When and how do you add another board to the stack?

[exile]

The standard ones are usually between 12 x 12 and 12 x 16 - they're often rectangular rather than square - and I set them up on a pair of cinder blocks; those are easy to get at home improvement stores.

I set up my boards on cinder blocks from Lowe's. I'll check to see if they have those roofing slabs...

meanwhile, I'm also interested in any insight anyone has on protecting your little finger from bruising/slicing on a knifehand break. I'm pretty sure that the only contact I make on my knifehand is with the muscular ridge between the base of the little finger knuckle and the palm/wrist line, but in the course of the break I find that sometimes the top board (I think it's the top board) collides with my little finger—maybe bounces up?—and cuts it on the side right at the first knuckle, or else leaves a nontrivial bruise there. Does that happen to anyone else? What do you do about it?

 

[Kacey]

I set up my boards on cinder blocks from Lowe's. I'll check to see if they have those roofing slabs...

meanwhile, I'm also interested in any insight anyone has on protecting your little finger from bruising/slicing on a knifehand break. I'm pretty sure that the only contact I make on my knifehand is with the muscular ridge between the base of the little finger knuckle and the palm/wrist line, but in the course of the break I find that sometimes the top board (I think it's the top board) collides with my little finger—maybe bounces up?—and cuts it on the side right at the first knuckle, or else leaves a nontrivial bruise there. Does that happen to anyone else? What do you do about it?

The board or tile bouncing up is part of it; but you also have to make sure that you stiffen your hand and fingers completely so they don't "flop" after the break, and I usually hit farther back than the base of the little finger - remembering that you get more force concentrated into your strike if the tool is smaller, I only use the bottom half of the knifehand, from the middle of the side of the palm to the palm/wrist line. You want to be careful to keep your wrist straight (wrists damage very easily - all those little bones), which means you have to adjust your angle with your body and arm rather than your hand and wrist. It's easy to demonstrate, but kind of hard to put into writing, sorry.

 

[exile]

...remembering that you get more force concentrated into your strike if the tool is smaller, I only use the bottom half of the knifehand, from the middle of the side of the palm to the palm/wrist line. You want to be careful to keep your wrist straight (wrists damage very easily - all those little bones), which means you have to adjust your angle with your body and arm rather than your hand and wrist. It's easy to demonstrate, but kind of hard to put into writing, sorry.

No, that's fine, Kacey, I think I know just what you're talking about— I've been very careful since my broken hand a couple of years ago to keep the actual contact region of the strike north of the wrist and south of the bony area just below my little finger, and turning my body so that it's slightly to the side of the striking arm and also slightly facing the open palm—much easier to keep that alignment true than if your body is right behind your arm, it seems. It's amazing how instructive a bit of pain and five months in a splint can be (though that was from a misaligned punching break)... and yes, the business about keeping the hand and fingers well together and rigid is very, very important—my instructor is a fanatic on that point, but it's probably something that I should try focusing even harder on. Mostly all goes well, but I'm wary when anything like even a small injury turns up...

Still, when the strike is good and clean, with a lot of power at the end from not a very large starting distance from the top board, and the break just seems to happen as your hand passes through the stack...there's no feeling like it! I think it must sound a little odd, but if I didn't know better I'd say that there something a bit addictive about breaking...

 

[Dave Leverich]

His will was strong my master, but he has joined us on the dark side.

But you cannot control it. This is a dangerous time for you, Exile.
You are now most susceptible to the temptations of the dark side.

Er yeah, breaking is addictive