Ken Gullette's Internal Fighting Arts Blog

173 Board Breaks in the Chen Tai Chi Laojia Yilu Form

board-breaking chen taiji fighting applications tai chi fighting applications Mar 15, 2016

Tai Chi (Taiji) is performed slowly so students can learn the internal body mechanics that make it a powerful fighting art.

Every movement in Taiji has several self-defense applications. In my DVDs on fighting applications, I show more than 400 strikes, kicks, joint locks, sweeps, and takedowns in the Laojia Yilu form.

Recently, I decided to go through the 75 movements of Laojia Yilu -- also known as "Old Frame First Form" -- and do as many board breaks as I could find, without repeating any of the movements (several movements are repeated in the form). This video focuses only on striking possibilities in the form -- not chin-na or sweeps or throws. Just strikes and some kicks.

I came up with 144 board breaks in a little over two hours, then, after first posting the video a week ago, I saw 29 breaks that I wanted to add, so we shot those yesterday. My thanks to Colin Frye for holding the boards and my wife, Nancy, for being the ace videographer.

Now for some Breaking News -- 173 bo...

Boards Don't Hit Back -- Bruce Lee's Famous Line is Only Entertainment

board-breaking fajin internal arts training martial arts training Aug 18, 2015

Last Saturday at our practice, we took a few minutes to have fun with board-breaking. We used the black rebreakable board, which is worth a couple of regular wooden boards. We tried different breaks from short range, the idea being if you are in close, can you generate enough power to do some damage to an opponent.

Here is the video that resulted.

When you put a video like this online, you will inevitably have someone reply with "Boards don't hit back." Sometimes a friend will say it in jest, but sometimes it is said by someone who is serious.

"Boards don't hit back" is a line that Bruce Lee said in "Enter the Dragon," when Bob Wall broke a board at the beginning of a fight with Bruce.

Since 1973, some Bruce Lee "purists" and "Real Fighting" macho guys have pretended that board breaking is stupid.

They would be wrong.

Yes, boards don't hit back. Neither do heavy bags. Neither do makiwara boards. And neither does paper.

Did you know that Punching Paper was one of Bruce Le...

Ken Gullette's Internal Fighting Arts

173 Board Breaks in the Chen Tai Chi Laojia Yilu Form

Boards Don't Hit Back -- Bruce Lee's Famous Line is Only Entertainment

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