The Power of the Break
- International Association of ESD Professionals
- Reading time: 20 min
I’ll start by making an admission: I learned everything I know about ESD by teaching it.
I’ll start by making an admission: I learned everything I know about ESD by teaching it.
What? Well, I created an Empowerment Self Defense curriculum called ASSERT about 20 years ago, before I knew that ESD was already “a thing.” I created it out of necessity. You see, my oldest son was being bullied in middle school (years 5-7 for my international friends.) He had been assaulted and robbed by upper classmen on more than one occasion, and he needed a self-defense class. As a concerned mom, I jumped into action, looking for a program for him.
What I found was that there were no self-defense programs that allowed boys or young men to train that were not feeders for a martial arts program. The self-defense programs that were not martial arts based were female-only and based on reactionary, fearful response, at least in Miami in the 2000s.
This is how my partner and I fell into creating a new program; one that was gender-inclusive and revolved around prevention, responsiveness, and personal discovery. In other words, we reinvented the wheel because the existence of the wheel was not common knowledge. So, ASSERT was born.
We had a great starting point, but we knew nothing.
Our First Clients
With a solid plan for teaching, a curriculum that revolved around boundary setting, and a lot of experience teaching other subjects, we set out to look for clients. We were hired by an in-patient eating disorder clinic for women based in Miami. Then we panicked.
We—my husband Cat and I—formed a co-ed teaching team. We knew what we needed to do, but knowing and practicing are two very different things. So began our ESD Education. We learned a tremendous amount from our students; in every single class we learned how to better deliver our program, how to be flexible and adaptable in order to best serve our students, and about ourselves as instructors and teachers. Our students taught us our first lesson about the Power of the Break – board breaking, that is.
Being involved in martial arts for many years before beginning our ESD journey, we knew how empowering breaking a board could be. We had seen, firsthand, a kid walk up to a board feeling weak and defeated and walk away with a broken board in hand feeling like a superhero. But all of those boards were anonymous and bare. The women of the clinic wanted to decorate theirs. They brought out the markers, paints, and colored pencils they would normally use for Art Therapy and went to town. Cat was already an expert at board selection and the psychology behind each choice; so, he handed a carefully chosen board to each student, and they proceeded to spend, at their request, the next 30 minutes—one whole half of our time together that day—decorating their boards.
They turned on music, they chatted, they talked about everything they had learned in our classes with them and the things they had learned about themselves during their therapy sessions, and they started to decorate. In the process–which we mostly just watched with curiosity and joy–they decided they would decorate their boards with things they wanted to break through: obstacles they were facing, their trauma.
After about 30 minutes, they felt their boards were adequately reflective of their journeys and decided it was time to break. One by one, they each came up and took their best swings, sometimes breaking on the first try, sometimes on the 10th , cheering each other on as best they could—from nearly immobile positions on the sofas to standing and cheering—but never giving up; they all broke their boards. Then, it happened.
It was organic. It was primal. It was deep.
Without a word, the first one threw her broken board in the middle of the group with a ROAR (an exercise we do in class). Then another and another, until all of their boards were in a pile in the center of the room. They locked arms, helping hold up the women that could barely walk, and they started chanting, roaring, and dancing around the pile. The only thing missing was a match to set the boards on fire.
Thing is, they did not need a match. They were the fire.
I would like to say that this group graduated from the program and successfully carried on without having to return to treatment, but that would be a lie. We saw many of them again as they returned for continued or renewed treatment. Healing is not a linear process. But they all always came back to that moment when they knew that they had more than enough strength, that, like Dumbo, they never needed the feather.
We learned that the board is meaningless. It is what we believe the board to be that matters. And that, sometimes, just projecting that meaning onto the board is not enough. Sometimes, you need to see the words, the pictures, the story, staring you right in the face. Need proof? Ok.
The Unbreakable Board
A couple of years later, we took on a new client. It was at a home for kids aging out of Foster Care. These were the kids that never went back to their biological parents, who did not have any family members willing or able to take them in, and who were never adopted. They bounced around from Foster Home to Foster Home, usually wearing donated clothing, using donated backpacks, wearing old shoes. Often abused within the Foster Homes and mostly forgotten by the Care system until they needed to be placed with a new caretaker.
By the time they reached the age of 18, they were kicked out of the Florida Foster Care system, regardless of whether they had the skills to take care of themselves or even a place to land. So, this program was important. Really Important!
We began with the Women’s House. We developed a six-week course for them through which the different groups in their care would cycle. This was our first group. We had also agreed that while I taught the Women’s groups, Cat would teach the Men’s, so I would go in and teach on my own. There were 25 women in that group, and they all hit like Mack Trucks!
Thank goodness for my training.
One of the women, we’ll call her Jane, tended to always stay quiet and sit in the back. All of her group mates talked her up as being tough as nails, the most likely to make it out of all of them. They saw her as untouched and untouchable. She was athletic, strong, and, indeed, really tough. She seemed unafraid of anything. She dressed almost entirely in athletic clothing and, if I remember correctly, had a very physical job, which kept her in shape.
At the end of the six-week course, I came in ready for board breaking. Having taken the lessons on flexibility in class and technique and decorating the boards from the clinic, I brought in boxes of boards to break, giving me the ability to choose specific boards for specific people, and a host of markers and art supplies for them to use on their boards. I passed everything out and they all went to town, with nearly all of them making small groups to share supplies and jumping from group to group. Most of them, except Jane.
