Breaking Boards

(This is not me. Source: Adirondack)

Last night at Taekwon-Do we did power breaking techniques. It’s literally been years since the last time I broke boards. The last time was during my ITF Taekwon-Do 3rd degree black belt test, four years ago. While the test wasn’t as physically demanding as my 1st and 2nd Dan tests, the 3rd Dan test was very technical in nature. Also, we (my brother and I tested together) had to do an insane number of breaking techniques.

Well, when my instructor here in Korea brought out the wooden boards last night I was quite excited. As a rule of thumb I do not do breaking techniques unless I’ve conditioned my attacking tools in preparation for it. But upon seeing the boards I forget completely about this resolution and was quite keen to break some boards. I started with a pile of boards, 10 centimeter thick in all. Even though it’s been years, I was confident that I’d easily break it with a side-piercing kick. My confidence was not unfounded, and the 10 centimeter thick block of wood cracked smoothly upon contact.

Unfortunately that was about as many boards the instructor had prepared for me, and I was keen to do some more breaking. So we picked up the broader pieces and put them together. If you know anything about breaking pieces of wood, you’d know that the narrower the boards are, the more difficult it is to break – a smaller surface area exerts greater force. Anyway, we gathered the bigger of the pieces of broken boards, which I then broke by punching.

Lastly we took one more remaining piece, by now rather small in size, which I also attempted to break. After three unsuccessful attempts by fist, I tried again with some elbow strikes, but the piece of plank would not give. It got the better of me.

Today I noticed that my right fist is swollen, just off-centre of the middle knuckle. This is the reason why I do not do breaking unless I’ve conditioned properly.

Nonetheless, I did enjoy breaking some boards again. It is an excellent way to check your technicality, as good breaks are usually more about proper technique than physical power. And this is one reason I really like ITF Taekwon-Do—it is very much a technical martial art, based on sound scientific principles.