Board Breaking

I purchased a Gorilla Board Holder from QuikStryke.com and The Ultimate Martial Arts Board (UMAB) from amazon.com.  Instead of attaching the holder to the wall or afixing it to a punching bag as shown above, I use the board holder outside strapped to a tree (camber strap is included!) as this provides the strongest support.  The holder can be positioned with its arms oriented top-and-bottom (ideal for side kicks)  or on the sides (good for heel palm strikes, vertical punches, front kicks, back kicks, etc.).

The board holder comes with bungee cords (not pictured) for holding the UMAB, though the cords are incredibly tight making them difficult to use.  They are so tight that they make the boards easy to break, which I do not like.  So, instead of the bungee cords, I use paracord with two trucker's hitches to secure the UMABs.  Adjustable bungee cords would also do the trick.

QuikStryke offers board adapter clips, pictured above on the right, designed to hold their PowerStack Boards (this is great if you're not keen on tying hitches).  In this picture the board is not oriented properly relative to the holder arms!  The board or the holder should be rotated 90 degrees.  The PowerStack Boards come in three difficulty levels (as oppoosed to the 7 different levels of the UMAB). 

So far I have only tried the UMAB and can attest that the Orange board is very easy for hand strikes, the Blue board is challenging for hand strikes but definitely doable with proper form and power generation, and the Black board is equivalent to a single wooden board that is 2.25 in thick which is great for kicking.  Both the UMAB and the PowerStack boards are stackable, and the PowerStack boards are even magnetic.  This ability to stack offers a greater challenge, so as your abilities grow you can continue to get good use out of the easier boards.  Stacking the boards easiest to hardest (with the easiest on bottom/at the rear) provides the greatest challenge.

During my board breaking I also use the Wyox gel boxing wraps pictured above.  Unlike MMA gloves for sparring or fighting, these are form fitting and allow me to make a proper fist.  These gloves do leave the smaller knuckles and the thumb exposed, so I recommend draping a folded terry cloth hand towel over the board before breaking to help prevent cuts and scrapes from the inner edge of the rebreakable boards.  Other brands like Everlast, MoneyFyte, and Ringside offer similar products that have thumb protection, so those might be a better purchase. 

I also use the tree itself like a makiwara and strike it with low to moderate power while wearing these gloves.  The camber strap from the Gorilla Board Holder can be used to attach a terry cloth towel to the tree which provides a little more cushioning and keeps the tree bark from tearing up the gloves. To practice my hand strikes against a tree with full power, I first wrap the tree with the TITLE body protector pictured above.

When I practice, I wear denim jeans with socks and shoes. This offers sufficient protection to the feet and legs when breaking boards with kicks or using a tree to condition my front kicks, back kicks, and side kicks.

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