Suppleness is in the Details

二曰左偏臥，頭枕左足尖，左手搬左足跟，右換如之*

Second, on the left side, the head lying on the extremity of the left foot, the left hand pulling the left heel, then doing exactly the same on the right side

Most of the trainings to improve fascia elasticity were originally meant for teenagers, if not very young kids, quite violent and/or intense in order to take the advantage of their very flexible body and influence their growth. Since grown-ups and/or leisure practice cannot reach such intensity without surely harming the body, the issue is how to adapt old trainings and one's objectives in order to still be able to improve elasticity and connectivity.

First, it is important to understand that the main aim of suppleness is not acrobatic capacities, which are a just by-product for martists, but improving at the same time all and any fascia tissue elasticity in order to keep them connected because they are the means to a whole body power for internal practices. Therefore, adults have to take a different stretching approach, less violent, though the intent will remain the same.

Straightness coming first, it is above all the joints and the backbone which are the essential parts to target. Indeed, if not able to be straight as a die, an adult has still to fight against the age shrivelling factor and those body parts are the first ones to focus on. 

I. Even Elasticity, Stretching by Intent

Training towards an even elasticity was the means to reach the whole body power for internalists. To do so, extreme stretching postures literally quartering one's body were the best option. Unfortunately, they are too harmful for grown-ups or when done only once a while. Still, adapting training for adults has to keep the aim of evening the fascia lines and learning the command to stretch at will those lines remains the same for both.

1.1 A Different Approach

If grown-ups fascia lines length can still be improved, it is nothing compared to the swift results of teenagers. Furthermore, length is a by-product, it is connection and evenness which matter most. Hence, instead of the simple daft method to stretch as much as possible for teenagers, adults have to use a more intuitive one, looking and working first and foremost for and on the harden or slacken body parts.

The second biggest difference is to avoid any too violent or intense exercise. Therefore, stretching shall take time and be just slightly above one's limit. Short intense stretchings shall be avoided, as well as too long in time (i.e. such as the ones while sleeping described in the previous post). The idea is to avoid at all costs, including progress, any injuries. Indeed, especially when one is already grown up, any injury will make one's body weaker and less flexible, both in the short and long terms.

The third is to prioritise a whole body improved flexibility instead of acrobatic skills such as the splits, lifting the legs up... Such flexibility can only be achieved when one learns not to contract muscles, have them totally slack when working on straightness. Muscles slack, the stretch will naturally extend to all and any fascias they contain. In this sense, adults have even more to insist on avoiding contracting their muscles and become, as far as straightness is concerned, as lax as possible, i.e. as close as possible to a sleeping state but still able to hold a posture. In training, straightness is softness while roundness will lead to firmness.

However, as it was mentioned in the previous post, the aim is to become able to stretch the fascias at will, such intent shall, of course, remain for grown-ups.

1.2 The Same Intent

Fascia elasticity is not only a quality one searches for, it is also a tool aimed at learning how to generate power outside the usual muscle contraction. One has to learn how to use it by commanding the muscles to extend and relax at the same time.

There, as it has been mentioned already, lies the problem that a wooden stick and a soft rope cannot have the same kind of motion. Therefore, it would be very hard for someone with a stiff body to master "stretching at will". Hence, when training kids the first thing was to make their body so supple that they would naturally use more fascia elasticity than muscle contraction to move, teaching them then the command would have been easy. Grown-ups used to muscle contraction are stiff, even when they have acrobatic capacities like being able to do the splits. Indeed, as it was mentioned in the previous post, muscle contraction keeps the fascias contained in them from correctly stretching. This keeps someone from reaching a whole body stretching. Furthermore, the parts supporting then most of the stretching effort may become injured if such effort is too strong, tendinitis being among the most common injuries.

Therefore, adults will have to undergo a half empty, half full long period where they will become less powerful because they won't be able to contract their muscles like before while they will still not be able to stretch their fascias at will and enjoy the power of elasticity. Indeed, leisure achievements can only take much longer time than 24/7 kids trainings. The question is then, when an adult should be able to start to use intent to stretch?

A simple answer is when one's body is transformed enough, basically a teacher would know. But, giving a precise answer limited to the upper part of the body may make the issue more understandable for those not accustomed to trainings meant to deeply transform one's body. Joints and muscles are the part to be looked at. Muscles must have become leaner and soft when not tensed, especially the biceps, which should almost be flatten, as well as any muscle around the shoulders. In some cases, for reasons of connectivity and balance, other muscles will on the contrary grow, like the ones in the armpit (sometimes called "a full armpit"). As far as joints and bones are concerned, the collarbones and breastbone connection will have become so supple that one can put collarbones in a vertical position, same for the connection between the sternum and the ribs which shall allow to "contain the chest" or align the sternum with the shoulders (straightness again). Only then the upper part will be flexible enough and the fascias lines sufficiently reconnected to allow a stretch by will.

To reach such state, adults have to train straightness by paying a special attention to their joints and backbone.

II. Targeted Straightness

Training joints straightness is actually very simple, some of it probably known by a lot of people who stretch regularly. Straightening the backbone may be more tricky since it isn't naturally straight, may not reach anyway full straightness during the "straight as a die" trainings and, more importantly, the backbone final aim is to become round and rounder. Finally, whether joints or backbone, any stretching done with muscle contraction will hurt the body, the first rule is to have one's muscles as slack as possible and never contract.

