Breaking

When people find out I train in the martial arts, the first thing they invariably ask is--well, the first thing they usually ask is "Are you going to beat me up?" as if the only reason we train in karate is to bludgeon our fellow man. But the second most common thing I am asked is "Can you break a board?"

My answer?

"I don't know. I've never tried."

In some dojos, breaking boards--and later bricks--is a requirement for promotion. Some schools have entire classes that center on nothing but breaking. Not that there's anything wrong with that. The thing is, there is nothing magical or mystical about breaking a board. It is not an end in itself, but a training tool. Do it right, and it is surprisingly easy to break a board. Do it wrong and you could break your hand.

In my dojo, we seldom, if ever break in class. I remarked to sensei just Tuesday night that I've never broken a board in my life.

"You haven't?" he asked. He didn't even realize I haven't done it.

We do have some PVC rebreakable colored boards from Century, and Cody and I played with them a bit after class. I cannot punch through the brown one, but I'm going to keep working on it. Yeah, those are supposed to be for the men, but someone recently told me

being that you are an established black belt, you might be able to do the brown, which equals two boards. ;-))

Given that encouragement, I wanted to see if I could, so I decided to try it. I didn't get it to break, but I did get a pretty good crack in it. And besides, the others just seem so easy now. There is no challenge left, because I've broken them so many times.

What I like to do is to take the yellow board--I know, the easy one--hold it in my right hand, then let go and break it with the same hand. I'm getting better. I was able to do it 5 times last class out of about 10 tries. I also did another first Tuesday night. I broke the orange board by holding it by one corner and punching it. Ok, that's not a first, but what is is that I broke it with my left hand! Woo Hoo!

Sensei says he doesn't like those things. He'd rather hit a real board.

I don't know. I've never tried.