Perspectives on training: "Physical" conditioning Part 1 - Flexibility

[Zhang Wuji]

Every Shaolin Wahnam student will be taught the essential skills of our school – smiling from the heart, relaxation, going with the universal qi flow, just to name a few. There may however be variations in the secondary or derivative areas of Shaolin Cosmos Qigong or Shaolinquan. For example, some students may focus more on good form (such as mastering the form of all 18 Lohan Hands) or in their daily practice, while other prefer to just use qi flow with minimal pattern repetitions. In Shaolinquan, some may work on their stances with an occasional revision of their sequences while others spend the majority of their time on sparring with an imaginary opponent. Such variations will change over time, depending on the student’s own progression, aims and objectives.

One area which I devote a fair amount of time to is, for want of a better word, stretching. This really encapsulates the art of flexibility, including the Art of Flexible Legs (the six exercises taught to all Shaolinquan students – these are, in fact, not merely leg exercises, as I will explain below). I don’t know the extent to which flexibility is embraced in sports culture in the West, but I do know that while many runners and sportsmen incorporate stretching as part of their warm-up, it seems to be an ancillary and oft-neglected aspect of their training.

In this article, I will discuss the methods that I teach my own students for flexibility. Of course, like most skills, nothing beats having a teacher instructing you and monitoring your progress. Still, these tips can help anyone seeking to increase their flexibility.

What do I mean by “flexibility”? First of all, I am not referring to a malleable moral fibre or being opportunistic and capricious. I mean the ability to stretch your muscles, limbs and torso through their maximum range of motion. In other words, the ability to perform splits, bridges, full toe-touches, straddles, etc. From direct experience, I have found that training flexibility is not about physical effort, but an extreme challenge in mind and will power. I am lucky in that I was born fairly flexible and I had been doing sports that involve plenty of splits and other contortionist-like activities. But I can identify with those who are not inherently flexible, because I had stopped such activities for many years when I started work. When I first went back to stretching - this was when I first did the Dancing Crane pattern from the 18 Lohan Hands (legs???) – I was as stiff as the average 40-year old male. So, one can be born flexible, but this is an ability that can be lost. But more importantly, it is an ability that can be regained and better still, gained from scratch with constant and persistent training.

There is this misconeption that stretching beyond limits is like going past the pathological limit in a joint – hyperextend a limb beyond that limit and the joint snaps, either by damage to the tendons, ligaments or the bones themselves break. The two conditions are not quite the same. While tendons and ligaments do play a part in stretching, it is the muscles that are the true obstacle for most people. If you push beyond your current limits of where you can stretch to, what is likely to happen is you will tear a muscle, not break a bone or snap a tendon / ligament.

Many people also like to give the excuse that they are too old, or too inflexible to perform a pattern like Dancing Crane. Notice I used the word “excuse”. I mean this, because I have seen with my own eyes, 60-year old men who could lower themselves into a Low Stance Single Whip after less than 3 months of daily Taijiquan practice. The truth of the matter is that most people do not dare to confront the pain they face when they reach the limits of their comfort zone in stretching.

But before I go into the methods, I will, in my next post, share my views of why stretching is absolutely essential to our practice of the Shaolin arts (including Wahnam Taijiquan). I will continue with this thread over the course of the next couple of days (or maybe after Christmas). In the meantime, any thoughts on why the art of flexibility is important?

[Chiahua]

Since I've been working on the art of 100 kicks and kicking at the sky in particular, I have certainly felt the impact that inflexibility has on my flow or ability to transmit force. With some of the more practiced kicks such as White Horse Presents hoof, I can feel the technique execute smoothly. Kicking at sky on the other hand definitely feels weaker and I would attribute that to my lack of flexibility. Flexibility not only permits a wider range of movement but also permits a more relaxed execution of those techniques.

[Luo Lang]

Kicking at sky on the other hand definitely feels weaker and I would attribute that to my lack of flexibility. Flexibility not only permits a wider range of movement but also permits a more relaxed execution of those techniques.

I agree on that fully. The more you are relaxed the more flexible you are. When you allow yourself beeing relaxed you allow yourself literally getting free, free for a smooth or vigorous energy flow. The smoother the energy flows, the smoother the movement will be done, the more powerful it becomes.

Kicking the sky may also promote your capacity of beeing solid and firm, getting a better control of your Dantien. It also promotes your agility.

[Jonny Say]

I find it interesting that better chi flow improves flexibility and better flexilibility improves chi flow. We can see why many Shaolin Arts focussed on Flexibility (eg Child Art, Luohangong and the Art of Soft Bones). The Art of Flexiblity is a true treasure in both increasing physical flexibility and improving chi flow.

