As an older practitioner and an instructor of Taekwondo, I have a strong interest in stretching--how to do it to meet my own needs and how to teach correct stretching to diverse students. I've been reading "Stretching Scientifically: A Guide to Flexibility Training" by Thomas Kurz. It has explained why I've improved my flexbility rapidly in some areas and slowly in others. It goes into much greater detail and provides much more of the "why" than some other guides to stretching that I've read. The researcher in me really appreciates how the content of the book is built on a large body of research. How many of you use this very well-referenced text to guide your own stretching? And, if you teach Taekwondo and use the book to guide your teaching of stretching, how do you use it in the context of a class with diverse ages, genders, abilities...when each individual really needs to customize their stretching to match their own ever-changing needs?
Thank you!
Cynthia
Back in the 90's I got his video, I think he did a good job on the production, but I never added anything to our classes from the video. If I recall correctly, he did seem to believe in an active type of stretching, which we were already doing, but his methods were different. But I thought he was on the right track.
All our dojang classes are family classes, everyone does the same thing. We do tell older folks to modify any difficult drills. The very first thing we do in classes is jog and skip around the room, then we blend in a variety of active stretches, joint rotations, more jogging and skipping, motions that copy other sports movements, some sitting down stretches. Next we form rows and do sprints, a series of explosive, speed, agility, strength, sport specific exercises and a little more stretching. Then regular class starts.
So we warm up really good before stretching, and stretching still takes place during warm up, and even during athletic drills.
I learned that mostly from elite Taekwondo athletes, and from coaches and professors who also held physical ed/athletic degrees. I learned it at different times, at different places around the world. It changes from time to time as we experience something new to add or drop something we feel is less effective, or covered by some other drill.
The most recent experiences that had a change on our dojangs athletic development routines would be from the Taekwondo coach from Seoul Chego High School, who visited here a couple of years ago, and from an elite Taekwondo athlete from Yong-In University that lived with us during the summer and trained with my sons everyday, 3 sessions X 2+ hours.
