Break a Board with a Ridge Hand Strike

Video Transcript

"Michael Lewis here with Christian Marital Arts on behalf of Expert Village, we're going over today how to break boards with your hands. Okay, now we're going to take a look at ridge hand strike breaking a board. The thing about ridge hand strike, is you want to be careful first not to use your fingers to break the board, nor your thumb, so it's a very striking area that you're trying to work with. You're trying to strike right here, right where the knuckle is and sort of back across. So when you're throwing your ridge hand strike, you're going to have to turn the ridge hand strike slightly downwards, in order to strike properly and keep your thumb safe. Again, always make sure to tuck in your thumb, do not use slightly out so that the knuckle or anything like may catch. Again, he sets up just like he did for the knife hand strike, he's going to set himself up and as you can see, he's flipping the board around checking the bow of the board, and making sure it's concave on the striking surface. I get myself ready. Again, I have to make sure I'm not too far ahead of the board, I have to make sure that my center line is lined up with the center of the board. So I get myself ready, I visualize striking through the board. The place I'm actually striking is at least three inches past that board. I get myself ready. One, and on three you're going to yell, "Ki-ya!", two, and three. "Ki-ya!" And that way, as you keep in mind the safety of this technique, it's very easy to break either your finger or your thumb, you want to make sure you're using proper technique. So again, exercise safety, and practice these techniques on a bag before you strike to a board."