Stretching Menu

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

Flexibility for Taido

Since post­ing the Stretching Challenge, I’ve got­ten some good feed­back and com­ments. I really appre­ci­ate every­one shar­ing their own expe­ri­ences here.

On the chal­lenge post, I embed­ded a video of me per­form­ing and explain­ing the essen­tial com­po­nents of my cur­rent stretch­ing rou­tine. As I wrote then, all of these move­ments (and more) are included in Paul Zaichik’s Elastic Steel course, which I am using to regain my flexibility.

Have you been stretching?

The video turned out to be about 25 min­utes long. Since it’s not con­ve­nient to watch every time you want to stretch, I thought I ‘d post a list of the move­ments here. You can print this out and slip it in your gym bag or tape it to your TV. Whatever works.

Remember, you don’t have to do exactly what I do on the video. As I men­tion towards the end, there are five main com­po­nents you need to shoot for:

  • Joint movement
  • Light stretches
  • Muscle strengthening
  • Muscle fatigue
  • Deep stretching

However you choose to get those in is up to you. Use what­ever spe­cific stretches and move­ment you like or feel best address your own weak­nesses. The video is sim­ply an exam­ple of the kinds of things I per­son­ally plug into the template.

That said, here’s the list of move­ments I’m doing on the video:

  • Joint Movements
    • neck
    • shoul­ders, elbows, wrists
    • spine — tho­racic and lumbar
    • hips, knees, ankles
  • Shake Out
  • Dynamic Stretches
    • leg swings to front, side, and back
  • Light Stretches
    • lying knee-to-chest
    • wind remov­ing pose
    • spinal rocks to plough pose
    • seated ankle-over-knee
    • 1/2 spinal twist / pir­i­formis stretch
    • adduc­tor stretch to pigeon pose
    • foot dor­si­flexor stretch
    • calf stretch on wall and floor
    • abdom­i­nal walk-outs
    • upward dog pose
    • down­ward dog pose
    • child pose to twisted child pose
    • shoul­der stretches
    • wrist stretches
    • 1/4 front split / hip flexor lunge
    • inner thigh stretch
    • neck stretches
  • Strength Exercises
    • For the dojo
      • enmei no hokei
      • super-wide kamae and unsoku
    • For home
      • pis­tol / single-leg squat
      • alter­nat­ing split (eji­dachi) hops
  • Kick Exercises
    • sta­tic leg raise-and-hold to front, side, and back
    • extended leg cir­cles in kick­ing positions
  • Thigh Strengthening
    • adduc­tor lift
    • adduc­tor lift with resis­tance band
    • adduc­tor stretch with resis­tance band
    • inter­nal rota­tion lift
    • exter­nal rota­tion lift
    • exter­nal rota­tion with resis­tance band
  • Deep Stretches
    • tucked single-leg ham­string stretch
    • hip flexor bounce
    • hip flexor / thigh stretch
    • deeper inner thigh stretch
    • 1/2 side split
    • strad­dle stretch to side split

Remember, there’s a lot more to the Elastic Steel course than this. That doesn’t mean you can’t make progress on a shorter pro­gram, but I do encour­age set­ting aside at least twenty min­utes per ses­sion. Really try to stretch at least three times each week.

There’s not really much more to add — I did my best to explain the impor­tant points on the video. If you have any ques­tions of sug­ges­tions, please post them in the comments.

Series NavigationStretching Challenge
6 Responses to Stretching Menu
  1. Krista

    Hi Andy,

    I’m glad I got the oppor­tu­nity to fol­low you back to your blog. I’d never heard of Taido before and it sounds fas­ci­nat­ing. What a resource! I’ve added you to my RSS feed and look for­ward to read­ing more of your posts. You’ve inspired me to become more flex­i­ble. Might even have to take you up on your stretch­ing challenge…

    • andy

      Thanks Krista. I’ve been enjoy­ing read­ing your blog as well.

      Though Taido and Gojo have very lit­tle in com­mon on the sur­face, they share the com­mon fun­da­men­tals that make all mar­tial arts work. More than that, Taido’s cre­ator was also a mas­ter of Okinawan Koryu, so our tech­niques do have a lot of that influ­ence (though it’s some­times very subtle).

  2. Hannes

    Hi Andy!

    Thanks for the list, I will actu­ally take you up on your chal­lenge, mostly because I really need it: par­tic­i­pated in the Swedish cham­pi­onships two days ago and my body feels stiffer than ever! This might be due to the com­bi­na­tion of get­ting cold between matches, lousy stretch­ing after­wards, a sore thigh and a long ride home, but on the other hand that’s just whin­ing… Actually, one of the com­ments after­wards from the judges on my hokei was that my ebi geri was a bit low, so I really need to loosen up.

    Noticed (from the video) that either you have been fol­low­ing your own pro­gram for a while, or you’re just very self crit­i­cal about your own flex­i­bil­ity (i.e. I should really be more self crit­i­cal!). Anyway, look for­ward to get a bit more flex­i­ble than today! Hopefully, this will help me a lot in my prac­tice and teaching.

    Cheers!

    • andy

      Thanks Hannes! And con­grats on your great work in the cham­pi­onships — I’m hop­ing to see some video soon.

      Actually, I had only been stretch­ing con­sis­tently for a cou­ple of days when I did the video. I’ve improved since then, and I plan to post a follow-up with my results so far before long. I think that I’m very flex­i­ble in cer­tain move­ments that I do often and remem­ber to prac­tice, but I’ve got a few areas (like my ham­strings) that I have a hard time keep­ing lim­ber (because of injuries and laziness).

      If you try adding a rou­tine like this, you should really let us all know how it goes after a few weeks. Maybe you can help con­vince some peo­ple to give it a shot.

      (As a side note regard­ing ebigeri, you may also look into strength­en­ing your lower back. Also, make sure to look at the floor because look­ing at the kick will cause your back to round and your kick to drop.)

      Cheers, indeed!

      • Hannes

        Thanks for the tip about the lower back, I’ll try that! I really see no point in look­ing at the leg in ebi geri though, unless you want to stop the kick (con­ve­nient in jis­sen, for exam­ple ;) ), but good point.

        Of course we all have bet­ter and worse parts of the body, for me it’s the upper body (espe­cially my back and shoul­ders) that need more atten­tion, so I’ll add some exer­cises for that. I’ll try my best to fol­low the prin­ci­ples you men­tion above.

        I’ll keep you posted on my progress (or lack of it…), and I’ll try to find time to upload some clips from the cham­pi­onships in the near future.

        • andy

          Yeah, I meant don’t look at the kick. I didn’t know if you were, but I see a lot of peo­ple mak­ing that mis­take lately, so I wanted to men­tion it just in case.

          Excellent. If you come up with any good shoul­der stretches, let me know.

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