A question for dancer's and yoga practioners.

Can anyone give me any advice on the type of stretches, I can do to be able to do a complete split. My splits are pretty good but I am not yet able to touch the floor completely. I'm doing this to improve my flexability for martial arts. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. :D

Make sure to warm your body a lot and then do the stretch, you would see the better result right away. It used to help me in my Kyoko Sin Kai class.

What discipline of martial art do you practice?

Flanker,

Thanks for responding, Flanker. I do quite a bit of warming up before I even attempt doing any splits.I'd say i'm about 3-4 inches from being flat on the floor, which I'm happy with but I know I can go further. I'm into Kempo Karate, a mix of Kung Fu, Japanese sytle karate, and ju jitsu.

Ray,

You are welcome! Kempo Karate is good art. Your body has to be really hot and trust me it makes big difference. Also, stretching is important but it is not the ultimate deciding factor in sparring. Kempo Karate has a lot of good hand techniques that are useful.

Now if you were doing Tae Kwando then the stretching is a must. They block kicks with kicks. I guess they do not believe in using hands. :)

Flanker,

I have a friend out in B.C. who owns and runs a Tae kwondo school in Whistler. She's a six dan blackbelt. Shes been trying to talk me into trying Tae kwondo but I don't think its for me. Tell me more about your style.

Kyoko Sin Kai Kan is a Japanese martial art school. It relies heavily on hand techniques as opposed to kicks. Punching style in Kyoko Sin Kai is very powerful. It has some very good kicks that focus on hitting lower not higher.

In my opinion, if you are disciplined enough to master it, Kyoko Sin Kai is the best that is out there. It is designed for tough guys. I found it very difficult to keep it up because I am not tough enough. :)

I wish I had continued though. It would have been a great honor to achieve black belt in Kyoko Sin Kai. If you can, you should give it a shot.

We all have varying degrees of natural flexibility, so factor that in when you are practicing and try to refrain from being frustrated w/ yourself. Focus on being process oriented instead of goal (Touching the floor) oriented. The most important thing is consistency in your practice. Three inches is very good, especially for men who tend to be less flexible. But, I have known and seen men who are very flexible but they are always very consistent and diligent with their practice.

We all have varying degrees of natural flexibility, so factor that in when you are practicing and try to refrain from being frustrated w/ yourself. Focus on being process oriented instead of goal (Touching the floor) oriented. The most important thing is consistency in your practice. Three inches is very good, especially for men who tend to be less flexible. But, I have known and seen men who are very flexible but they are always very consistent and diligent with their practice.


Thank you, Annie, that was very much appreciated. I believe it is going to happen with perserverence. ;)