I live in Brisbane, Australia and I began martial art training around 20 years ago at the age of 29, having never done anything before previously that required lifting my legs any higher than my bum. So after embarking on my new adventure it didn’t take me long to work out that the best practitioners were the ones who were the most flexible; in as much as they made the kicking look easy and effortless, whereas the ones who were less flexible and couldn't kick to save themselves. They would make up for their lack of flexibility by throwing stiff awkward kicks that generally had the potential to disembowel you, (what they lacked in flexibility they made up for in Power, myself included).
But I wanted both flexibility and power so I started on my stretching at about 30 years of age.
My approach was very simple one: just open my legs up a little more each day and I figured it wouldn't take me much more than about a week or two and I should have
a full split. Surely it couldn’t be any harder than that? How naive I was! When I didn’t get the results I wanted, I was left wondering why.
I then had people telling me “you are just too old to get the full splits”. Others told me things like “you are too big to do the splits and your muscles have shortened permanently”. Still others told me “your growth plates have finished growing and therefore you are too late to learn how to do a full split”.
And what made it even more discouraging was that these people telling were the ones who could do the splits - how depressed do you think I felt?
And to think I almost believed them…..
This only proved to make me even more determined to achieve my dream and my goal of a full front and side split.
I dabbled around with stretching for another year or so before I decided I was going to take this seriously.
I bought books on the subject and studied all the written sources of material I could get my hands on then I put into practice all the information I had learned. (Remember internet searches weren’t even around 30 years ago)!
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During my experimentation I got over-zealous sometimes and made some bad choices. I ended up injuring myself with torn adductors and torn hamstrings at various times. This would set me back even more - sometimes months at a time - waiting for the insertion tears to heal and I would once again start to lose hope of achieving my dream.
It really wasn’t until I discovered my “theory of movement” that things started to look up for me and I started getting incredible results without the injuries.
I started noticing that I was getting lower and lower to the ground, in particular with my side split, which had always seemed the hardest, the most elusive and the most difficult to improve on. I was noticing less discomfort while performing the exercises and quicker recovery times and, after trying for so many months without much results, I was sitting on the floor doing a full side split in a matter of weeks!
I have never looked back since my discovery. And what’s more, I have many students who are getting the same results - time after time.
I believe our body was designed to move. We are able to walk and run because we walk and run every day, (well some of us run). We don’t have to stretch before we walk (I’m talking in general terms here) because it is within our developed and therefore natural range of motion.
We don’t have to take a step and hold that stretch for a minute then take another step and hold again. We develop and maintain our range of motion by moving our body - this is how God designed our muscular system to work. Therefore it seems ludicrous to me to stretch any differently to how we move!
Having said that, I don’t completely disregard static stretching. I believe it has its place. But to get the quickest results it took the discovery of my theory to really get results. Whereas I had never even gotten close to this by stretching with traditional methods.
Stretching is something very near and dear to me. I am a huge advocate of long, strong muscles and at my age of 49, I am so glad I have a system that not only gave me and my students the quickest results, I also make it part of my daily routine to maintain my flexibility.
Remember God designed us to move – let’s keep moving!
I hope my story has given you some hope and encouragement. I understand the feelings of that person desperately trying to achieve a split. I know the frustrations, I know the doubts, I know what their day feels like. I have been there but I didn’t stay there – I came out on the other side with superior flexibility. My dream now is to give others their dream of super flexibility no matter what their age or current level of flexibility. I know how you feel and I am on your side.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Best regards and all the best in your quest for “The Splits”.
Jerry.
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