How do martial artists break bricks?

Question

How do martial artists break bricks and boards? How do they develop their skill?

Answer 1

you'de have to take classes to fully understand the gist of it. its really something i cant tell you. some people use strength and weight (if their larger) and some people use speet (smaller people) and also some people use a good combination of the two. to develope your own style of how to break you have to do it for a while (3+ yrs.) i'de recommend taking a class. who knows you may like it

Answer 2

Real breaking is something that is developed and learned over a long period of time such as years. I am not talking about the TKD testing whereby a student gets up and breaks a board with a particular technique and hopefully he/she does not injure themselves. Although this kind of breaking or the short notice, no real training for a demo is what now seems to dominate most of the "breaking" in martial arts today.

Real breakers spends years toughening and building their bones, strengthening the surrounding tendons, ligaments, and muscles so they can generate maximum power and explosive type speed. Also there are generally two different types of breaking; speed breaking and power breaking. For each type of breaking some mediums are better than others for that particular type of breaking. Real breakers almost never get the injuries that you sometimes see martial artists inflict on themselves when just picking up a board or two or a brick to break for some testing or demonstration.

There are several books out there on this and I highly encourage you to read them if for no other reason you have a better understanding of the training, physics involved and some of the mediums used in breaking. That way you can do it more safely and with less risk of injury even if it is just a simple testing or demo break.

Answer 3

With practice of an action, you can increase the efficiency or the power, such as swinging a bat, kicking a ball or striking an object. However, I'll point out that the boards are special breakable boards. The boards come in grades of difficulty to break and have a hole drilled through the centre, along the length, or at least the ones I've come across did. Of course, they could just use thinner pieces of wood, but it wouldn't look as impressive. Do you know how hard even a one inch thick piece of chipboard ordinarily is to break with a punch? Get someone to hold one up while you throw combinations at it. You'll bust your knuckles, guaranteed. Anyway, next time you see these guys break five one-ince pieces of wood with one blow, don't be overly impressed.

I learned this when I did Tae Kwon Do when I was 12 and 13. They were breaking boards with strikes at this meeting I went to. I did boxing when I was 18, on and off till I was 21, and I learned how to actually get my body into the punches, throw combinations, etc. I also know that kickboxers kick harder than Tae Kwon Do practitioners. Yet boxers and kickboxers, with their superior striking techniques, don't put on board breaking demonstrations.

I haven't seen bricks being broken except on TV, but I expect it's a similar deal as with the boards.

Anyway, I can imagine that other people will be giving answers explaining 'Chi force,' clarity of the mind, 'Zen,' etc.

Answer 4

Its all about the action/technique and the mind, im not saying its easy but there are only certain bricks you can break so you need to find the right one also, and when you do a break you have to hit whatever your breaking perpendicular and go through it and have the mental attitude that you WILL break it, boards are very easy to break btw, you dont need much practice, you'll need a bit of power if you want to break something like a baseball bat and probably some shin conditioning because alot of the time it takes a couple of goes to do it :)

No one practices specificaly for breaking (at least i hope not) its just something you do, iv seen 5yr old kids break boards and its no big deal once you get the technique right, its mostly as a fun thing to do but also gets you to punch of kick through something which is how you get more power in your technique

Answer 5

What we do besides a lot of training is very basic. You must condition your hand, feet and shins with techniques similar to iron palm training or with what we call a Makiwara. The bodys response to a hard impact on the bones is to start growing more bones in that area. So with repetitive striking (without braking you hand or foot) you are actually building a denser bone. Then comes the focusin aspects of it. When you perform a breaking, depending on what type it is. You must use a proper striking area and the right amount of power and speed. In other words lots of training my friend. Your mind takes a big part of this. If you are afraid of hitting the object your brain will slow down your attack and you end up hurting yourself because you did not have enough energy to break the item but it was enough for you to feel it. Physics F=MA, and angle of attack are crucial. Go to a martial arts school that teaches how to do this and you will see.

Answer 6

I break bricks and boards with the hammer. You can break bricks and boards all you want. Bricks and boards don't hit back.

Answer 7

You break them with your mind. i have no martial arts training but went to a Tony Robbins seminar. The first night I broke a board with my hand.

Answer 8

Well basically, you have to summon the strength inside of you, you really have to kind of balance thinking about it and not thinking about it because one doubt and you could break your palm/hand. You also have to find a weak spot and really focus your strength and energy. It takes alot of courage and determination.
If you plan on doing this yourself, have supervision and focus hard.

Answer 9

same way as you break a board its just more critical to break it first go