Breaking
Breaking (Kyukpa) is one of the essential aspects of Taekwondo training. All preparations including body conditioning and target practice need to be gradually made throughout the practitioner's life-long journey although the breaking activities only occur for a moment. To many observers and some practitioners, the breaking exercise and demonstration may be viewed as some activities to gauge one's ability and maturity that can be seen with the naked eyes. However, avid practitioners go beyond the physical dimension, often drill down to their subconscious level, and sometimes taste spiritual freedom during the breaking exercises.
Whether people recognize it or not, there are social, economic, political, and many other inherent barriers for an individual to overcome in life. The individual has to occasionally deal with these barriers using one's own energy level at a given time although these barriers may be viewed as non-barriers from a universal energy perspective in an infinite time frame. It is only natural that some of the barriers will collapse in the universal energy field and its due time. In the meanwhile, the practitioner can mentally break down the barriers with physical breaking exercises if one chooses to do so.
At first it may seem ironic that encouragements, new beginnings, and even spiritual freedom can come from any physical breaking exercises. However, for instance, one can certainly break down the mental imageries of the inherent barriers in the subconcious level by releasing stress through a quick and powerful energy conversion process during the breaking exercises.
Therefore, the breaking exercises can be effectively used to control stress level, improve health, sharpen mental focus, and even taste spiritual freedom from all the barriers in life when the practitioner understands how the body and mind work together and how energy changes its form in the universal energy field.
Although everyone is different due to one's own belief, brain circuitry, body type, health level, response repertoire, and phase in life, the practitioner needs to focus on the gradual body conditioning, scientific body alignment with respect to the CG and target, mental wave focus, subconscious imagery control, air & blood pressure control, and effective energy transfer throughout body parts (& joints) during the preparation and breaking exercises. It is extremely important to note that any injuries during the preparation and breaking exercises should be avoided at all times. In order to avoid any injuries as much as possible, the gradual conditioning process and incremental target selection including more shock obsorbing practice-target usage are strongly recommended.
In the end, the practitioner should be able to attain the maximum acceleration without any hesitation and break the target with the well-prepared body parts and their scientific alignment at the moment of impact. From a mental perspective alone, a strong belief in the purified conscious and subconscious mind will evoke the full potential of body's capability. It is also important to point out that a healthy body is needed to attain the purified conscious and subconscious mind in a long run. Taekwondoists around the globe should embrace the true meaning of the body-mind coupled system and utilize this fundamental principle in their daily lives.
Notes on Stress:
When pressure is applied to any system, it will experience strain (from elastic to permanent deformation). In the same way, the body and/or mind will go through internal adjustments to balance the energy when it is under stress. For instance, blood becomes thicker (more viscous) when the body and/or mind is under stress. This will create serious problems eventually when the stress is not mitigated because the thicker blood has a higher odds of being clogged. Note that a poor blood circulation (and lower oxygen delivery effectiveness) will slowly dismantle the body and reduce its energy level.
Furthermore, people under high stress generally have a higher odds of having an insufficient sleep cycle and a rather inactive life style. When this deadly combination of high stress, insufficient sleep cycle, and inactive life style persists for some time, the body will start to lose the ability to properly regulate its functions including energy balance, hormone balance, nerve system maintenance, and self-repairment. Particularly the functions of the organs with smaller blood vessels (e.g., heart, brain, etc.) and the health of gut due to inactivity will most likely deteriorate over time.
In Taekwondo training, a practitioner will have many systematic opportunities to release past stress in subconscious level, manage present stress, control future stress, and improve overall health. The body-mind revival can be achieved by managing stress levels, taking more oxygen, flushing out blood vessels and pores, reviving muscles around the nerve systems, energizing vital organs, and reconnecting Ki energy channels through the rhythmic whole-body (& each part) and low-high impact movements commanding by mental waves.