Here is an interesting QA about Shaolin stretching arts: http://www.shaolin.org/answers/ans02a/may02-1.html

[Zhang Wuji]

Thanks everyone for your comments. There are many good reasons why every martial arts exponent and qigong practitioner should work on their flexibility, and these reasons go deeper than most realise. For the purpose of this article, I will categorise the reasons into combat, health and spiritual, although in reality, such categories mesh into one another.

The primary and often only reason some hard stylists give for stretching is that they use it to be able to kick higher. Those hard stylists who have researched more deeply into their training methods know that the real reason why they kick higher in practice than they may do in real fighting.

Being flexible enough to kick at the level of your own head and beyond may not seem that practical in actual fighting. Why then do both internal and external stylists have such high kicks in their repertoire? The high kicks serve as a form of training. If you can kick higher than your chest in training, you can easily kick someone in the waist and below. This makes execution of your technique more effortless, as Chia Hua has pointed out.

But what is often neglected is the fact that there are indeed combat situations where high kicks are not only applicable, but are the only possible option available to you. Say your hands are occupied with one opponent, and another assailant is striking you with a knife from the side. You would not, as in a normal punch, roll with the punch since this is a knife not a blunt fist. Your only defence may be to kick the wrist holding the knife at chest level.

In other words, stretching or the ability to kick high simply gives you more options in a combat situation. You may not use high kicks often but when you must, you have the comfort of knowing you would be able to execute them.

A personal experience of mine would be instructive. While this was not a combat situation, I had my front left leg pulled out from under me once while I was holding a hot cup of tea in my left hand. I think most people would have leaned back and perhaps fell on their backs. I reacted without thinking by letting the front leg slide forward while going down on my right leg, ending up in a textbook Taijiquan Low Stance Single Whip posture. Not a drop of tea was spilled. But this only worked because I could sink myself into that posture. Otherwise, I would have ripped a muscle or two when going down so violently.

[Zhang Wuji]

Health and internal force

While the benefits for combat are quite apparent, the health benefits of stretching may not be so obvious.

It is not for nothing that the Art of Flexible Legs is classified as "Force Training" in the Shaolin Wahnam Shaolinquan and Taijiquan syllabus.

I have stressed repeatedly to my students that they should not neglect dynamic patterns such as Dancing Crane and Three Levels to the Ground, which are part of the core patterns taught to my qigong students. Without exception, these are the least popular of the patterns (and it should surprise no one that the most popular are Lifting the Sky, Pushing Mountains and Carrying the Moon). it is easy to see why - these two patterns require much more effort and ability, especially for those who don't train their legs.

But I make the students practice these patterns anyway. While all our dynamic patterns in the 18 Lohan Hands are holistic, some emphasise the torso, others the upper limbs, and a few the lower limbs. When you practice Dancing Crane or Deep Knee Bending, the qi flow to the legs is stronger than that generated from the "easier" patterns. These patterns also work the organs in a different way from the so-called upper-body patterns. Dancing Crane and Three Levels strengthen the heart, not only the legs. Patterns like Angry-eye Punches also strengthen the heart, but in the case of Three Levels, the energy generated comes from the "pumping" action of the legs, and the direction in which the qi moves is also different.

The lower-body patterns also specifically target the leg meridians, which tend to be worked on in a more indirect manner in most qigong systems (such as merely bending the knees slightly when sinking into a stance or pattern). Exercising these meridians stimulates qi flow to the organs served by these meridians as well as to the whole body.

Clearly, if a pattern is performed at half its range of motion or less, the benefits are correspondingly less. It is for this reason that I encourage the students to practice the leg patterns diligently, even if they may not be able ot achieve the full range of motion at first. When I first practised Dancing Crane, I was more sensitive to the painful stretch in my legs, but as I got more flexible, I felt the distinct rush of qi to my fingers from my legs and chest instead.

[Zhang Wuji]

Just an appendum on my post on flexibility in combat.

Being flexible gives you an margin of error or as Warren Buffet would put it, a margin of safety. In a combat situation, you should not be operating at the limits of your capabilities. In other words, you should not have to be performing in the red zone when you are doing it for real. A good runner knows that as part of training, he should run at least twice the distance he will be competing. A cross-country runner competing for a 5 km (3 mile) race must train by running 10 km. This way, during the race, he can call on the reserves, mentally and physically, he had created in training.

In a combat situation where you are forced to kick high for whatever reason, you may find yourself pushing to reach the limit. If you are straining just to do the movement, speed and accuracy are likely to be diminished. You have to make allowances for a possible reduction in all your combat abilities due to combat stress or fear, so it is not prudent to assume you can kick as high or higher in a fight compared to in training.

Put another way, you should be going beyond your comfort zone in training, so that you can be within the zone in a fight. The military calls this concept "the more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in war".

As a side note, I have met several elderly masters (I don't consider Sifu elderly at all) who impressed the hell out of me with their flexibility. Every single one of these masters can comfortable execute a Low Stance Single Whip, and in the case of a Baguazhang master, can kick his foot to behind his ear at the ripe old age of 75! And talking of Sifu, anyone who has seen his Four Gates performance would agree that his Catching Tiger in Mountains is flawless - much, much better than most of his younger students, in fact. If that does not inspire one to work on the Art of Flexible Legs, I don't know what will.

[Adam Kryder]

echoes

thanks Wuji,

I definitely echo your enthusiasm for flexibility.

My attention to it has re-defined my practice.

with full fervor,

Adam

[Zhang Wuji]

Calling the Art of Flexibility "Stretching" does not do it justice, but for convenience, I will retain the usage as such. Still, do remember that using the term "stretching" is like using "gentle exercise" to describe qigong or Taijiquan - it is woefully inadequate.

I covered the combat and health aspects of stretching above, but the mental / spiritual benefits are even more enormous. I recently read a series of books and articles exploring this area, validating my own experience. I would point you to a book "The Genius of Flexibility" and the flexibility disciplines as they are and were practised in the Soviet Union, and now Russia (notable proponents are Pavel Tsatouline and Scott Sonnon, now teaching in the USA). Many of these practitioners overcome great personal tragedies and disabilities through their practice of stretchng. Why is that the case?

For one, the "pain" caused by moving your muscles beyond their usual stretch length and taking your joints through their complete range of motion is an exquisite one, quite unlike the pain of being slammed to the floor or even a hard punch to the nose. I have heard of some karate toughs who would bleed from chopping wood and bricks literally screaming in pain when put under an Aikido submission lock. Most modern practitioners of the martial arts, except for the grapplers, are not familiar with this sort of pain. Yet, it is a pain that can be overcome and be worked on regularly. Contrast this with being beaten up or smashing your hands or legs against a hard object daily - you will suffer irreparable harm in the long term. But when it comes to stretching, you can train yourself to safely overcome the pain and increase your range of motion, simply by relaxation and some other special techniques (these are variously known as "contrast or contract stretching", "breathing alignment", "waiting out the reflex").

Next post, the effects of stretching on your energy, as well as emotional and spiritual states.

[shao]

I practiced the art of flexibility for around a month long ago its painful if you dont do the right technique and takes alot of willpower to continue with it much like the horse riding stance.

[Adam Kryder]

A Fan

Dear Wuji,

I'm sorry that it has taken me so long to respond. But, please let it be known that I am a big fan of what you are talking about here, and how you are talking about it!

Best Regards,

Adam

[Zhang Wuji]

Many thanks, Adam, for your moral support. Please chip in with your insights as well.

Stretching or flexibility is good for cardio exercises like athletics or ball games, so goes the conventional wisdom, but for emotional and spiritual health? In my last point, I mentioned how one can deal with the pain experienced during stretching and having the fortitude to deal with it. But there is more.

I have not been able to verify this from personal experience as yet, but a couple of books I have read claim that each muscle group and joint are linked to separate emotions. This is not very different from the link that Chinese medicine has long recognised that exists between the 12 internal organs and the corresponding emotions. Practically speaking, it is probably not necessary to know which joints or muscle groups correspond to which emotion, but it is necessary to work every joint and muscle in a complete flexibility regime. In other words, one should not just work on splits to loosen the hips and pelvis, but neglect the shoulders. Most people may be unable to fit in a head to toe flexibility exercise (which takes 20 minutes or sometimes more for me) in a single day, but the beauty of flexibility training is that you can do it over a whole week.

Using hip flexibility as an example, I have found my horse stance training improving, not by leaps and bounds but still significantly so. Having the added flexibility at the pelvic region also improved my proprioception in all the joints from the hips down. In simple English, this means that I am more aware of where my joints were just by sensing (as opposed to using my eyes to check). Adjusting my stance and spotting mis-alignment became more intuitive. And as we all know, stance training done properly is not training of the leg muscles (only) but more of centering and building one’s energy at the dan tian and teaching spiritual focus.

I am not an official practitioner of yoga but I have certainly practised many asanas in the course of my training. Depending on which limb of yoga you do, yoga can be just holding a posture and bearing the pain (in my view, this is a simplistic view of yoga, much like how Taijiquan is seen as all slow-moving physical exercise) or uniting breath, movement and focus (mental or physical), also known as jing, qi and shen. All those contorted positions (to the inflexible) were developed for a reason – to release or generate energies that would be otherwise locked or trapped, and developing those energies in those positions. Just as in Zhan Zhuang, older and wiser masters worked out from experience which postures develop power.

