Stretching...

[Chris Holloman]

Stretching is a very big part of my training but I have not seen much talk about this. I have a background from an early age in gymnastics and dance, and somewhat later in ballet and Tae Kwon Do. I have found that being limber helped me to be a better athlete (in particular football).

When I decided to become more active and begin pursuing the art of swordsmanship in earnest, I quickly discovered that I had lost much of my limberness and range of motion. Part of my training involved stretching so that I could regain what I had lost. I am happy to report that the results are good. I am not where I was 20 years ago (i just turned 40 last week) but I can tell a huge difference.

So, do you spend time stretching. Would anyone be interested in sharing some of the stretches they are doing? I think improved limberness will help any of us in this art...from foot work to range of motion...

Jesus blessings!
Bro. Chris

[J. Harvey]

I'm a bit older than you Chris and have lost much limberness too. I have come to realize it takes me a while to warm up or else something is gonna get pulled - and has. So I thank you for bringing up this topic. I believe all the old stretching exercises we did back when are still good but I would say as we get older it is even more important to remember to do a little lite-cardio warm up before stretching . And rember you can't bend as far as you used to, heck I could put both legs behind my head and walk on my hands in high school. I'd really like to know if anyone has any good shoulder stretches other than the old shoulder rolls and circles.

[Kody Tench]

I'm a bit older than you Chris and have lost much limberness too. I have come to realize it takes me a while to warm up or else something is gonna get pulled - and has. So I thank you for bringing up this topic. I believe all the old stretching exercises we did back when are still good but I would say as we get older it is even more important to remember to do a little lite-cardio warm up before stretching . And rember you can't bend as far as you used to, heck I could put both legs behind my head and walk on my hands in high school. I'd really like to know if anyone has any good shoulder stretches other than the old shoulder rolls and circles.

I like to stretch for at least 5 mins before practice and among the streches I do I like to take my sword and hold it as if halfswording with my left hand around shoulder height and stretch my right up while holding the handle as far as I can up and over my head, it works well enough to pop my shoulders and limber them up you do half to do both sides though. Take halfsword straight out in front of you stretch out then slowly without moving hands and without excessive bending of elbows take the sword over tour head and as far back as you comfortably can. Don't know if it helps you but it works great for me.

[Allen Johnson]

This is all you need: http://www.mobilitywod.com/

The guy is like this mobility Jedi...great stuff.