Breaking (martial Arts)

Breaking (martial Arts)

Breaking is a martial arts technique that is used in competition, demonstration and testing. Breaking is an action where a martial artist uses a striking surface to break one or more objects using the skills honed in their art form. The striking surface is usually a hand or a foot, but may also be a fingertip, toe, head, elbow, knuckle, or knee. The most common object is a piece of wood, though it is also common to break bricks or cinder blocks.

Breaking can be often seen in karate, taekwondo and pencak silat, Spetsnaz are also known for board, and brick breaking, but not all styles of martial arts place equal emphasis on, or use, breaking. In styles where striking and kicking is less important and there is an emphasis on grappling or weaponry, breaking is less prominent. Traditional Japanese martial art schools place little, if any, emphasis on board-breaking, although the art of breaking objects was known as tameshiwari, while the similar practice of Tameshigiri or 'test cutting' is used in sword arts.

Breaking is based on physics and selection of materials- the most commonly seen breaking involves spaced, softwood boards. While very difficult to break even a piece of soft pine wood hitting against (perpendicular to) the grain, breaking is almost always done with (parallel to) the grain- which requires little skill or strength. The use of spacers means instead of breaking the entire stack at once, they break one at a time- each one helps break the next as little momentum is lost and gravity is helping. Because of this, breaking is primarily used as an advertising gimmick to woo potential customers.