After a while even this got a little boring and I added another refinement,

which, however, I don’t recommend.  To the already crowded bunch of holders,

I added another set of four holders, stationed in the middle, with boards

inclined at about 60° angle from the vertical, for a double downward knife

hand break.  I would do the reverse elbow break then the forward palm heel

break then I would bring my hands up in front of my face, cross them, and

bring them down in a double knife hand, breaking the boards inclined up

towards me at a 60° angle.  The problem with this is that it took twelve

holders and it was such a crowd that you couldn’t really see the breaks

clearly.  I was really pushing the envelope to try to do something dramatic.

The break technique of the double reverse elbow with double palm heel looks

difficult but it’s really very easy if you follow it step by step as laid

out above.  Then I invented the “tower of power.”

THE TOWER OF POWER

This one is a series of speed breaks combined with a double hammer fist. 

You can also do it as a single hammer fist when you start out.  You set up

the hammer fist break in the standard way.  Two cinderblocks, upended, with

the board suspended in between.  I usually have just about a half an inch of

the board on each cinder block.  Some people put the boards for a hammer

fist break higher up on two cinderblocks height to bring it to about waist

height.  As you will see, because we are going to put the boards for the

speed break on top, you can’t do this.

Putting the boards at this low level, about 18 inches above the floor, means

that, to do an effective hammer fist strike, you have to drop down your

whole body, bending your knees, as you bring your fist around in a full

circle swing over your shoulder and down through the board.

I once did a hammer fist break like this through four boards, at one of the

tournaments, and cracked a bone in the bottom of my striking hand because I

did it the wrong way.  It’s important to sink the whole body down low as the

fist is swung around the shoulder and brought down on the board so that the

arm and the fist, at the moment of impact, are straight.  If the fist is

bent from the arm the bone could break.  I happen to know that from

experience.

Getting back to the set up for the tower of power, however, I should mention

that, if you are going to put multiple boards between the cinderblocks to

break, it helps to put spacers in between the boards.  As all experienced

“board breakers” know, spacers make it easier to break boards.  In my

subjective opinion, it makes it about half as easy.  In other words, if you

could break three boards without spacers, you could break five or six, with

spacers.  The spacers, of course, are placed on the outside edges of the

board, directly above the cinderblocks.  They can be pencils or strips of

the boards themselves, about half an inch wide.  For my breaks, I would

build up three or sometimes four boards, with spacers, which would mean that

there would be about a seven or eight inch high stack of boards.