Board Breaks

I was reflecting on the first week that I had began training with Sifu Schermbrucker and one day highlighted in my mind that I wanted to post up on my blog. . . here it happens to be the first day that we decided to do some board breaks.

I woke up that morning and was looking at the three sets of boards that I had layed out in front of me, trying to decide which ones would be the best to take. I decided that I wanted to take the hardest set of boards that I had to break, but I really was not sure which one that was, because they all had nice wide grain and no knots.
I decided to call my dad to see which ones I should take.

After a quite short discussion, we decided that I should take the first set, and my re breakable board.

I was actually feeling quite confident as I walked up to the field where I knew that Sifu Schermbrucker would be waiting to kick my butt once again, but I had this feeling that I was going to blast through those boards no problem.

So,
we started off with just the re breakable board, and we held it backwards so that it would be much harder to break, and I blasted through the board no problem with all four techniques.

We decided that it would be time for me to try and break the actual boards, so I set up in front of one, getting ready to do my palm heel strike. I took a step back, and projected foreword with probable one of my hardest strikes ever, and I bounced right off the board, which didn't break.

Okay, not really what I was aiming to happen but okay ill get it on my second try.

Almost forty - five minutes had gone by and I still had not broke a signal board with any of my techniques.

I'd have to admit that I was getting really discouraged and thinking that I wasn't as strong as I thought I was and that, even after countless hours of pounding on my heavy bag, I did not have the right technique.

But, of course, Sifu kept yelling at me to keep trying and that I was going to break a board today.

I did not end up breaking those boards.

So Sifu set the boards up between a brick and the ground and had me stomp on all of them one after another. . .
"the board cannot defeat you Katelyn"

After all of them were broken we picked them up and looked at how they broke.

Well,
Three of the boards didn't even break all of the way through, because they were still held together by splinters.
And the fourth board, I couldn't even break, Sifu had to break it for me.



But those boards did show me something very important that day, that was not only valuable to me, but could probably be valuable to others reading this too.

No matter WHAT. . . you cannot get yourself down on something that you cannot achieve right now. You just have to tell yourself to keep trying and someday, somehow you will succeed at what ever it is you are doing. Everyone has their limits, and they will get stronger when time and effort come into play.

I will break my boards, because I know that I have it in me to do it.

I must have a can do attitude when it comes to these things, because when I am in the moment, I can do anything that I set my mind to, and nothing can stand in my way, not even the boards that I cannot break.

I will be a leader, I will show everyone what I can do and how I have come to do it.
Because even if I fail I will have succeeded.