Appetite For Destruction (Of Boards)
My boards are stacked. Spacers set tightly at the edge. I raise my hand to strike the stack. *thud* The dull, dead sound of a hand hitting the boards and not going through. The force runs through my hand and wrist, up my arm. Why do many martial artists practice hitting boards that, as Bruce Lee noted, don’t hit back?
This year Master Laura Napoli and I decided to take up breaking boards competitively, and learned far more than just technique. Like anything worth doing in the martial arts, it’s also a spirit-building process.
The self-proclaimed #teamsmashysmash had a strict BYOB policy at camp – bring your own boards. Throughout the spring and summer, we demolished a small pine forest, followed with long talks and laughter beside bonfires fueled by broken pine.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhaDUdY8hrI]
Some of the lessons learned in the process:
You need space between the layers.
For the United States Breaking Association tournaments, all power breaks must be performed with spacers (carpenter’s pencils). This added space makes it easier (not easy, by any stretch of the imagination) to break large stacks of wood and concrete. It gives the wood room to flex, and reduces the force needed on the hands and feet. When faced with a large challenge, we would all do well to deal with it in increments rather than the all or nothing mentality. How many people have fad dieted and then regained all of the weight (and more) or gone to working out 7 days a week versus those that took the long process of struggling to change, hit plateaus, readjust training needs, taking days of rest to recover?
Life, like a stack of boards, needs space and room to flex.
Believe in yourself. Commit.
Most of the challenge in breaking is NOT the boards or the bricks. It’s in the mind. There were days when we just knew that it was not time to practice breaking. To stack up 4, 6, or 10, boards and then smash them requires commitment and a knowledge that I can do this. Anything less, and most of the time, the boards just didn’t go. I thought it was anger I saw when others did major breaks. It’s not. It’s pulling on a power that comes from someplace deep within. Mastering that is hard.
“You got this, girl!”
Focus – beyond what you are aiming for.
Don’t punch or strike at the boards. When things aren’t going smoothly, it’s easy to strike at the problem. Most of for the quick and easy solution. If experiencing migraines, get drugs to stamp them out. Breaking through to the other side might reveal food sensitivities, poor stress management, or a chemical imbalance.
Don’t stop on impact. Strike through. Keep breathing.
Choose Your Breaks Wisely
Going off half-cocked and ignoring the advice of someone who has broken more boards than I had was a bad idea. After months of breaks on stations and stands, I begged to do a ridge hand to a single board. It felt soooooo good to target pads. And oh so wrong when I did it to the board. Bruised my thumb and my ego.
Note to self: When someone (or your computer) says, “Are you sure?”
It might be worth stopping and doing a quick, self-check.
Failure hurts. Don’t be afraid to fail anyway.
I’d been working on breaks all spring. In the beauty of northern Vermont, I was practicing at a camp, by a pond, and having a ball. Pushing myself to try new and different breaks. Breaks increased by one board, then two. It came time for my next promotion, and I put up a stack with one more than I’d ever broken. I failed. Miserably. I let the frustration from that get in my way and while I did eventually break something it was more from a total tantrum on the poor pine. That failure made me go back and work harder.
#teamsmashysmash went to the first power breaking competition we’d ever been in – and I was a green belt competing against black belts. I hung my head and let their rank defeat me. Morihei Ueshiba once said, “Failure is the key to success; each mistake teaches us something.” I had one epic miss at that tournament where I broke zero boards. None. But that miss made me go back home, train harder, and try again. I went from a low of no boards and personal best of 4 boards in competition in August to 8 boards in one break just two months later. After the tears of frustration, I came back stronger and more confident.
In that failure, I wanted to give up. Resilience won out.
Honorable Mentions
Sure – we learned other things. Pink wood is wet and terrible to break with hand techniques. Doing foot breaks wearing flip-flops is not a good idea. Having no shoes on while doing a double hand technique is an even worse idea. I broke my toe this way and not the boards when I didn’t get the break right.
While I never expect to be attacked by an Ent, I built my confidence, my ability to stretch mental muscles, grapple with physical self-control, and power. By smashing things apart, I came together stronger, strengthened old friendships and made many new martial arts friends. These are the skills I use every single day.
What do you think? Have you learned any valuable lessons while breaking boards? Please let me know in the comments below!
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