{"id":708,"date":"2025-06-06T22:36:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-06T22:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quizzical-leakey.216-225-204-205.plesk.page\/?p=708"},"modified":"2026-02-21T22:47:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T22:47:09","slug":"notes-on-the-journey-on-breaking-boards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quizzical-leakey.216-225-204-205.plesk.page\/index.php\/2025\/06\/06\/notes-on-the-journey-on-breaking-boards\/","title":{"rendered":"Notes on the Journey: On Breaking Boards"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

You don\u2019t fear the raging river. You are the raging river.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first time I broke a board was after I\u2019d already been on the mat for several hours\u2014our regular Saturday afternoon hour and a half session, followed by a three hour Rapid Assault Training class.

\u201cDo you want to break a board?\u201d My instructor asked as we were wrapping up for the day.

The important part to this story is, I\u2019d already done some drills\u2014in a manner that was at least correct-adjacent\u2014and had successfully been able to remove a fully grown man from on top of me, so breaking a board?

\u201cYeah, sure, okay!\u201d

We began with practicing palm strikes: him correcting my technique as I made contact with the mitt on his hand.

After a few practice strikes on the mitt, he grabbed the board.

\u201cYou want the heel of your palm to strike the center of the board. The tips of your fingers should just meet where mine are holding the board.\u201d

I held up my hand to the wood. Lined up my strike.

\u201cRemember, you\u2019re not breaking the board so much as going through the board.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Board, bring it on.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Previously, I\u2019d watched other students at the dojo break boards as part of their Taekwondo testing. And what I\u2019d noticed (and what I\u2019d heard reiterated in stories from my instructors) is the tendency for students to go full throttle, and then, millimeters<\/em> from the board, slow down out of fear of the pain. Essentially resulting in a very ineffective love tap on the board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just a little boop<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, while I knew there might be a bit of a jolt when my hand made contact with that board, I figured it\u2019d actually hurt more to hold back and slow down than to just power up and go through<\/em> the damn thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ve heard the saying about reaching the point where the pain of staying hurts more than the pain of leaving? It\u2019s like that. Sort of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, if I\u2019d survived all the things<\/em> I\u2019d survived to make it to this very moment, then respectively board, bring it on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I pulled my hands back to a fence. Took a deep breath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Go through the board, Lauren.<\/em>
Through. The. Board.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I struck.

A very gratifying crack<\/em>. My hand suspended between two pieces of wood.

I\u2019d done it. I\u2019d broken my very first board!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

This would’ve turned my world upside down<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Put it down to the timing of the Universe (she\u2019s very insistent on teaching me lessons in a manner she deems timely), several weeks later I found myself on the other end of the board at the local university, where my ESD instructors partners with Project Safe, the school\u2019s Center for Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Response, to teach self defense to students and faculty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was actually the very reason I\u2019d become interested in teaching self-defense. When I learned that my instructors ran self-defense courses from time to time at the university, I\u2019d volunteered my services. And by services, I meant my willingness to be thrown around and be a punching bag for the students to practice on.

Because not only did I know how important the work they were doing there was, I knew how much more accessible and less-intimidating this life-changing information could be to students\u2014especially female and LGBTQ+ students\u2014if they could work with a female instructor.

This information would\u2019ve turned my world upside down at their age. It\u2019s not hyperbolic to say that it would\u2019ve changed the course of my life if I\u2019d known it then.

If only we\u2019d known the things we know now then\u2026<\/em>

The first night was a wash, no students showed up. But the next day, we got two giggling schoolgirls who very clearly wanted to be anywhere else but there.

(Though it\u2019s been a good decade since I was in their shoes, I could relate. Getting me to participate in anything extracurricular in school required a heavy dose of bribery and a black belt in coercive tactics.)

I, for one, was excited. This was my first real life introduction to the ESD curriculum and how it\u2019s taught.

After a quick dialogue about what violence is and how we sometimes might need to use it (we only had them for an hour), we moved on to the physical part of the class.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

They were little Simba, my instructor, mighty Mufasa<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We partnered up and began running them through knee drills before moving on to palm strikes. I held the mitt up, planting my feet to allow my torso to twist with the hits (little did my student partner know I\u2019d only just learned how to hold it correctly five minutes prior to class starting).

I was part-observer, part-instructor as I followed my instructor leading us through the drills.

\u201cAgain,\u201d Liz demanded as they hit the mitt. \u201cUse your voice. Scream!\u201d

Giggle, giggle.<\/em>

\u201cI mean it! Again!\u201d Liz\u2019s drill sergeant voice snapped them to attention.

That scene in The Lion King where little baby Simba tries to ROAR<\/strong> and it comes out a scratchy little prepubescent rawrrr? And then Mufasa comes in and blows the lid off with his roar? That\u2019s where we were. They were little Simba, my instructor, mighty Mufasa. I was somewhere in between, grown up Simba on his way home to Pride Rock right before he kicks Scars ass.

Liz is much more, shall we say, forward facing than I am. She\u2019s got gonads the size of the state of Texas, and not only does she know, you know it too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m much more reserved, a little bit harder to read at times, much more preferring to work behind the scenes than in front of the curtain. (Once, when asked if I was the pretend vice president to my friends pretend presidency of the local yacht club, I said, dead-pan, \u201cNo, I\u2019m deep state.\u201d I don\u2019t know where that came from, but truer words have never been spoken.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah, it\u2019s weird,\u201d I said, picking up on the girls nervous energy. \u201cIt feels weird. We\u2019re not used to doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I, too, had felt a tad bit ridiculous yelling as I\u2019d demonstrated the palm strike. It was all still new to me, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, I\u2019d found, the more you do it, the more we break through those walls of how we\u2019re supposed to exist in the world, the more we embrace our power, the better it feels, the louder we roar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*cue Katy Perry*<\/em>
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh<\/em>
You\u2019re gonna hear me roar<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The more we worked, the stronger their voices became.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then for our finale portion of our evening: we broke out the boards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

All power, zero resistance<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Liz handed a board to each of them with a marker. \u201cI want you to write an obstacle in your life right now that you want to break through.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Silence, then scribbles as they wrote on their boards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow, you\u2019re going to break these,\u201d Liz said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You could practically see their eyeballs pop out of their head.\u201cRemember, you\u2019re not hitting the board,\u201d I recited my instructor\u2019s words back to<\/p>\n\n\n\n

my partner as I held the board in both hands. \u201cYou\u2019re going through<\/em> it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though, my student plowed through her first board, Liz\u2019s student resisted hard, falling over into fits of giggles when it was her time to break. Again and again, she\u2019d line up her strike, only to slow down at the last second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again and again. No amount of encouragement, nothing thing we said was getting through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, reading her growing discomfort, I said, \u201cWhat if I told you that if you broke this board, whatever it is you wrote on the board would just go away? Just like that<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her eyes lit up. \u201cNow that\u2019s<\/em> something I can get behind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then: all power, zero resistance, she broke the board on the next strike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laughter this time. Standing-up-straight relieved laughter. Bent over giggles, no more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOkay, we\u2019re gonna do it again,\u201d Liz said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, no not again<\/em>, you could practically hear their internal dialogue as they deflated just a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, again,\u201d Liz said, making sure to make a show of spending extra time picking out boards before bringing them over to the students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou see this one is a bit thicker than the last one?\u201d Liz asked my student.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She studied the board, nodding tentatively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOkay, again!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I held the board. This time, she couldn\u2019t get the board to break. We had to run it several times, amping up the power and the roar with each strike until she got it: the resounding, satisfying break.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Breaking boards is immensely<\/em> satisfying.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same with Liz\u2019s student. Again and again, breaking down into fits of giggles between, until both students had broken both boards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The truth was, the boards were all the same. They just needed to know they could do it, regardless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI knew you\u2019d be good at this,\u201d Liz said as we walked out to the car. \u201cYou\u2019re a natural.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought back to some of my ground-breaking instructions over the class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something about pilates and TaeBo? (Oh, Billy Banks \u2026 if you know, you know). I laughed. I wasn\u2019t so sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou saw what they needed and gave it to them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We each bring something to unique to the table, and that night (besides for my preference for working in the shadows), I began to see the value of what I brought: my ability to empathize, to feel what the other is feeling, where they\u2019re at, and what they need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

You are the raging river, goddamnit.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There is an art to breaking boards. Rooted in solid technique: balance your weight, hold your fence, power from your hips, and push that energy all the way through\u2014down your arm and through the heel of your palm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have you ever pushed open a heavy door with the palm of your hand? Then congratulations, you can break a board!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Technique does not an art make, however.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The art comes through the expression, the energy, the execution of the strike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your warrior cry erupting from your throat as you focus your force to affect the change you want to create in the world. (And if you\u2019re not quite ready to unleash your inner Xenon: Warrior Princess or Gal Gadot Wonder Woman Amazonian cry out into the world? Trying yelling curse words at the top of your lungs. A well-emphasized four letter explicative as you hit something with your bare hands? You can\u2019t beat it, honestly.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I read somewhere (in an oracle deck, probably) that the wild otter doesn\u2019t fear the raging river because the wild otter doesn\u2019t fight the current, it flows with it. It\u2019s the otter bred in captivity who simultaneously longs for<\/em> and fears<\/em> the rapids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The world wants you to believe that you too are captive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But make no mistake, you are wild. Cages and shackles be damned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All you have to do is remember.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You don\u2019t fear the raging river. You are the raging river, goddamnit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So make the decision. Commit. You are<\/em> going through<\/em> that board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feel the fear. Harness that rage. Direct your energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then, you do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And once you do it, no force on earth can tell you you can\u2019t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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You are the raging river. 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