I recently saw a video posted on a TKD discussion group showing a 10 year old who was testing for 2nd degree black belt who had to break a 2 inch thick stone paver. The video runs for about nine minutes and eventually at the end, the child does break the brick. The video is downright appalling, as the child hits the brick again and again and comes up clutching his hand several times. He clearly wasn't up to the task, and being made to do it in a pressure situation is an excellent way to tear that child down. At one point someone even comments "you have two hands" as if the pain in one didn't matter.
If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know I haven't written in a while. Life...it happens sometimes, but this snapped my writers block and allowed me to find my voice again. This video got me thinking about breaking, and about why we do it in the martial arts. I have a lot of strong opinions about breaking, and along with sharing them, I'll probably take out a few sacred cows in this post. Since many of my students read my blog, I will try to make it clear when I am speaking about my opinions, and know that my opinions are just that -- opinions -- not the law, or the rule. I'll always teach the way my instructor wants me to, so long as I am teaching in the house he built.
So why do martial artists of almost all denomination break wood and bricks (and in some extreme cases any other manner of crazy objects)? Well, the textbook reasons are to demonstrate the power of the technique that we focus and practice. The textbook will also usually mention how it is important to know what we are capable of doing with our skills. This is important for our own training, so that we can be confident, that yes, all that practicing can be an effective defense measure, but also, so that we realize the damage we can do to the human body, should we need to.
There's another benefit that I am not sure if it is ever explicitly spoken about - one that I think is equally if not the most important benefit to any previously mentioned. Breaking is our opportunity to override the safety protocols that are inherent in all humans. It's not natural to ball up the fist and punch or to kick solid objects. There is a very strong, very real mental block that all students who ever break anything must overcome. It's important to overcome this, because I believe it lends itself to overcoming the fight or flight reaction when faced with the choice of defending yourself. I'd like to think, that a student that can override those mental safety protocols and can punch through 3 inches of wood, can override their own fear and defend themselves if they have to. It's not a perfect comparison but it is close. This is important because it would be unethical to attack our students for real when they least expect it with intent to harm them to see if they really can defend themselves. Since we have no perfect test for that, we must come as close as we can with other methods.
I don't have a problem with breaking at all in the gup levels. All the breaking in tests and in instructional classes I've been a part of feel right to me. At these levels focus is on proper technique, without which injury can occur. It's often a one station break, or maybe two stations at most (where I come from anyway it is). Here, these mental blocks are weakened, and hopefully eventually broken. As a student transitions into black belt the stations increase, sometimes obstructions are added, and while there is still that fundamental practice of turning off the safety protocols, I have some concerns with the execution.
Before looking at the areas of breaking that I do have concerns about, I want to expose a few myths that some people think about breaking. First, breaking has a lot to do with the holder - sometimes it has more to do with the holder than it does the actual breaker of the boards. I've seen people break boards in their "practice" kick (where they pick up their foot and measure their distance to the target). On two separate occasions I saw a single board break on these practice touches, and once I saw someone crack their first board on a two board brake. Conversely, I've seen first hand what a bad hold can do. I've seen people throw perfectly timed technique and hit square in the middle of a board and watched in horror as the boards don't break because a holder flinched or had their arms bent. I find the people who take the stance of "if the technique is good the holder is irrelevant" highly ignorant. My school doesn't use any contraptions to hold for breaking, we always use human holders and thus even when everything is correct, the break can go wrong.
Another myth that bothers me is the famous cliche "boards don't hit back". This is true, but isn't what is really important. What is more important, is that people don't stand still to get hit, and they certainly don't let you take practice swings at them, before unloading with a kiap and all of your power. This leads me into my biggest problem with breaking, which lies at the black belt and master levels. Breaking is, by and large one of the most practical things a martial artist can practice, but often it is practiced in the most impractical ways.
Setting up elaborate breaks, measuring every step, taking 3-4 deep breaths. It's great demonstration and it's very entertaining to the untrained eye. The hush that falls over the crowd, be it of spectators at a demo or a test, or even of classmates and instructors in a classroom setting is an awesome feeling. But the practice lends itself only to demonstration, as practicing the exact movements over and over again, by measuring your kicks and punches precisely, and pausing for dramatic or "necessary" focus time eliminates all the practicality that kicking a hard but breakable target gives. Setting aside purposeful use of this format for demonstration and entertainment purposes, I'd rather see these practices end at 3rd dan level. Your target is very rarely going to be completely stationary, and you will never have the "warm-up" time when you have to hit someone for real that you have in these breaking scenarios.
When you attach the title of master, there should be, (in my opinion), no need to measure your steps. By the time you get to this point you should know with a glance what you have to do to hit something clean and hard. Furthermore you should be able to move from target to target striking with impunity and without the need to stop along the way. Finally, you shouldn't have to take deep breaths, gather your will, your chi, your focus or what have you. If you are a master, you should be able to see your enemy, strike it with full potential, with maximum effectiveness with no hesitation. A master of the art should be able to handle this, and a master of "the self" should also. It's possible I have an over inflated idea of what a master should be able to do, but at this time, I stand by my opinion.
Instead of the things we do to make breaking more difficult at the higher dan level, things like adding obstructions and adding stations and advanced techniques - I think an unrehearsed, presentation of wooden targets to a candidate with the goal being for that candidate to quickly and effectively break all of the targets to be the ultimate test in actual understanding of the practical side of the art. Imagine a blindfolded candidate, who has his holders move around him and set the boards. When the candidate's name is called they pull of the blindfold off and attack. This would be a true test of power, and understanding of positioning and technique. When discussing sparring and fighting we always talk about the impracticality of spin kicks, and high kicks - yet in advanced breaking there is a stigma to keeping it simple.
Of course it would be very hard to pull off in a logistical sense. It would require holders that not only were excellent holders as they themselves would not know what is coming, but also they would have to understand fully the goal of the exercise and not set up in a way that was illogical. In my mind though, it would unlock breaking's potential to be one of the ultimate practicality tests.
Sparring, prearranged, and by design forms all require levels of control - breaking is the one place we have to and should practice at full power, but we under cut our training by rehearsing, measuring and "focusing".
Most of this post is my opinion based on my experiences. I love breaking, it's awesome for a lot of reasons, but I believe it could be even better. This is also not an indictment of current practices - after all, part of the tests I took to gain the rank that I hold came as a result of successfully performing the very breaking I am rallying against. I don't feel ripped off, or cheated -- because I know what I am capable of, and that is ultimately the point of breaking. We've changed so many other parts of the art though as time has moved on. Maybe it is time to take a long hard look at our breaking philosophies and practices, and, well, maybe its not. These are just my thoughts on breaking after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment