Tamishiwari.....Gone wrong!

Welcome to the What not to do on Tamishiwari, which is a really cool term for breaking stuff in Japanese!

In my youth we had a TV show, that’s incredible, that aired Saturday nights and every kid would sit back and marvel at the amazing acts and skills of martial artists and other stunt people. Some of the ones that always caught my eye were the breaking acts. Ice, wood, glass…you name it! So, this was the basis for my starting the silly act of breaking stuff….and hurting myself…now this is my guide of how not to break things…or how not to look like an arse!

Two by four equals stupid kid tricks:
When I was younger I used to break smaller boards all the time, scrap wood my dad would leave around after carpentry work, scraps of wood at school or on the street if I could find one. It was all good, but then one day a buddy of mind found a three foot section of two by four and I wanted to give it a whirl. Now anyone that knows anything about breaking knows that it is a trick! The boards are baked and they use slim wood most of the time….I, however, did not know this.

So, my buddy got a bunch of kids together and I was supposed to break this thing at lunch.
Back ground…my dad was a teacher at the school I went to and I was in grade six, way to young to be breaking anything let alone a two by four. I tried my best to build up the courage to break this thing while cursing my buddy under my breath, I wound up and slammed my young forearm into the two by four….breaking the wrist and causing what I can only describe as the worst kind of pain to shutter threw my body! I puked so hard because of the pain, then had to explain to my father why I had just tried to snap a board that was perhaps four times wider than my arm and a hell of a lot harder!

That was my first mistake!

Coke bottle Not just for drinking out of anymore!
Junior high is a funny time for most guys, more so for me because I had just gotten out of a school my father was a teacher at and was next door at the junior high school and finally away from a parent. Back in the day My nick name was the Karate kid! Which was funny because I got that nick name before Ralph Machio came out with his first movie!
We also had glass coke bottle, yah, we are to blame for the horrible shape the environment being so screwed up and for those geeky memorabilia collectors! So, one night on the “that’s incredible” show a guy snaps the necks off of a bear bottle as he is warming up for his show! I thought that was the coolest thing I had ever seen! I had to try it, so, New buddy and I go out and grab some pop at the local store and drink them all down so I had several targets. My buddy and I sat down on a school bench and I tried to figure out the trick! I thought it had to do with the angle of the “Kratty chop” and lined up the bottle with the side of my hand. I was really hoping for a big pop and the top to flip off into the air…..that did not happen! I brought my arm back and then proceeded to swing it as hard and fast as I could and finally it made contact with the first bottle!

Now one thing that has to be said is that I was not thinking past the first bottle….and had not move the others out of the line of fire, they were all basically sitting in a row about a foot away from the first bottle! The first bottle did not break when I hit it….but it sure did when it hit the other bottles. Now that would be funny except for two things! One, I sliced threw my wrist and forearm as the bottles smashed apart and basically blew up, and two…but buddy got a face full of glass shards as he was standing in the way of the cloud of glass that was produced by the rapid succession of debris hitting and exploding bottles of empty coke! Not a good break I would guess…and do you ever wonder why all the bottles normally broken in these demos are wine bottles, beer bottles or the like?

Flaming board
I think I have mentioned this one to you guys before so I will not do much of a lead up. I was going to break a board in my back yard when I was in high school and after a few disasters at this in the past you would think I would have been smart about it…but I wasn’t. Instead of being happy with just breaking a board I had to get a buddy to pour lighter fluid on the damn thing to the point of creating a lake of flammable liquid on the wood! And then…I tried to break it and lit my whole arm on fire! Not bright...well not smart, that fire was very bright…but thankfully I lived on a man-made lake and had just enough time to dive into the lake arm first! I don’t break things on fire anymore!

Baseball bat
I once saw a guy smash through a baseball bat with his shin, you also see baseball players do the same to bats over their thigh……I tried it….I am now officially leaving that act to the crazy people and the baseball players. I tried it at home once and basically my shin blew up like a grape fruit had been placed under the skin and the bat was fine….and don’t hit it in the thicker part if you want a nice break! Of the bat that is!!

Door
When I worked in the security area of a retirement home I was called one time to kick in a door when a resident was suspected of having died! It was not a nice feeling as the person may be hurt or in distress and the only other keys than the ones the owner had were in Phoenix with is son, we were told to boot the door in and fix it later!
I tried to shove it in, and that did not work, I ran into it with my shoulder and that did not work!......and it hurt like hell! (don’t believe what you see on tv…it is not easier with your shoulder).

