Board breaking requires skill.  In order to attain that skill, it requires practice.  To properly practice, you will need many boards to break.

There lies the challenge.  Where can you find or buy wooden boards to break?  Home Depot?  Lowes?  You probably could, but it could cost you.  Fortunately , there is such a thing called “re-breakable boards.”  And guess what?  You can buy them here at the school!

In this article, I will discuss two type of re-breakable boards and their differences.  The first type is what I would call the “hook in” type (see blue board below).  The second is what I would call the “dovetail” type (see orange board further down below).

Note that all re-breakable boards come in different colors.  The colors typically represent the skill level necessary to break such a board.  As such, the darker the color, the harder it is to break.

Hook-in Type Re-breakable Boards

Let’s start with the hook-in (blue ones below) re-breakable boards.

Blue Re-breakable Board (front)

Blue Re-breakable Board (top)

Blue Re-breakable Board (top)

I’m not really sure how they measure the strength of these boards, but this type of board  has many different board thickness.  As the level required to break it increases so does the color and the thickness.  Thus, a yellow (around 1/4 of an inch in thickness, at least) board is relatively easy to break compared to a black one which is around 5/8 of an inch think, at least.

The good thing about these boards is that they tend to properly represent the difficulty in breaking the boards since their thickness varies–the thinner the easier to break.  However, over time they get real easy to break that even a little toddler can break a real thick black board.  This is because as the board gets used, the parts that hook into each other develop cracks which make it easy to break the board.

These boards may be good for 50 to 150 breaks.  After that, you can break them with minimal effort.

Dovetail-type Re-breakable Boards

From my own experience, these boards are tough to break and the board thickness doesn’t really vary as the breaking difficulty increases.  So if you took one of these boards–say an orange one–you may have to be a an adult at the green or blue belt level to break it.  So from my experience, the level of difficulty in breaking these type of board do not properly match up with their color.

orange re-breakable board

Orange Re-breakable
Board (front)
re-breakable board (back side)

Orange Re-brakeable
Board (back)

The good thing about these boards is that they tend to last.  They last significantly much longer than the “hook-in” type.  My estimate is anywhere from 250 to 500 breaks.  It may even be longer.  The orange board illustrated above have seen many breaks.  It has outlasted 2 or 3 equivalent “hook-in” re-breakable boards.

Summary

Depending on what your goal is, you may acquire the “hook-in”  or the “dovetail” type re-breakable boards.

If you want realistic board breaking feel, get the former.  But if you want something that lasts, get the latter.

In either case, practicing board breaking can help improve your breaking skill especially since you need to hit the center of the board to break it, and it can potentially save you money compared to buying real boards to break.