Board Breaking Practice & Board Cards
Our students who are Brown Belts and higher, in addition to passing their form and their sparring are required to break boards.
Brown Belts - Recommended Black Belts must earn their Brown skill tape stripe to be eligible to test. To earn their brown stripe they must break all their required techniques within 3 attempts on either real wood or rebreakable boards for their age/rank, and after they have earned their blue stripe.
Their stripes in order: Yellow (kicks), Green (1/2 form), Blue (entire form), Brown (board breaking), Red (sparring)
We will be practicing during class and students may choose to practice with our rebreakable boards or with real wood boards (like the real boards they will break at testing).
If students want to break real boards they will need a board card. Each board card is $20 (no sales tax). Each size board is a different price.
5" Board - Age 7 & 8 students - $2.00 per board
7" Board - Age 9 & 10 students - $2.00 per board
9" Board - Age 11, 12 & 13 students - $2.50 per board
11" Board - Age 14 and older (males age 15 and older break 2 boards stacked together at each station)- $3.00 per board
Brown - Recommended Black Belts break 2 stations at testing.
Black Belts with their name on their belt break 3 stations.
There is no cost to practice with our plastic rebreakable boards.
Interestingly, we've found that the testing cycles where we practice board breaking a LOT are the testings that we seem to have the highest no-change rates on boards and the testing cycles we've don't the least practice on boards have resulted in the fewest no-changes due to boards.
And if you are wondering what has the biggest impact on a student being able to break their boards, it's how fast they strike the boards. If they try to use their muscles and "push" the boards they are way less likely to break the boards than if they are the correct distance, chamber tight and strike FAST at the middle and through the board. The analogy we use is if you are driving and the light turns yellow; if you slam on the brakes and stop right at the light everyone in the car feels the impact; but if you speed up and continue through the yellow light you don't feel it. It's the same with boards. The student needs to speed through the board rather than "putting on the brakes" just as they strike the board.
