Flexibility

Flexibility is always an important component of one's martial arts training. It's not only about the ability to kick higher, but rather the ability for us to move easily and with confidence, knowing we are less likely to be injured if we have maximum flexibility. Flexibility helps in several ways: we can achieve longer steps or stances, we can kick with greater speed, we have greater range of motion, and being flexible allows the energy travelling through our meridians to flow with greater ease; hence, promoting improved health and sustained vitality.

I strongly advocate 20-30 minutes of stretching to the entire body for 2-3 times a week minimum. Then, we can get away with a few minutes of stretching during warm ups the other days of the week, so we can still sustain our flexibility while still being able to work on other aspects of our conditioning and strengthening and training. I believe that initially it is good to review the stretching methods you are familiar with, but then after a period of time, it may be a good challenge to gently add in other types of stretches to cultivate additional flexibility. As we all know the keys to steady progress are gentle, controlled stretching, done regularly.