Stretching for Taido

This entry is part 1 of 6 in the series Flexibility for Taido

I believe that attribute train­ing is just as impor­tant as skill train­ing. Most Taido prac­tices are about devel­op­ing skills — and this is prob­a­bly the most effi­cient use of class time — but poor attrib­utes (strength, mobil­ity, endurance, and flex­i­bil­ity) will limit your per­for­mance of those skills.

If you want to get more out of your Taido train­ing, you should really work on devel­op­ing your phys­i­cal attrib­utes out­side of prac­tice. One of the most basic ways to do this is by improv­ing your flex­i­bil­ity. It’s rel­a­tively easy for any­one to accom­plish this in their spare time at home. And it can make a huge dif­fer­ence in your Taido per­for­mance because it makes every move­ment easier.

I’ve writ­ten pretty exten­sively on why we need to stretch and how to do it. I even took some sexy video in my bed­room to illus­trate my rec­om­men­da­tions. Check out the arti­cles below to find out how you can make your exist­ing skills more effec­tive and effortless.

You're Probably Stretching Wrong

This entry is part 2 of 6 in the series Flexibility for Taido

I’ll get right to the point. Every dojo I’ve ever prac­ticed at does stretches, but very few peo­ple at any of these dojo ever seem to get very flex­i­ble. There’s a good rea­son for this: most peo­ple are stretch­ing wrong. This arti­cle is about stretch­ing right. Just look at the num­ber of peo­ple who have been doing…

Poll Results: How Flexible Are You?

This entry is part 3 of 6 in the series Flexibility for Taido

Overall, the con­sen­sus is, I can move pretty well, but there’s always room for improve­ment. It looks like most Taidoka are pretty com­fort­able with their cur­rent lev­els of flex­i­bil­ity, but rec­og­nize that they could ben­e­fit from more (or more effec­tive) stretch­ing. Here’s how the results for each response broke down: How Flexible Are You? 52%  —  I can move pretty…

Why Flexibility is Important in Taido

This entry is part 4 of 6 in the series Flexibility for Taido

In my last arti­cle (You’re Probably Stretching Wrong), I wrote that the stan­dard 5 minute warm-up stretch is inad­e­quate for build­ing flex­i­bil­ity. That’s no big deal  —  we can just stretch for longer. How much stretch­ing are we talk­ing about here any­way? I’ll sug­gest 15 to 20 min­utes, at least three times a week. Why Spend Time Stretching?

Stretching Challenge

This entry is part 5 of 6 in the series Flexibility for Taido

If you haven’t been fol­low­ing Taido/Blog lately (and shame on you if that’s the case), you should read the first two posts in this series before con­tin­u­ing. Here they are: You’re Probably Stretching Wrong Why Flexibility is Important in Taido Those posts really lay the ground­work for what’s to fol­low, so please read them to make sure…