I've never seen anyone in our dojo do any breaking, but I have a colleague at work who does a form of Korean Tang Su Do that is very close to Shotokan in style, and breaking boards etc is a common feature in his dojo (and is sometimes included in gradings). I'm just curious to know how common it is in other Karate styles. Personally I'd be quite happy to avoid it as it looks like a great way to get arthritis when you're older. What are the views of MAP karate folks? Is it essential? An optional extra?
Never done breaking in my class. I think it's visually cool, and it DOES feel pretty sweet to bust through a few boards (bought some rebreakables a few years ago to give it a go), but I'd rather spend the time hitting focus mitts. I've also heard some bad stories about botched breaking attempts leading to damage. I've never had to do it though so I've not read up on it.
It's not a requirement in JKA/KUGB karate. I file it under "party trick" - it's pretty cool to see (the first time - demos that consist entirely of breaking are dull as shizzle) but there are better ways to use your time.
Breaking techniques are very good against grapplers, short people, and other people whose heads somehow end up below your chest, for example if Grappler X dives in to grab your legs, you swing a hammer fist down on their head and he / she is a goner. The only problem is that when you practice those techniques you can take all day to do them but when you actually should use them you aren't told to nor trained to use them. They aren't essential but they are practical when used (of course) practically (don't just spread your legs into a horse stance and ask them to put their head there for instance). If you're going to train breaking techniques for self defense, use re-breakable boards as they're much safer, and focus on speed rather than power (as it's already extremely strong) while also being in your normal fighting stance.
I've trained with 4 different karate associations (been a member of two of them) and board breaking isn't that common or a requirement. However it has been shown as competitions/expos. I remember the Bruce Lee quote: -ken
Enshin does it at demos, shin kicking baseball bats seems to be common, but ice breaks are done as well as wood. Having said that I've never done any breaking in class. The Korean arts do a fair amount of breaking. I get my TKD guys breaking occasionally, more for fun than anything else. It's a test of accuracy and technique really, rather than just power. As "boards don't hit back" was just a line in a film, I take it that we should also take his enquiry of "Tea?" from the same film to indicate that we should avoid coffee? And relying on hammer fists to the back of a grappler's head? I think the folks in UFC may have thought of that one... Mitch
Don't reeeeeally like it myself. Doesn't seem to provide any tangible benefit that you cannot get from other forms of training, bag work, makiwara etc. However we have done it once in class before, the only time in all my years of training that I've tried it out. In that session, with proper wooden boards, one girl (small brown belt girl) manage to break her little knuckle, guess she needed more practice hitting stuff. It also hurt me when I had a white belt holding it horizontally in front of him, so I could do the famed karate chop "Have you got it?" I asked. "Yup", he replied. "Ok", smash, it basically just went with my hand, rather than staying in its place. The board didn't break and my hand was sore for the next 2 weeks. Other than that, the other comedic time was during the university clubs and socs. day, when I was sitting at the karate club desk. The uni ITF club did a demo (we didn't) that involved a faded looking, tired blue rebreakable. They had a few goes at it, then one girl, wearing her black belt and black lined (dobok?), lined up a simple mid level roundhouse, with the ball of her foot. Lined it up, then bam, kicked out and managed to succeed only in hitting the hand of the poor guy holding it. Spoke volumes to me of the quality of the club.........
The only time I have come across it in Wado-ryu is for embu (displays). This a better one imo: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ8hxQfBhEE"]YouTube - tree[/ame] Gary
Breaking has its purposes. If you get rid of the tricks and showmanship, there are some tangible benefits to it and it does help you analyze your technique. It's interesting to see that a lot of the most common techniques used for breaking are actually ones you would want to use to defend yourself (i.e. elbows and hammer fists). Breaking is similar to test cutting in the sword arts in my opinion. Breaking is not only a test of power but also of focus, speed, accuracy, and technique.
I can understand your reasoning, however traditionally Tameshigiri (or test cutting) with swords was not to test the skill / competence of the swordsman - it was to test the sword to find out how good it was. Gary
Hey guys, I train in Kuk Sool (a Korean art), but really enjoy lurking in the Karate threads - there is a lot of good info, pictures, and videos. I will say that the school I train at does breaking on occasion. There are two reasons: 1. As mentioned above, it forces the student to concentrate on pinpoint accuracy. 2. It gets the student to acknowledge and work throught the mental hurdle of striking something that isn't a soft pad (which can have the practical application of removing the hesitation to strike a person in a real life situation). That said, we don't use strikes that can easily damage the student (e.g. closed fist breaking); it tends to be kicks with the bottom of the foot or heel, palm strikes, or chops.
But if serious go watch the first few UFCs and see what happens when a grappler fights a pure striker.
If you have flawed technique to begin with though, wouldn't it show in your test cutting? I think that's why they call it Shizan now or something similar, and call sword testing something else.
We've used snapboards in class - the thinner ones are good for building confidence in young children who may be OK with striking focus pads but are nervous about actually punching something unpadded. Snapboards also give students a sense of achievement when they line up the strike/kick correctly and break the board (not to mention making them think more about targetting their strikes accurately - no accuracy, no break). On the other hand, a mate of mine acquired a ridiculously thick snapboard which he only managed to break by propping it at an angle against a wall and sidekicking it. The problem wasn't that he wasn't strong enough to break it with a punch, but that he couldn't find anyone strong enough to keep hold of the wretched thing while he applied the required force - he just ended up punching the board out of everyone's grip. (I took one look at the board and declined the invitation to hold it for him - my wrists would never have survived.......) I've never tried breaking a solid board though - board breaking isn't part of our syllabus. Probably just as well with my injury record....... :bang:
I don't quite get that point. Closed fist breakings are useful because they work when you use proper technique, i.e. hit with your knuckels and with your wrist in proper position. In a real SD scenario, one would most likely punch with a closed fist when it comes to a fight (I mean the time after the first seconds of actual self defence, when both opponents are in some kind of fighting stance, ready to, you know, really fight ... Stupid describtion, but I guess you know what i mean), and for that purpose any practioner of a striking art should train his or her knuckels and strenghen the wrist. There may be many reasons for breaking, but one should be the training of power, accuracy and retraction of techniques that one would actually use, so instead of sparing students because of possible injuries it would, in my opinion, better to prepare them to be able to perform those techniques. Btw I apologize if this was a little off topic.
It was interesting reading all you replies and slightly relieved that breaking isn't considered the be all and end all. I'm nursing a knuckle injury at the moment so breaking things with my fist at least is not something I'd like to do! My friend who does a fair bit of breaking has had lots of injuries like this and tells me they take months to heal. We actually practice our full strength punches etc on pads made of something like several polyurethane swimming floats stacked together. Its much less squashy than a normal pad and actually requires decent form to avoid rolling wrists etc (it was using one of these with bad form that trashed my knuckle). I think these are a reasonable compromise for the injury-prone old farts like me
I never really saw the point of breaking, I would rather spend my time sparring than hitting a slab of wood.