Jane took one red marker and sat towards the back of the training space on her own. I could hear the rest of the group call her over on a few occasions and talk about going to sit with her in others, but no one moved. It was understood. The group let her know she was loved by asking; they also knew what she wanted was solitude, and they respected it. And so, they all decorated.
It was finally board breaking time! This is always when the students really let go. They cheer, they encourage, they hug, and dance, and jump around. They marvel at the strength they did not know they had. Bruce Lee, one of the most famous martial artists in history, famously said, “Boards don’t hit back,” as a critique of the board breaking practice, saying that it’s meaningless. He clearly never held a board like this, for this purpose, for these people.
We started with volunteers. The first few jumped at the idea to explore their strength. Blam! Blam! Blam! Each board break was met with inexhaustible energy and celebration. Whenever there was a lull in volunteers, I would warn them of the “Volun-told” policy, which would make them laugh and get another person up to break. And then, there was only one person left, Jane.
She had been avoiding the break the entire class. Her group mates kept encouraging her to go up, to which she would reply, “You all go first. My break won’t be all that.” And now, finally, there was no one else but her.
We make it a rule to never read or examine what is written on the boards. It is up to the board breaker to share that with us if they choose. But, sometimes, the writing is big and clear, and we inadvertently catch a couple of words here and there. Jane’s board was covered in red words. Some big, some small. I noticed a handful of words: “Rape” was written in huge letters, the words “Father,” “Time,” and “Prison” were smaller but also huge. I tried to look away to honor her privacy.
I always hold the boards when I am teaching alone.
She walked up, handed me her board, I took my position and reminded her to hit the board the same way she hits the pads. She lined up her hand, reared back in preparation for the break, and barreled in. But within centimeters of the board, she slowed and barely even touched the board. Needless to say, it did not break. The group was stunned, but undeterred in their encouragement. Jane was terrified.
We tried everything: Every board hold I know; I had the entire group stand behind her with their hands on her shoulders for support; they stood behind me to help hold the board; we tried elbow strikes, knee strikes, palm strikes, and stomps. Nothing. I assured her that we were not leaving her behind, that if she wanted to break that board, we would all be there until she did. We kept trying, the group kept cheering, I kept holding and trying new things to help her succeed. Nothing.
What was she afraid of? She was a strong, fit woman entirely capable of turning that pine board to splinters with one hit. We all knew it. Why didn’t she?
The house coordinators came in and said it was time to go. I told Jane that if she wanted to break that board, I would stay until she did. She still couldn’t. As a last resort, I held for another attempt at a stomp, but, this time, I made up an excuse to flip the board over. The entire board was covered in writing, but those huge words happened to be on one side and she kept facing that side. The other side of the board had similarly heartbreaking reminders of her trauma, but those few, huge, words were now on the other side of the board, that she couldn’t see. I asked her to take a deep breath and ROAR as she stomped
The. Board. Exploded!
It broke in two pieces, each half flying in different directions. The entire group, including the House Coordinators erupted into cheers. They hugged Jane in a massive pile-up of arms and screams and crying. The emotional release the group felt when she finally broke… Sure, they had all broken their own boards, but, for them, Jane came to represent the things they didn’t put on those boards, the things they were afraid they would not be able to break through. They became Jane.
Jane, for her part, was quiet. I handed her the halves of her board and she just looked at them, putting the board back together and taking the halves apart, reading the words while lingering on a few. And realizing that she broke it. The Unbreakable Board.
So, What Was She Afraid Of?
She was afraid of what that meant. “If I could have done this all along, why didn’t I do it then?”
Anything worth learning should make us ask two things. The first is, “Who am I now that I have this new knowledge?” That is a tough question to answer. It requires self-reflection, self-awareness, and openness to change.
The second question is far tougher, “What does this say about the person I used to be?”
Falling into the judgement trap is easy. Crawling out of it feels impossible. So, let me help you derail it
You are here. You survived. You did the best that you could with the information that you had at the time. And guess what! It worked! You may have scars, but you made it through. And now, you have more information from which to move; you have experience, you have learnings, and you have this board—the one you broke to get here.
We all face that Unbreakable Board. We all experience the Power of the Break.
About the IAESDP
The International Association of Empowerment Self Defense Professionals (IAESDP) is dedicated to advancing the field of Empowerment Self Defense (ESD) as a powerful tool for violence prevention, personal safety, and social change. Committed to evidence-based strategies and trauma-informed approaches, IAESDP brings together instructors, researchers, and advocates to promote best practices in self-defense training worldwide.
Our mission is to equip individuals with practical skills, strengthen communities, and advocate for policies that foster safety and empowerment for all—especially those at increased risk of violence. IAESDP supports its members through professional development, certification programs, research initiatives, and international collaborations.
By fostering a global movement for empowerment-based self-defense, IAESDP strives to create a world free of gender-based violence, oppression, and discrimination, ensuring that everyone has access to the knowledge and tools to stand up for their safety and dignity.
For more information, visit www.esdprofessionals.org or contact us:
Claude Jonkmans
Communications Manager
International Association of Empowerment Self Defense Professionals (IAESDP)
communications@esdprofessionals.org
www.esdprofessionals.org