Breaking (TAMESHIWARI) is a spectacular aspect of Karate. You can break objects with almost any technique, so long as it is powerful enough and that part of your body is appropriately conditioned. For conditioning details click here.
For training purposes, some karate-ka have found breaking to be extremely useful:-
1) You get used to the impact of hitting solid objects with maximum force.
2) It allows you to measure the power of your techniques. This is extremely important, because if you don't know how much damage you can do with any given technique, you can accidentally seriously damage someone.
3) It helps develop accuracy of techniques whilst using maximum force.
Here are the most common techniques to break with:-
Punch (stepping, reverse, lunge)
Elbow (front, rising, side, back, roundhouse, downwards)
Kick (front, side, back, roundhouse, reverse roundhouse, axe)
Palm strike
Knifehand strike
Hammerfist
SPEED:- It is not the amount of 'muscle' which you hit the object with, it's the speed at which you hit it that matters. You can produce just as much power by striking the object at a higher speed whilst using less 'muscle'. This is shown in a basic physics equation:-
Also, when the object is hit at a higher velocity, the energy from your striking limb is transferred to the block more quickly like a 'short, sharp shock', thus breaking it more easily. To achieve such a velocity, your body must be totally relaxed so the limb can move freely.
A second physics equation gives another reason as to why you should increase the speed of your technique:-
Here, by doubling the velocity (speed) of your technique the energy produced quadruples allowing you to break more
As well as staying relaxed, you can increase the speed of your technique by allowing the striking limb to travel further. By travelling further, the striking limb can travel faster and produce more energy:-
When you use these principles to produce more energy and thus more force and put the greatly increased force values into the equation at the start of this section and in the 'AREA' section, you can see how much more power can be produced resulting in incredible breaking feats.
FOCUS:- When you break, it is vital that you go through the object that you are breaking. By that I mean you have to aim past the object. This allows you to strike the object at full force due to the body's natural reaction of flinching. You must trick your mind into thinking that the object is further back than it really is. If you don't aim through the object and you stop on it, you will experience much more pain than otherwise if the object doesn't break. This is because your striking limb absorbs all the energy instead of the object. This energy is translated into pain. Once you start feeling this pain when breaking, your body flinches more and you stop on the board more, thereby increasing the amount of pain. This produces a fear of breaking. If this happens, reduce the amount you are breaking until you are comfortable with it. Work your way back up from there.
AREA:- The object you are breaking should be struck with the smallest possible area of your body. This will produce more downwards pressure on the board, thus successfully breaking it. Again, thanks to simple physics, we can see why:-
Breaking Setups
There are various ways to set up the breaking materials. However, the most important thing to remember is that they must be properly supported so that there is no 'give' when you strike them. Here are the different setups:-
Stacked boards:-
The boards are placed face up between two upright supports (usually cement blocks). The boards must rest at least a quarter of an inch on each of the supports. The boards are stacked directly on top of each other with the grains facing the same direction on every board. Sometimes spacers are put between the boards, however, this makes the break easier as the momentum of the broken boards hitting the lower boards causes the lower boards to break before you even come to strike them - in other words, you are cheating yourself into believing that you are breaking more than you actually can.
This setup is used to break boards using downward strikes like axe kicks
Held boards:-
The boards are held by 2 people. They stand directly behind the boards in wide and deep stances to secure the boards. One person should stand slightly to the left of centre and secure that side of the boards whilst the other stands on slightly right of centre to secure the right hand side of the boards. Their arms should be locked. Remember that the boards should be held securely as if the holders move back at all when the boards are hit, the boards may not break.
This set up is used for horizontal strikes like punches
Suspended boards:-
The boards are held in the same position as above except they are only held at the top or bottom. This type of breaking is very difficult and requires speed. You have to be quick enough to strike through the board before it has moved back from the force of the strike.
This type of setup is used for horizontal strikes like punches.
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