Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/04/23/watch-this-incredible-taekwond.html
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Dude is a gymnast.
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“What are you DOING??!! Those were perfectly good boards, I was going to make a small shelving unit!”
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I replayed that twice so I could have my wife listen to the way the guy screams. That’s quite the scream.
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I earned a 2nd degree black belt in Taekwondo, and I can tell you this is even more awesome than it looks. Note that each board is being held one-handed. That makes them much, much harder to break, because the tendency is for the board to fly out of the hand without breaking. You have to kick a lot faster to make up for that. He does it so well that the board holders were able to maintain their grip on every board.
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No they weren’t - the boards they use for those demos are thin, light and basically fabricated to break with the slightest impact. This doesn’t take away from the man’s incredible agility and accuracy, though.
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watch in 1/4 speed, he kicks two boards with each foot
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[very calculator noises]
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THE MATH WORKS OUT!
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No they weren’t - the boards they use for those demos are thin, light and basically fabricated to break with the slightest impact.
Not when I was training. We used regular pine 1 x 12 boards from a lumber yard. Is is very easy to NOT break the boards if you don’t use proper technique.
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Yep. All I’ve ever used were 1x12 or similar dimensional.
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I’m certain the boards they used weren’t 1x6x12. You don’t just spin kick all those boards held one-handed and have them snap so efficiently. A note for those that don’t have a martial arts background; pine boards for breaking are sawn so the grain of the wood runs across the narrow width of the board so it will split along the grain under impact. Trying to break an ordinary 1x6 plank will give you a beautifully broken hand or foot.
My old Iaido sensei was also a 5th Dan in Tai Kwon Do. He was the one that showed me one of the special boards that he’d managed to keep from a demonstration in Korea.
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Concrete blocks too
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Sure, the video could be a fake, but I broke lots and lots of 1x12 dimensional lumber (which is actually 3/4” thick). Yes, it was knot-free and sawn across the grain or, more accurately, held so that the grain was in the direction of the break, but there is no such thing as “special boards” available around rural midwestern Goju Ryu dojos. Wood is always sawn against the grain in one dimension (unless there’s some omni-directionally-growing tree I’m unaware of).
I never reached anything like this skill level, but I could definitely break a 1x12 with a spin kick. I saw people far more capable than me do unbelievable breaks.
We also broke ca. 2” concrete blocks. I’ve seen people break 10+ of these stacked.
ETA: To clarify, we rarely trained for aerial attacks like this (jumping spin kick et al), as our dojo was more rooted in practical street fighting and leaping surrenders your control. We incorporated a lot more grappling and aikido-style locks and breaks. The concept was avoid fighting at all costs, but when you do engage, engage to end it as quickly as possible. 90% of fights will end up on the floor and jumping only gets you on your ass faster.
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I think this is an amazing display of athleticism, speed, and accuracy.
I also think those are 1/2" boards.
Perhaps you should visit a friendly local martial arts studio and see for yourself. I’ve watched people speed break pine 1x12s many times from close up, sometimes holding the board myself. If the technique is good, the board does snap very neatly. If the technique is imperfect, the undamaged board goes flying across the room. I’ve never seen anyone injured while breaking boards under an instructor’s supervision, and I’ve never seen anyone break something other than regular-ass lumber with no modifications.
I can break a stack of two 1x12 boards with a hand or foot. I’ve never been good enough to speed break.
Hairsplitting note: a nominally 1x12 board is milled to actual dimensions of 3/4 x 11 1/4. In this case the third dimension looks to be about 8 inches, though in my experience they were always cut in a square (so 3/4 x 11 1/4 x 11 1/4).
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