Another topic I want to address soon is passive versus active stretching. Gymnasts, acrobats and other practitioners who have to both extremely flexible and strong (as in body-weight strong) are very familiar with this concept, but not those who merely stretch as an appendum to their normal training, such as runners, cyclists, or even martial artists. The other thing is the difference between joint flexibility and muscular flexibility, which can be more distinct than many realise.

[Adam Kryder]

humble thoughts from a true fan

I have not been able to verify this from personal experience as yet, but a couple of books I have read claim that each muscle group and joint are linked to separate emotions.

Interestingly, one of the types of Shamanism which I practiced used a simple way of touching the physical body to recapitulate memory and emotional blockages and let them go. In my new flexibility routine, I can definitely say that stagnant emotion and energy is what spews from the tension. I am always serene after a good stretch.

In my last point, I mentioned how one can deal with the pain experienced during stretching and having the fortitude to deal with it.

When I spent some time with Siphet Ho a few years ago he recommended a medicine to help with soreness and effects of the quick change in body that is caused by martial arts training. (Wuji I have sent you the recipe by PM, If any other Shaolin Wahnam instructors wish to know please send me a PM)

Normally my stretching exercises leave my body quite sore, and the above has helped tremendously.


I guess that's enough for now.

[Steve Clarke]

Hello Wuji,

It is great that you have writen about this important part of of practice. It is has been interesting and usefull.
I find that practicing the Art of Flexability improves all areas of my training. Helps me to relax and flow more freely, Improves mental clarity and focus, calms my emotions and improves my force.

Of course they have to be practiced as chi kung, rather then on a mere physical level.

I have also noticed how they promote the flow of the 8 Wonderous Meridians.

Looking foward to your next instalment.

Best Wishes to you and your family for 2011.

Rgds,
Steve.

[Zhang Wuji]

Static and Active Flexibility

Thanks Adam and Steve. Now, here's more - think of it as a Christmas present for those who are interested in this stuff.

Some of this material came from the author-experts i cited in an earlier post - Pavel Tsatouline and Scott Sonnon, whose books and instructional videos I highly, highly recommend. The rest came from my own training.

I will define static stretching by explaining what active flexibility is. I define active flexibility as the ability to stretch or move the body through its ranges of motion under your own power and control. An example is a split - you should be able to get into a split yourself, that is, without assistance from someone pushing you down, or using some sort of machine, and just as importantly, get out of that split without ending up like a helpless turtle upside-down on its shell.

Static or passive stretching is when a coach or partner pushes or drags you into an uncomfortable or painful position. The resistance faced by your partner will be your muscles screaming out against this external pressure. An active stretch which you do yourself will also meet with resistance but that is within your control - you will go into the position with full volition and with systematic progression. For example, you get to a point where the pain starts, then you slowly lower yourself further, taking time to pause, relax and synchronise your breathing with the effort. Done gradually, you get to the split on your own.

If you think about it, active flexibility is a million times superior to passive stretching. If you could somehow kick to a point above your head, but your muscles or tissues have stretched beyond their contracting / flexion limit, you will not be able to pull back your leg quickly - it may be left flipping flaccidly in mid-air if you have super abs or it may drop and drag on the floor, and where will you be then? Up to your ears in deep doo-doo, that's where.

I don't want to criticise how some karate schools are teaching stretching but I will just state that my own views on assisted stretching are very different. You may have seen how two partners will have their legs in a V shape, with one of them placing their two feet against the other, then pulling the latter up or forward while he leans back. Karatekas are meant to endure the pain, but believe me, this wrecks havoc on not only your muscles, joints and tendons/ligaments but worse, your nervous system and pysche. Ultimately, all stretching is in the nervous system and the mind.

I had one student who had a permanent groin and hip injury from an over-zealous partner doing the kind of stuff i described above. His was a wushu training session but I think this kind of no-pain, no-gain atttitude pervades the external training world. He went for surgery at some point but qi flow helped him to regain some mobility as well.

If there is one thing to take away from this post, it is that flexibility is, like all long-term worthy endeavours, a path you must walk gradually and at your own pace. Just like you cannot convert food into 50 pounds of muscle by eating 100 pounds of meat overnight, so it is with stretching. A little bit every day, on your own, and not through artificial means like machines or even human intervention.

My personal little secret when I am in the zone when i have left the comfort zone and inching towards that full split (no, it is not effortless for me, not at my age) - I use Small Universe breathing. But that is a story for another day.