from the July, 2015 issue of Kiai!

Facing the Board: Success Regardless of Whether the Board Breaks

By Erin Epperson
Advanced Brown Belt

I’ve had an on-again/off-again relationship with tameshiwari (board breaking) over the years. There are days when I’ve felt strong, confident, and empowered. And there have been days I’ve felt disempowered, frustrated and disappointed in myself.  In the past, those days have always corresponded precisely to whether or not I was “successful” in my attempted breaks. In other words, how I felt about tameshiwari was always dependent on whether or not the board broke.


Erin Epperson faces a board during the board breaking event of Spirit Challenge.

I had a different experience during the Spirit Challenge 2015 Beginner/Intermediate Board Breaking workshop on Saturday June 27.

I attempted four different breaks that day. I “successfully” broke two boards, each on the first try. And I attempted two other breaks, each with two attempts. In total I hurled bits of my body at wooden boards six times throughout that workshop.

And I consider it to be six successes.

You see, when the board represents a fear or a challenge in your life, whether or not the board broke may not ultimately be the most important thing.

In life, when we encounter things that we fear, or other obstacles in our life, sometimes the realistic goal isn’t to break through them. No matter how hard we work, however hard we try sometimes things in life don’t go the way we want them to go. Does that mean we have failed? If the board doesn’t break, is that a failure?

Sometimes the most important thing is that we simply face them. For me, facing each board was like facing an ocean of fears, anxieties, insecurities, and pain. As I progressed throughout the workshop, I perpetually faced the competing desires to cry, to curl up into a ball, and to run and hide.  I did neither. I would have felt no shame had I actually cried. But that was not what struck me the most about my experience.

With each attempted break – whether or not the board actually broke – I felt something profound. I felt dignity, I felt patience, and I felt strong. I remember clearly my last attempted break that day: a backwards driving elbow. I attempted twice, and twice the board remained unbroken. I turned, bowed, assertively and calmly said, “I’m done.” 

I could have tried a third time. I was encouraged to by my senpai. In the moment I had a feeling the board actually would break that third time. Looking back I feel confident that it would have. But I have no regrets. Because that was not why I faced the board. I hadn’t faced the board to break it; I had faced the board simply to face the board.

In past tameshiwari experiences I would have felt compelled to keep going. I would keep attempting until either the board broke or I was too bruised or injured to continue. This time I did neither and I feel even more empowered for it. As I discovered in that moment of strong assertion, I didn’t need the catharsis from one more broken board to feel good about myself, to feel confident or strong.

In life, when we face things that scare us, that challenge us, sometimes they don’t turn out the way we hope. And that can be disappointing and can feel disempowering. But maybe it doesn’t have to. In whatever we do in life, there will be times when we try and we don’t “succeed”.  Does that invalidate the effort? Or is there something, perhaps equally valuable, to be learned from the experience of facing the unbroken “boards” in our life with dignity and equanimity?

As I strive to improve in this area of my art, I consider my success to be not the number of boards I will break in the future. That is no longer my goal. My goal is to strive to face every board – both broken and unbroken – with patience, self-love, and equanimity.

Osu!