So, I stood back and ran at the door with a Jumping side kick! I shattered the door at the point were my leg was and ended up with my leg half way through the door, problem was that the poor old guy had died two weeks before that and was baking in his own juices for two weeks, in a heat wave! The smell hit me and the caretaker at the same time and their I was Gaging and fighting the impulse to throw up……. hanging half in and half out of this crypt of an apartment. The old timer had some mental issues and had made a air tight seal around the doors and windows with paper he had wadded up! We had no idea of what we were getting into till it was WAY to late. The whole hall had to be taped off with plastic to keep the stench from traveling and my suite had to be burned it stunk so bad. I will never forget the time I successfully pulled a Chuck Norris on a door!

The Grand break
Every once and a while you want to impress a friend, girl or the crowd and you figure you will do something a bit different. One year I was doing a demo and along with forms, fighting sets and some fun self-defense demos I was asked to do a break! I normally don’t do them in public for the humiliation factor and the “crap that was not supposed to happen” factor! But the guy that asked was a senior and it was his club I was doing a demo for at a local fair. He brought the wood and asked if I would break some wood! Fine I thought and looked over the wood…it was oak…and my heart dropped. Hard ass wood and probably better suited for a cabinet or something! I love oak but not for breaking!
So I had about two minutes to prep for this demo as others were getting ready to start their part. I did the self-defense demo and then was on the side for a minute to show a junior how to hold the wood. I grabbed three actually and they all had different ways to hold the wood. I did not have time to look at the wood and that probably would have helped. Not knowing how strong the wood is or how it will break was a big problem. So I felt I would just nail the first one and go from their!
The first board was hard, I had the junior hold the wood out at the end of his arms reach and punched straight threw it, it snapped but it had some kick to it. The next break was a kick and it went over fairly well, the board had give but was a tough piece to break. The last one was going to be a Knife hand break and the kid holding the board was one of my students and I trusted him to hold the board really tight.
I jumped over after the kick and lined up mentally the strike, brought my arm to the wood and as I made contact I was going full force to get through the wood…..but this piece gave way so easy it was not funny, a fault in the wood (that was only visible from the other side) made this break really easy. The wood probably would have broken if the student had simply dropped the piece! My hand launched through the wood with such ease that the force was hard to pull back on, I ended up going right through the wood and into the face and chest of my student. The eruption of blood and the gush of wind coming out of his nose as I hit his chest blew blood all over me and the other students in the area, but thankfully it was right at the end of the demo and he had fallen off the stage into a group of other students. We just left the stage like that was supposed to happen, and most of the crowed did not even notice us leave with him in tow. I had broken his nose and felt really bad. All his father said was “for a little guy you really hit hard”!
Three weeks later he was back in class working out, I have not done a breaking demo in public since and he probably won’t be to quick to volunteer to do demos anymore. Moral of the story is twofold here gang, don’t break wood you have not looked at, and don’t volunteer to hold a chunk of wood for a crazy Canuck!!

Long board
One time in Senior high I helping my father with a construction job at our new house and I happened upon a nice chunk of wood to break, I was very much into breaking at this point and always looking for something to shatter! I placed the wood between two horses, about four feet apart and hankered down to break it! I thought it would be dynamic as it was a long board and would make a great big snapping noise when it broke…..it did, but as I smashed the board the two pieces pivoted around my arm and the two opposite arms came flying up and nailed me in the head, one side breaking my safety glasses and the other hitting me hard hat. I was not hurt to bad, but I was shaken up….once the shock of getting hit in the face and head was done….All I could think was “Man that was dumb”…now if only I had realized that before I broke my glasses.

