The founder of a local Kempo school made his fame by setting a world record for breaking the biggest block of ice recorded. I was told by a friend who trained under him that in order to attempt this wondrous feat, he broke every single bone in his hand.
I imagine it looked something like this:
I've dabbled in a little board-breaking for the fun of it, but there are limits to what the human body can take and setting a record simply isn't worth breaking bones for in my mind.
LOL. I agree, in this day and age I hope that we martial artist have evolved enough to know that board breaking is a silly ritual with no significance to training budo.
ReplyDeleteI do want to add though, the world record ice break was done for a greater good. In the 60's the world of martial arts in North America was more cut-throat then it is today. Many arts like kung-fu, karate and judo trying to establish themselves as "the art" to train. Many labeled Chinese Kempo (Kung-Fu) as being too week of an art compared to Japanese Karate, this ice break was to disprove these stigmas.
FYI. 1 ton of solid ice (which looks VERY different then the ice brick in the video) remains to be the world record and no one has come close to matching it yet. With that said, I don't know if this feat proves the greatness of the art or the greatness of the man who broke the ice.
One ton! Wow, it was that big? Crazy...
ReplyDelete