1.1 Joints

A correct stretch is a question of angles, because old practices are about postures, and pressure, basically a force vector. In a simple way, standing leg(s) have to push vertically and levelled arms to reach horizontally.

a. Posture

The first and foremost thing is to have the joints really straight, not even slightly bent when stretching. Done correctly and with time, it can look as if the joint is slightly curved inwards. For the legs, it is the standing leg, not the other one, which matters and has to be kept as straight as a die. A simple training could be to stand with both legs as straight as a die whenever possible (on a non challenging ground) since the general habit is to always have them slightly bent. Wrist flat and elbow straight for the arms. Shoulders neither go forward nor backward, but fall down on the side of the body, centred in regards to the side of the chest or the neck.

Finally, stretching with a leg up and one standing shall follow the straightness rules in the sense that the feet shall point straight forward when stretching the leg in front of the body (both hips and feet facing front and straight) or on the side at a hundred and eighty degrees angle on a line (hips, legs and feet on the same line) when doing a side stretch.

Still, to insist on the joints stretch, one shall also put a right pressure.

b. Pressure

As far as the legs are concerned, apart from pushing up as vertically as possible for the standing leg(s), the push and pull or push and push hands will also help with joints stretching when having one leg up. Hence, a lot of stretching routines from different practices have one hand pushing on the knee while the other one either push or pull the foot. One could say that doing a one leg up stretching without adding those hands pressure results in stretching the leg but hardly its joints. Hence, while training as a grown-up or for leisure, the hands become actually the most important detail in one leg stretch.

Though one hand can also be used to help stretching the opposite arm joints in a similar manner, the need to have the arm straight makes it difficult and less productive. The best option to stretch arms through straightness remains the equivalent of "Wei Tuo Presenting the Pestle II"**.

Wei Tuo Presenting the Pestle II

Every upper part strictly aligned one has just to try to reach even further away with one's hands, which just quarter this whole section of the body. A further exercise is to do the same while making small up and down moves with the arms, which is called 撐胳膊, breaking in the arms, a direct reference to 撑鞋, breaking in shoes in Chinese.

While legs and arms straightness is not such a complex issue, the backbone is more challenging.

1.2 Backbone, Pelvis and the Neck

To straighten up something, the best way is to do so for both its ends, which are the pelvic area and the head in this instance.

a. Pelvis

Though the sacral curve is a flexibility which shall be maintained, most of the time it leads to have this area support a lot of pressure, and especially when sitting or lifting heavy objets, doing heavy stretching..., which is detrimental to the whole back. Indeed, quite a few back pains can be solved by just learning to straighten this part while sitting for example. Therefore, in order to avoid having the sacrum, one would get used to make it straight most of the time, which is basically tucking in the butt***. This process is easier for Asian people who often have a less marked curve.

Tucking in properly the butt is doing a rotation of the pelvic area. Such rotation done correctly, it will open the legs and push them down (the knees will bent), what is commonly called "the rounded crotch". To improve straightness and flexibility one shall try to unbend the legs, push upwards while keeping the tucking. Done correctly and totally relax, a sensation of stretching will start in the thighs and the lower part of the stomach, which will recede and automatically straighten up, and the back. Then, slowly, it will extend all over the body. Why? Because the waist is the center, the part which leads. If one manages to stretch it, it will have every fascia lines stretch. A simple exercise to be done slowly and very gradually and which targets the whole body flexibility without having to go through acrobatic flexibility trainings, hence very suitable for grown-ups and their hobby.

The pelvis correctly stretched, one has to work on the neck and its flexibility which can easily lead to disconnection.

b. Neck

The necessity to have a straight neck has led to a lot of different sayings in Chinese, some of them already mentioned in this blog. Since working on the cervical vertebrae can be tricky, if not dangerous, mentioning exercises in writing would not be wise, especially when people do not understand what is really to work with fascia elasticity and remain contracted. There are a few parts of the head which can lead to straightening the neck and quite a lot of information on them already. 

It is worth mentioning that old practices insist on the link between the pelvic area and the cervical vertebrae through quite poetic esoteric sayings like "If the tortoise cannot retract its neck, the bull cannot plough the field". In any event, the idea is that if one really wants to fully stretch the backbone, it has to pull the pelvic area and the cervical vertebrae in opposite directions, one up, one down, just like pulling the two ends of an elastic, or the rope of a bow. Hence, when stretching the back, being sure to maintain a light stretch of the neck will bring more to fascia elasticity than just insisting only on the pelvic area.

Calling internal practices "soft styles" is one of the common mistakes of our modern times which forget that actually teenagers trained anything but soft, exercices were intense and violent and the final aim was to make one's body as firm as possible though never hard (through what can be called the locks, which will be explained in a coming post). Still, when it comes to such trainings for grown-ups and/or leisurely, soft may be indeed a motto to be followed because the body cannot do too violent or intense trainings without the risk of injuries. In this case, indeed, one shall always adopt a soft and very progressive approach.

*Sword of Chaos, Bikun, Ming Dynasty. 渾元劍經, 畢坤, 明朝

**The hands can be differently positioned, on the side, downwards....

***As it has been mentioned in Forest, all practices do not work the same. Hence, butt tucking is actually a big disagreement, some schools recommending it, others saying it is actually detrimental and brings back pain. As far as the author is concerned, the main question is whether one uses such tucking to stretch one's lower back while keeping all the muscles lax in this area or contract the muscles to do so. In the second case, it can indeed bring back pain because blocking this part through muscle contraction will make the pelvic area even less flexible than it is already.