My Flexibility Journey

I still remember the day I took my before photos against the white wall in my apartment in China. It was a significant moment, not because the highlight of my flexibility was barely touching my toes, but rather because I realised what I was doing for my flexibility couldn't have been the whole story. I accepted in that moment I had much to learn.

Fast forward and I can now touch my head to my toe with a straight leg; grab my feet in a bridge; and wake up in the morning, roll out of bed, and sit in the splits. I'm now considered 'naturally flexible' by those that didn't know me before.

Prior to that moment I had spent the vast majority of my life, close to two decades, submersing myself in the world of martial arts. With flexibility training being a core part of this practice I had been surrounded by stretching and spent countless hours myself sat in long holds. This made everything even more shocking to me, since I was meant to be good at this.

Being in China at the time, my next stop was the Shaolin Monks. I spent my winter and spring eating, training and living the 1000+ year old traditional methods. It was here I was first introduced to many things, including ballistic stretching and ma bu (horse stance) holds that opened my eyes to how different flexibility training can be.

The next many years were spent studying from traditional eastern european contortionists and master yogi's to modern circus & dance school head coaches and end range strength training approaches. All in search for the best tools for the job.

Safe to say, I never trained flexibility the same way again.

There is more than one type of flexibility training

Since discovering that flexibility training has been very much misunderstood, I've been searching for the bigger picture. Endless testing on myself and working closely with my students of diverse ages and backgrounds has taught me many lessons.

Here are a few fundamentals:

• Different tools are needed for different people.
• Different tools are needed for the same person at different stages.
• There is no one magic trick to getting flexible. How you combine the tools is far more important.

The thing about training the full spectrum of flexibility I never expected...

The part I never expected is how by training across the entire spectrum of passive to active, I can maintain my range with very little dedicated training. I simply use the range in my regular practice (e.g. handbalancing, climbing, etc.).

It is much easier to stay strong than to get stronger. If you develop strength throughout your range of motion, it's a lot easier to stay strong in your ability to access and use that range.

Don't be discouraged by your starting point

Once you understand the underlying principles, assess properly and individualise your training accordingly it is night and day different to the 'just stretch more' approach. Just stretching more certainly didn't work for me.