October 15, 2019 |

Breaking Through a Board…and Your Goals

There are no tricks involved in breaking a board. Or a brick.  “What you have here is one of the most efficient human movements ever conceived,” say MIT physicist Michael Feld.  The secret lies in the speed and focus of the strike.

Feld, fellow student Stephen Wilk and his karate instructor, Ronald McNair, set up an experiment that utilized strobe light photography to measure the speed of their kicks an punches.  The found that a beginning karate student could break a 1-inch board with a karate chop of about 20 feet per second.  A black belt, however, could chop at 46 feet per second – more than enough to break through a concrete block.

Speed is one element.  Follow through is another key element.  The men found that a fist reaches maximum velocity when the arm is about 80 percent extended.  That’s why karate masters teach that you must visualize your punch going past the target – so that it terminates inside your opponent’s body, rather than upon contact.

The final step is oscillation – vibration.  Boards and bricks have what are called elastic limits.  Upon impact, they begin to vibrate.  Hit them hard enough and in the right spot…their elastic limits are exceeded…and they break.

How does this apply to you and the goal you’re trying to achieve?  Tony Robbins says the single most important element in accomplishing a goal is to “take massive action.”  Taking massive action is no different than breaking through a board.  Take massive action.  It’s the power of your focus.  It’s the speed and force of your strike.  It’s visualizing your end point as beyond your target.

Time is short for 2019.  There are about 10 weeks until Friday, December 20.  That’s the day that most things will grind to a halt until early 2020.  You wanna break the board, or not?