I know that Karate started here in the USA the idea of breaking boards but from Filipino Martial Arts viewpoint why waste a good board! Anyway it seems that everybody else breaks boards so it expect that we as Martial artist break them too. So occasionally I will break boards for demonstrations with my hands. To make it a good show I do it open palm as we fight. this also allows the Chi to flow. So yesterday at my Fire Station they had some scrap pine from a project and they asked to break  several boards as they had seen on a program that in Asia they broke boards to show how good they were. So I broke one then the other and then signed them. Now they have souvenir that a Mataw Guro of Arnis de Mano  broke boards just like they saw on TV. So times it I just find funny that people are so locked .