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I've always wanted to take karate lessons for basically just one reason - the board breaking. I never really understood what happened to one's body that allowed them to gain the super powers that enabled the average hand to break the formidable, structurally sound, wooden board. To this day I'm still yet to take my first karate class, but I have been able to answer that question none the less...and, the answer is...absolutely nothing! Board breaking is pretty darn easy, and in my opinion, just about anyone can do it.
I asked a friend of mine who IS a karate master if we could break boards one day. She said sure, not asking if I had any karate experience...hmm, I guess she trusts me.
After rounding up some appropriate wooden boards and performing a few of those awkward slow motion "practice hits" where I visualized my hand going through the board, I was breaking boards left and right, at home just for fun, with friends at parties, and with the other members of the Instructables team at work.
I find the process of breaking boards to be far more pleasing than "hitting a pillow", which was my mothers suggestion of what I should do when I was a kid and wanted to break something. The rush from breaking the board never gets old, and when you can one-up other inexperienced board breakers by adding second, and dare I say third boards into the mix, well, the fun just never has to stop.
***Please use this Instructable at your own risk and thoroughly consider this warning. Although this Instructable encourages board breaking, and the author of this Instructable promotes all forms of board breaking by people with absolutely zero experience, all board breakers must understand that the risk of hurting yourself is real, probable, likely, and imminent. If you break boards with the kind of limited understanding of technique and safety that I have, and share in this Instructable, please be prepared for the possible outcome of broken fingers, wrists, hands, elbows, arms and heads.***
I asked a friend of mine who IS a karate master if we could break boards one day. She said sure, not asking if I had any karate experience...hmm, I guess she trusts me.
After rounding up some appropriate wooden boards and performing a few of those awkward slow motion "practice hits" where I visualized my hand going through the board, I was breaking boards left and right, at home just for fun, with friends at parties, and with the other members of the Instructables team at work.
I find the process of breaking boards to be far more pleasing than "hitting a pillow", which was my mothers suggestion of what I should do when I was a kid and wanted to break something. The rush from breaking the board never gets old, and when you can one-up other inexperienced board breakers by adding second, and dare I say third boards into the mix, well, the fun just never has to stop.
***Please use this Instructable at your own risk and thoroughly consider this warning. Although this Instructable encourages board breaking, and the author of this Instructable promotes all forms of board breaking by people with absolutely zero experience, all board breakers must understand that the risk of hurting yourself is real, probable, likely, and imminent. If you break boards with the kind of limited understanding of technique and safety that I have, and share in this Instructable, please be prepared for the possible outcome of broken fingers, wrists, hands, elbows, arms and heads.***
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Signing UpStep 1Get Some Wood
Wide pine boards are the most readily available, inexpensive, and consistent type of wooden boards to break.
Pine is a pretty soft wood, so it's a good wood to mess around with, if like me, you don't have any experience with this sort of thing. if you're looking for more of a challenge, try breaking a harder type of wood like oak, ash or walnut.
So, head on down to Home Depot and pick up a long length (96" for some real board breaking action) of 1" thick by 12" wide pine shelving. Crosscut the shelving into smaller lengths so that your finished boards are around 10" x 12". The size isn't crucial - anything in the ballpark will work.
Remember, actual dimensions of milled lumber are less then what they are sold for, so, just to be clear, the shelving that reads 1" thick on the tag, will actually be 3/4" thick when you measure it with a ruler.
This is an important point, since, if you're milling your own wood and attempt to karate chop through a 1" thick piece of wood that's actually 1" thick, it might be significantly more difficult.
Pine is a pretty soft wood, so it's a good wood to mess around with, if like me, you don't have any experience with this sort of thing. if you're looking for more of a challenge, try breaking a harder type of wood like oak, ash or walnut.
So, head on down to Home Depot and pick up a long length (96" for some real board breaking action) of 1" thick by 12" wide pine shelving. Crosscut the shelving into smaller lengths so that your finished boards are around 10" x 12". The size isn't crucial - anything in the ballpark will work.
