Board Breaking for younger students IE testing

[jaymac]

I think it would be wrong to ask any child to stand up and break 2 or 3 boards. At the end of our testings, every child is asked if he/she would like to try to break a board. It is for show. The kids love it and love showing their parents that they can do it. We supply them with either a 1'', 2'', 4'', or 6'' ( for older children) pine board. They are shown how to properly hit the board and break it. Some kids don't participate and that is ok. They see it as a fun reward at the end of their test, and they love it. I have yet to see anyone return saying that little Jimmy has ruined his bones in his hand for life because he hit a 2'' pine board when he was 7. I did however train for years sparring without any type of padding as a child, especially shin gaurds, and now as an adult have awful, painful shins. Broke boards then too. My shins are much worse in comparison 20 years later than my fists ever could think of being.
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A great martial artist is one who is humble and respectful of others.

[ShadowFox]

Well at my school we do have to break boards once we get to a certian level. For the adult class it was when you was testing for yellow belt (dont ask me what it was for child class dont remeber). But any before we break our instructures show us how it suppose to be done and tell us to take atleast 3 practice strike to make sure we hitting with the right techniques. I trust my instructures that they know what level I should be at to break board. The only time I ever seen anyone in my school miss breaking the board on the first couple of tries is the the brown testing for their black belt (and that because the got break 2 board with a sweep kick and I think a hook kick). So I think the only time breaking will wear you down is when you do it very often and trying to break like 2 or4 board at once
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"Martial Arts is kinda like yin and yang when you think about it; it 50% physical and 50% mental"

[KaratekaAndy]