Ice brick
One of the nice things about living in Canada is that we have lots of Ice! One year a guy on “that’s incredible” broke a pile of Ice bricks…..that was cool. So, a few of my friends and I got together and made Ice bricks, not as thick as the guy on TV used, but we made about twelve bricks that were about two feet long and one foot wide. They were not as thick, his were about a half foot thick and ours were a quarter foot thick!
So, I piled four on top of each other and began my deep breathing to get ready for the break…I have no idea what deep breathing has to do with breaking but everyone seems to do it before they break something. To me it only give you time to figure out this is a really dumb idea! It was March and the snow was starting to melt, the ice had a glint of water on it already and I began to mentally count down to the big moment!
One thing that I should have figured out before the break was that I had no spacers between the bricks. A detail a young eye did not catch on the show, and a very important one. See the spacers act as a way of breaking up the mass, without them I did not have four separate bricks of Ice one quarter of a foot wide, I had a one foot thick chunk of Canadian, home grown, Ice that would react as one unit! With spacers I would only have to break the first one and the force would be transferred to the next, IE less work to do!
I had my hand raised and it was starting to drop onto the cold brick bellow, I must have had one of those, wait…”what would mom say”…moments because I decelerated my arm just enough to show I was not going full boar at the Ice! And my arm bounced off the brick with a sickening thud!
One of my friends began explaining to me that I had to concentrate my energy to my arm and really believe I could go through the brick of Ice, He was the biggest in the group and a hell of a fine Hockey hooligan at that! A tough kid with forearms like Popeye and a French Canadian accent that always made me think he was a bit slow! He pushed me aside and began to do the same deep breathing act that I had just started…but with more believability rolled in! He raised his arm up high, his eyes went wide and he kind of looked like a crazy Voyager getting ready to bash a Beaver over the head! His arm crashed down at break neck pace and no breaks were applied as his arm bashed into the ice block! The scream and French swear words that came after is something I will never ever forget!

I learned a lot that day, like most French swears are very religious in nature and to properly curse you have to bring the pope and at least one cardinal into the terms that you use! Oh, and use spacers or you will break your Ulna and Radius when your dumb ass arm hits an unbreakable Ice block.
The next day My father accidentally hit that same block with the snow blower and it broke the darn snow blower…I don’t think a sixteen year olds arm stood a chance!

Paraffin wax
For those of you not familure with Paraffin wax, we use it to give a deep heat treatment to athletes that have injuries; it is also great to soak your hands in after working on the bag, as long as you are not hurt! It takes away aches and pains really well if heat is called for…but it has to be heated up or it is very hard stuff.
One year I was in College taking massage therapy and we had to replace the wax in the bath (basically a two foot tub to soak your arm or leg in) and the brick was way to big for the bath. It would not melt down so it did not work! Well, the instructor of the lab knew I was a black belt in Karate and asked me to break the brick, they normally used a hammer. Not knowing much about the wax I thought it would be easy!
So, I got one of the guys to hold this brick of paraffin, about two feet wide, one foot long and about a ¼ foot thick! I thought it would break apart easy and I would look real good so I had people take pictures of the whole thing.

First time out I punched the brick, I figured it would be easier than using a knife hand and boy was I wrong. First punch was full force and landed with a “thunk”, the guy holding it knew something was wrong, My knuckles went in and as the wax condensed it got solid! I knew something was wrong when my wrist and hand Screamed at me and pain shot up my hand! Now I will never admit defeat….especially when cameras are on me….. so I lined up again and told the guy, Cory to hold it really steady! He was very nervous and I think he knew I could not break this friggin’ thing! Second punch landed and the brick of wax shifted in Cory’s hands, my wrist bent as the wax pivoted and I almost nailed Cory in the face.
I now sat there with two knuckle prints in the wax and nothing more to show of it other than a rapidly swelling hand! Now it was do or die time!

I sat back a second and realized Cory would not be able to hold the wax the way I would need IF I was going to try another punch, and quickly thought…time for the knife hand! I arched my arm back and had Cory hold the chunk of wax on an angle facing slightly up and then my arm shot down and smashed into the thick piece of wax. The pain was incredible, my little finger broke and was crushed at the second knuckle and my arm felt like it bounced off a steel girder….But the Brick broke! Actually it shattered like glass would into shards of flying wax, and sprayed out across the room. That I got on film as well, but more my back as the camera people all stood behind me!
Now, I found out I had torn the tissue between my knuckles in my hand, broke my little finger and had deep bruising in tendons of my wrist as well as bone bruising in my hands! Not worth the break in my opinion! To be honest the little finger apparently is prone to breaking as I had broken it in a different way in Judo and baseball in the past…it hurt just as bad on the wax by the way!

Now, I have a tone of stories about successful breaks and some mildly funny ones about how to break and when it works out, but not the way you thought, but this is a set of breaks gone very much wrong. For those of you looking to get into breaking…don’t, it is stupid and normally only flashy crap that does not really amount to much more than a bit of show off time. Oh, and multiple fractures, stitches and humiliation!