Remember, actual dimensions of milled lumber are less then what they are sold for, so, just to be clear, the shelving that reads 1" thick on the tag, will actually be 3/4" thick when you measure it with a ruler.
This is an important point, since, if you're milling your own wood and attempt to karate chop through a 1" thick piece of wood that's actually 1" thick, it might be significantly more difficult.
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If you are hitting with a palm strike, the grain should be vertical. For a chop, the grain goes the same direction as the hand.
Yes, one board is easy, but you can still get hurt. I wouldn't do more than one without proper instruction.
Let's start with the idea of the force. You want to put as much force as you can into the boards. In the instructions you stated that you should hit with the heel of your hand...which works, but it is more efficient to strike with your knuckles or use a chop to try to strike with that bone at the base of your pinky, because the skin and fat tissue of the palm increase the time over which the action takes place, which is key; however it's probably a lot more painful :P
Next, the stance: This does matter because you are trying to build up as much force and momentum to transfer to the board. It is also key that the person holding the board locks his/her arms so the momentum is not transfered to them. Keeping the foot corresponding to the striking hand forward, you want to move your arm as quickly as possible and even attempt to lock your arm at contact if possible. Now, martial arts instructors tell you to follow through, which is wrong. When you follow through, you increase the duration of the strike, reducing the momentum transfered (sorry that I'm just throwing around terms, but you get the idea). In fact, upon contact you should immediately jerk your arm backwards. Fighters (boxing and MMA) use this technique for the same purpose. A long punch to the face hurts, but I guarantee a quick jab to the face would hurt a lot more.
I hope this helps! It's cool to think that almost every principal of martial arts is gained from physics. If you understand physics, you can probably excel at martial arts.
I can see how the jerk backwards would add to the "explosiveness" of the strike and will have to try that myself.
Cheers, Paul (Taekwondo 1st gup)
In both pictures I weigh just over 120 pounds. Breaking three boards with a palm heel, elbow strike, or hammer fist isn't hard for someone who has trained for a while.. I train with other people that are a lot better than I am -- one guy did a 6 board break a couple years past.
It's cool if you want to inform people on something. A lot of people do use spacers. It makes breaking two boards almost as easy as one. But please don't claim that an "expert" can't. I could do three 11"x12" boards when I was 15.
as a second degree black belt in tang soo do (sister style to tae kwon do), i agree with you. it's a fairly simple thing breaking a board. placement, force, inertia, etc, all play into it. I've done plenty of routine breaks, and at most, i think i did six 1" boards without spacers. and i'm not completely sure but i think most of the people here have the spacers concept backwards. adding spacers should increase diffficulty in the break as the energy is being disperesed through the first board, and is severely limited into the following boards. In any case, this whole mess is a stereotypical "contest" if you may. (oh and by the way, i'm 13.)
I think the most I ever went through was four back to back, that did hurt.
Now, when you get to brick and concrete, spacers become much more common.
Frankly, I find it amazing that this has gotten as much praise as it has. It is very, very easy to hurt yourself doing this. There are many things that go into a proper break, board selection, grain direction, hand formation, hand placement, and proper form and movement. Yes, it can seem rather simple, but doing it right carries a lot less risk.
While pine is normally very easy to break, if you pick the wrong board, you can easily break your hand. Sap/moisture content is very important, especially for the inexperienced and for multi-board breaks. A board that is too wet or has too much sap will fight you all the way. I've had boards with so much sap/moisture that my instructors had a hard going through them. The trick to a board like that is to throw it in the microwave for a little while. Notice, I said a little while. If you leave it in too long, you drop the moisture content to a point so low that the person can snap it in half while holding that, which will kill the 'cool' factor pretty fast.
I have not seen anyone do any other type of wood, but please inform yourself before you try this at home.