Power Breaking

by Gray Patterson, IV dan
Best Male Competitor, 13th ITF World Championships

The ITF has two categories of 'breaking' - power breaking and specialty breaking. Power breaking involves striking a stack of multiple boards (or other suitable material) with enough force to demolish the target. Specialty breaking - 'special technique' and 'free specialty' - is essentially the gravity defying act of kicking a target that is placed well beyond one's normal reach, or breaking multiple targets with 'Matrix'-like style.

My own aerodynamic and gravity defying qualities have a striking resemblance to those of a brick, so specialty breaking is far from my specialty. (Ed - Yeah, right. What about the picture on p21...) I have, however, had some success with power breaking, so I'll share some of my thoughts on this topic, for you to use or discard at your discretion.

One of the things I like about power breaking is that the end result is largely objective - either the target is broken, or it isn't. You don't have to wait for a judge's or an examiner's evaluation - your satisfaction or disappointment is instantaneous.

"Just do it"

I think Nike said it best with their slogan "Just Do It". That is power breaking in a nutshell.

Power breaking is a true test of one's mind power - your ability to take charge of your body, and make it do something that might appear to be dangerous, or a touch masochistic. I would say that 90% of power breaking comes down to simply backing yourself and going hard. For most people, developing total commitment to the task will lead to the greatest improvements. If you hit something hard enough, regardless of whether or not your technique is textbook perfect or even if you hit the target flush in the centre, it will break. The last 10% of the equation is 'fine tuning' - the focus and technique that will give you the edge when competing against an equally committed person.

Conditioning

Before you think that I'm suggesting you simply take an attitude of complete reckless abandon, there is some important ground work to undertake to both reduce the risk of injury and increase your confidence to the point where it no longer seems like a daft idea to go launching your body parts at a stack of boards.

One of the most important synergists to fully committing your limbs to striking solid targets is undoubtedly conditioning - the act of developing one's own personal armor. Conditioning takes time, and a lot of it, so it's not something you can necessarily achieve by turning up to training a couple of times a week and doing a few push ups on your knuckles. You've got to start slowly, and maintain a conditioning regime to get any real benefit.

There are many different theories about conditioning, but probably one of the most effective methods I have used basically involves repeatedly striking a solid surface with the attacking tools that require conditioning in a manner not dissimilar from that which you would use to knock on a door. The 'knocks' are fairly quick and light, and are maintained for a comfortable period of time. The force of the knocks and the period for which they can be maintained will increase as the body becomes conditioned.

Bear in mind that you are not trying to punish yourself, but simply put the attacking tools under a little stress. The human body is actually reasonably clever, and will set about reinforcing the stressed area in a similar fashion to which it mends broken bones. You can discreetly do this type of conditioning virtually anywhere - at home, in the office, wherever, by simply knocking your forefist, backfist, knifehand, etc, on walls and other solid objects. I reiterate that this should probably be done discreetly. Ball of the foot and footsword can be done any time you're barefoot, by simply tapping them on the floor as you continue with whatever else you are doing.

Although conditioning takes time, children and adolescents shouldn't attempt this type of conditioning. It may deform their softer, growing bones.

Other useful conditioning tools, such as punching bags or heavy pads, can be used by anyone. Hitting a softer target that provides some resistance will help to develop the muscles and joints used when executing techniques, and teach the body the type of balance correction and body weight shifting that is required to hit through a target. Smaller focus pads are great for speed work, but they aren't all that useful for developing power. They fly away when struck, offering little resistance.

When it comes to practicing on boards, you may like to consider wearing shoes, or placing some padding (eg, a thin piece of foam or a folded towel) over the boards to reduce the sting and prevent skin tearing when performing repeated breaks. Further, breaking a smaller number of boards more frequently is an excellent way to harden your tools and develop technique.

Eventually, through continued conditioning, you will be able to overcome the body's propensity to back off at the last second in fear of injury, and the ability to overcome this reflex is very important.

"Just do it"
(with complimentary steak knives)

Once you can get in there and "Just Do It", it is developing your technique - the 'fine tuning' I mentioned - that will enable additional improvement and actually make it a little easier to break the target.

When preparing for a specific event, such as a grading, a tournament, or a demo, I suggest practicing with the same materials as those that will be used "on the day" whenever possible. Different breaking materials behave in different ways when you hit them. Boards, for example, come in three types - pine boards, UMAB peg style plastic rebreakable boards, or 'Polar' style slottogether plastic rebreakable boards. All three types have markedly different characteristics in terms of how they are to break, so you can't compare one type to another (ie, a single polar board is not 'worth' two pine boards, or whatever). The difficulty of breaking pine boards will vary widely, from tinder dry and very easy to break, to virtually dripping wet and difficult to split with an axe. Polar boards tend to be fairly dense, so they sting a bit more than the UMAB peg boards when you hit them. Polar boards don't flex anywhere near the same amount as UMAB boards, so they can 'pop' apart when struck sharply. Multiple UMAB boards require a good deal of penetration to separate due to the gaps between the faces of the boards, but this means you are less likely to injure yourself than with the denser pine and Polar boards.

One of the major elements of technique that will help you, regardless of the technique you are performing, is focus - being able to strike the target exactly where you want. As I mentioned earlier, if you hit something hard enough it will break, but you make your life a whole lot easier by hitting boards in the centre. This is particularly true when using rebreakable boards, as they are designed to break only in the centre. If you hit a rebreakable board above the centre or below the centre, it takes extra force to create enough leverage to separate the board.

Most of your ability to 'focus' and steer your attacking tool towards a specific spot relies on your eyes never leaving the intended point of impact until that point is no longer there (because the target is broken). From 'go' to 'woah' your eyes should stay fixed on the same spot, just like a golf swing where you keep your head down and eyes on the ball until the ball is sailing down the fairway. If you take your eyes off the target not only are you unlikely to hit the target in the intended spot, but your body can't be sure when to brace for impact, leading to potential injury.

Something else that can be developed with practice is 'how you hit something as hard as you can'. The Taekwon-Do encyclopaedia contains the formula for 'power':

• P = ½ mv²
• Power = (½) x (mass) x (velocity)²

Basically, if you throw as much bodyweight as possible (through using correct Taekwon-Do technique, incorporating as many muscles in the body as possible) as fast as you possibly can, you will achieve optimum power. The usefulness of this is still only as good as your commitment to hitting the target with 100% effort. You can have all of the ingredients in the formula working well up to the point of impact, but "second thoughts" will slam on the brakes faster than the Roadrunner when he reaches a cliff edge. The key is maintaining momentum through the target, not just to the target.

The Demolition Man returns next issue with part 2 of this article, focusing on specific tips for the destructions used in ITF Power Test competition and for breaking at your gradings.