gongfu

 I decided to check the stats on my blog tonight, and I saw some of the tags that are leading people to my blog, the entries people are putting into search engines, which are leading them here. I was suprised. I also noticed, that a lot of readers, are making return visits. It doesn’t show me, who is doing what, and there isn’t anyway to find out, nor am I interested, so everyone’s privacy, is rest assured, quite in tact when it comes to my blog.

 One of the more common questions leading people to this site is “How to develop flexible legs”. I think this is an understandabley difficult question. Often, it seems to people like “the more I stretch, the more I realize how inflexible I am”. It’s really that way too. Getting flexible, particularly if your going about it wrong, can be very difficult. I would like to answer all of your questions in this one blog. I remember searching the internet, and constantly poking my teacher’s brains for years when I was younger. I found the answers, so I would really like to share them with you. You can feel free to ask any questions you have, on this topic, or any other, via the comment box. If I can’t answer it, I won’t make anything up, I want to preserve, and proliferate real gong fu.

 We’ll start with this. In order to achieve any of the various skills of gong fu, it is very helpful to look at that skill as a part of gong fu making the whole. All of the parts come together to form the whole. It is like a tree, with a root system, the foundation, a trunk, the method, and the branches, the various skills, with the leaves and blossoms, the evident and apparent gong fu. You don’t have leaves without branches, or branches without a trunk etc. The important initial point though, is that each branch of your gong fu, or each segment of your practice, should be looked at independent of the rest for the sake of real study. It should be understould, that it is all tightly connected, and that this dichotamic method of analysis is only for deeper practice.

 If you look at flexibility this way, you can really focus on it, independent of say, strong legs, high jumps or fast hands. This is the first and most important point. Next, it is important to realize that the way we think of the body in gong fu’s practice of flexibility is as “one long muscle” or rather we just constantly bear in mind that all of the muscles are interconnected. Therefore, we stretch the little finger, as often as we stretch the calves, and we stretch them both every single day.

 The next important point, is that warm muscles stretch, while cold muscles just tear. Doing external qigong, warmup exercises, kicking/punching drills or gong fu sequences prior to stretching will achieve real results and prevent injury. Contrary to popular belief, you will benefit more from stretching two or three times a day, than only once per day.

 When you stretch, you should not hold the breath, but slowing the breath, and controlling it is ok, as long as you respond to the natural rythm of the breath, i.e if you need to breath in do so, likewise if your body says it needs to breath out, and there should be no gap of hesitation. Otherise, breath naturally and make sure to relax the chest.

 You should hold each stretch, at the maximum capacity of the stretch for around one minute, after you have begun to develop strength in the stretch. That is, once your stretching motion feels stronger, you should hold the stretches longer, until each stretch is held for around one minute.

 The splits are desribed in another entry below, but the fingertips, when held together should be able to touch the top or bottom of the forearm with the assistance of the other hand. There are many other marks of deep stretching ability.

 The last important point, which is the pinnacle of a mind that becomes succesful in gong fu, is that you can never feel satisfied with anything that you attain. There is always much more to achieve. This saying, is not empty words, everyone with any gong fu at all would agree.

 Peace.

 Good luck.

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