Talk:Breaking (martial arts)

Breaking Bottles

Bottles are an item that people break. However, it is usually a fraudulent affair, accomplished only by putting the bottles in a furnace and upon taking them out, immediately placing them in snow.

My teacher's teacher lived in Korea for many of his younger years. He went to a demonstration where they were braking bottles. He was fascinated by it. When he went home he practiced trying to brake bottles everyday. He would place the bottle on a stump and kick it. Over and over, relentlessly. Sometimes the bottle would hit the tree in the distance and brake, but he could never brake it himself.

When the next demonstration came up, about 6 months later, he went and asked the people how they did it. They told him how they had cheated and he got understandably angry. Apparently he was so angry he wanted "to kill them". That's his way of saying he was very angry.

Well, just thought I'd share that bit of info. Quietmartialartist 22:43, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that! I've actually seen that done before. I'm pretty sure that the no cheating was involved. The bottle was obviously empty. But when I saw it, the breaker took the bottle, grabbed the neck of it in one hand, and squeezed the top with another hand. It was actually very amazing. -Ddawg — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ddawg2007 (talk • contribs)

fake cinder blocks

i've actually met someone who specialized in making cinder blocks and wood made for martial arts events. they're structurally designed to break easily. the wood is the same kind they use in professional wrestling tables. it has a weak point. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.100.160.154 (talk • contribs)

Real life application

I often saw martial artists breaking large blocks of bricks with moderate effort, sometimes block of 8 or 9(often with spacers between bricks, but sometimes no).

http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=-8629321730063150584

So, does this mean that if they hit the arm of a normal person with the same knife strike, that one's arm will be cut in half, for there's no way a person's arm can be as thick as a brick block. Or is it that brick blocks designed for breaking is no match for human's bones? I've had this question for years, can anyone explain to me? Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.220.147.248 (talk) 06:26, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

There are some key differences. First of all, the concrete blocks were solidly supported and couldn't go anywhere. Either they were going to break, or they weren't; they couldn't move even a fraction of an inch. Secondly, bone and concrete do have different properties; concrete is fairly brittle, whereas bone has more resilience. Thirdly, you also have muscle and other tissue surrounding the bone (though it depends on where the bone is struck). Omnedon 13:26, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Serious problems

I don't know where the information in this article came from, but a great deal of it seems totally wrong to me. I'm no physicist, but I've read a half-dozen so articles on the physics of breaking and they all seem to contradict the claims about pegged vs unpegged boards. I plan to come back with some references soon, but I wanted to see if I was the only one having these concerns. Contrary to the article, my understanding is that pegged boards are much easier to break than unpegged boards. I also find the claim that a single brick equals 6-7 unpegged boards equally unlikely (depending on board size, which ought to have been specified). Anyone have any thoughts on this? Bradford44 18:26, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I would agree that in general, a pegged stack of boards would be easier to break than an unpegged stack. It would depend partly on the thickness of the boards compared to the size of the pegs; and it's true that the principle is not quite the same as with concrete because of the "flex factor". So, the article has some parts of it right; but, for example, I did remove the assertion that adding bricks to an unpegged stack increases the difficulty exponentially, which isn't literally true.

In any case, though, let's say you're breaking a stack of four boards. Without the pegs, you have to break all four boards at virtually the same instant, almost as if they were one thick board. Pegging stretches it out, whether it's wood or concrete. You still have to travel all the way through the stack, since one broken board won't do much to break the next one in the stack (as with concrete), but in my opinion it does make the break easier as long as you have sufficient follow-through. The assertion that you have to "physically touch" each board in the stack isn't really true either.

As to the question of "X boards = 1 concrete", it would depend on the wood (since even with pine boards, one will find some to be harder or tougher than others), the thickness of the concrete, et cetera. However, in general, I think that breaking 7 unpegged boards would be much more challenging than breaking a single piece of concrete (which is really quite easy, as long as it's done right, due to the brittleness of the material). Breaking concrete is a whole different game. Omnedon 13:18, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Good, what you have written confirms what I have read. I actually went to the library today (at the University of Florida, which I live very close to) and was reading some old science articles about the physics of martial arts and breaking. I plan to go back and make some copies of what I read, so I can use it as a reference here. If you live near a good library, you might want to check out the following article:

• Feld, M.S. et. al. "The Physics of Karate," Scientific American, pp. 150-158, April 1979.

It was very interesting, and at least somewhat written for a non physicist/engineer. Bradford44 22:30, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Breaking boards without spacers, "Pegs", is much more difficult than breaking boards with spacers. Think about it this way: You have 5 boards separated by spacers, when you go to strike the first board, how many boards are you breaking? One. The first one. True, you need a decent amount of speed, but the required power to break 5 boards at once is completely diminished. Quietmartialartist (talk) 03:36, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Is it only me that picked up on the statement that unpegged bricks are easier to break than pegged bricks, but then the author goes on to say that two unpegged bricks equals 6 pegged bricks! This does not make sense! Either pegging is easier or harder with bricks, can anyone say which is true?

Impulse vs Velocity

Velocity cannot be the determining factor in any board break. Do a simple experiment: Take a whip, and whip any collection of bricks, boards, sticks, whatever. The whip (if you get a nice creak out of it) is moving supersonically, that is, over 700 miles per hour. The board will not break. What is required to break a board (in an unsupported break) is stress-loading it above the maximum for the material. For a supported break, things are a bit trickier. Loading quickly can still rupture the board, but loading slowly with a greater final force can break the board through bending it past its maximum deformation. RogueNinja_talk 01:17, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Page move

It has been proposed that Breaking be renamed and moved to Breaking (disambiguation). Based on the article traffic tool, Breaking should be move to Breaking (disambiguation) and Breaking (martial arts) should be moved to Breaking. Please comment at Talk:Breaking.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 14:46, 9 March 2008 (UTC)