What About Board Breaking?

Recently, a friend of mine who is a black belt, suggested I get some breaking boards to work with the next time I get some friends together to work out. I was expecting to him to say that, before the day was over. Perhaps the first image that one has upon hearing the words "martial arts" or "Karate" is that of a practitioner breaking through a stack of boards or bricks with a powerful side kick or reverse punch. It's become such a basic facet of martial arts lore and tradition that few people stop to consider what it's for or whether it's even useful. And that's the point of this blog post.

Board breaking is used to demonstrate a practitioner's perfection of technique: form, power, balance, etc. One person holds the board, or several in a stack, if the practitioner is really good, and the other executes a specific strike in attempt to break it.The boards are usually made of pine and vary in thickness. This practice, along with Kata, has become one of the most important facets of most classical martial arts curriculum. Instructors and students alike will swear by it and it is required in all belt testing.

There are certain issues I must take up against board breaking. First, it's a gimmick. Breaking a board only means one thing: you can break a board. Boards do not move, hit back, or even feel like a real opponent. If someone stacks up ten boards and side kicks through them all in one shot, that same person might miss an opponent who can only break two boards but spent more time on footwork. It's not a coincidence that few champion board breakers become champion full contact fighters. If board and brick breaking were proof of real life technique mastery, then why doesn't the world champion brick and board breaker enter into the UFC and break Anderson Silva or Frankie Edgar in half with the same move they used to split ten cinder blocks? All they would have to do is hit them once, right?

Consider this: If a fighter becomes undisputed world champion by using fast techniques with a little power, deceptive speed and good timing and can break three or four boards with the same moves, is he less advanced than other practitioners who can break ten boards with their classical methods? Is their technique "better", or is there more to technique development than how many boards you can break? Why are we judging techniques that were designed to enforce our will over our opponent by how well they damage the fibers found in one inch slats of American pine? How does "enforcement of will" relate to "disruption of cellulose"?

Master Fighters and Master Teachers: Are They The Same?

Is your martial arts instructor a master fighter? Must an instructor be an expert at performing the techniques he or she teaches their students? This question has been the subject of much discussion and rightfully so. If your instructor must be an expert fighter to be an expert teacher of fighting, this would considerably narrow the field of good instructors. This view of "master teacher is a master fighter" would be true if teaching the art of combat was one dimensional. But it isn't.

Different instructors work with students in different areas and indifferent ways. Some instructors teach discipline, some focus on sparring science, some are best at giving us the confidence we need to use what we have learned from other instructors. It's helpful if your instructor can perform the techniques with an expert level of efficiency and this is very important for younger students who need visual examples. But more advance concepts can be taught on master's level without being an expert fighter, or even an expert of performing the technique. This can be equated with most other sports. Bill Belichick of The New England Patriots is currently the highest rated coach in the NFL and has never played football on a professional level. Similarly, the greatest gymnastics coach in history, Bela Karolyi, only participated in gymnastics on an amateur level. However, both of these men teach the world's top competitors in their respective sports. Belichick cannot blitz or block for a professional running back in an NFL game but that's what he teaches his players to do on an expert level. Karolyi cannot score a perfect ten in the Olympic finals but two of his students have under his instruction.

In the fight game, the best example is boxing. Many of history's greatest boxing coaches were never master fighters. legendary boxing instructor Eddie Futch, who trained such greats as Joe Frazier, Ken Norton, and George Foreman, was never a professional fighter but only a sparring partner to the legendary Joe Louis. Angelo Dundee, perhaps the greatest boxing trainer of all time, never put the gloves on at all. Angelo learned how to teach boxing by keen observation while working for years as a bucket man. By martial artist's standards, he would not be qualified to teach anyone how to fight. But he has taught no less than fifteen world champions, including Sugar Ray Robinson, Willie Pep, and Muhammad Ali, who are perhaps the three greatest boxers to have ever lived. But don't think about training with old Angelo if you want to learn how to fight because he doesn't have a "Grand Master" tittle or a seventh degree black belt around his waist...

There are many great fighters who aren't great teachers and many great teachers who aren't great fighters. If Dan Inosanto fought Mike Tyson in their prime, I would bet the family farm on Mike Tyson because he's a better fighter. But if I wanted to learn how to fight, I would go straight to Dan Inosanto because he's a better teacher. Kicking really fast or hitting really hard doesn't mean you are able to teach other people to do the same. Teaching and fighting are two separate skills that take much talent and hard work to master. Let's not confuse them.