole thing stands about five feet high. The breaks are done as follows. You stand in front of it, in a horse stance. (You can do the speed breaks with the same hand or, as I did, with alternate hands. They can be in-out knife hand or out-in which ever you do best.) Starting at the top, you do a knife hand speed break through the single top board; then another knife hand speed break through the second layer of two boards; then another knife hand speed break through the bottom layer of three boards. Finally you raise up both fists over your shoulders and smash them down through both stacks of boards suspended between the two cinderblocks.
It is a great "crowd pleaser" and ends up with broken boards and spacers all over the landscape. It looks hard but is not very hard except for the speed breaks. The interesting thing I noticed about the speed breaks is that, even if a few of the boards are not broken on the speed breaks, it's not noticeable as the boards go flying off into the distance anyway. Also, immediately after the speed breaks everybody is looking at the double hammer fist, which usually results in a very satisfying crash, and not noticing the boards that have been hit by the knife hand which are flying off out of sight. Although this break technique look spectacular it's not nearly so hard as "the triple."
THE TRIPLE
The essence of the triple is its simultaneity. It is a simultaneous double downward knife hand strike, with a front kick; all at the same time. With the knife hand breaks, the boards are held at your sides, inclined about 30 facing you, at about waist height. I use a single board on each side. A stronger breaker could use more, however, the essence here is not strength, but speed, timing and coordination. I stand in a backstance between the two boards at my side and chamber for the break by raising my hands in front of my face, hands crossed, palms facing me, in a knife hand position. For the break, both hands are brought sharply down and turned outward at the point of impact of the break on the boards.
For the front kick, the board (again, I use a single board. You could use more if you are stronger) is held in front of you in the usual front kick position, slightly inclined downward to meet the ball of your foot as it as it is snapped forward in a front kick.
This break would use six holders; two on each of the boards on each side and two for the front kick in front of you. Even though they are just single boards, two holders prevents the boards from twisting and gives a better break. This break looks simple; a total of only three boards. It requires a great amount of focus and concentration, however, to break them all at the exact same instant. As, the two hands are brought down from the chamber position in front of the face to slice through the two boards on each side, you snap your foot forward in a front kick to meet the front board at the same time that you do the knife hand breaks.
I tried adding a fourth board. I tried a backward head strike through a half-inch board. (There was no way I was going to bang my head on an inch thick board.) Although the backward head strike was no big deal on its own, when added to the other three breaks, I just couldn't do it at the same time. Maybe one of the readers of this article will try and do it and write in to describe it.
Well that's it, I have revealed my secrets to the world and expect now to see these breaks being done on TV and at the Olympics. On the other hand, maybe it's no big secret and other people have been doing these elsewhere for some time. I would be interested in hearing from anybody if they have seen breaks like these done.
(A condensed of this article was published in the August2009 edition of Black Belt Magazine. The author would like toacknowledge the guidance, teaching and help of his teacher Henry Weber, and f Henry Weber's teacher Grand Master Shin.)
