flexibility & breathing

**Forbiddenryu** · 09-02-2004, 14:54

At my dojo, we are learning an advance form of breathing for the use of katas in Goju-Ryu. Does anyone have any pointers or tips? Also, what is a good way to improve your flexibility? i.e.- I can kick straight up in the air by the use of momentum, but I can't accomplish a full split/straddle.Thanks for the help.

**jjaje** · 09-02-2004, 18:40

Forbiddenryu,

Once you get past the hype and the Comrade stuff, Pavel Tsatsoulines "Relax into Stretch" is a pretty decent help on stretching. The website with a lot of his stuff is www.dragondoor.com

The down side is the cost of his videos and books, for the amount of material in them. If you can find it on ebay or half.com - that's the way to go.

Good Luck

**Forbiddenryu** · 09-02-2004, 19:17

No offense, but is there any plain tips that YOU can give me? I can't afford to buy much right now. Thanks a bunch.

**riku** · 09-03-2004, 03:47

First caveat: what I say is my opinion, and I'm just a student of some arts, no teacher, no master, no specialist of any kind.

Because I'm not a Goju-Ryu guy myself, it's hard to give any spesific examples; there's some differences between styles/arts in breathing exercises, and I don't want your teacher get mad at me

.. one quite general thing is the posture: if your posture is somehow collapsed or otherwise clumsy, breathing - as well executing other techniques - will be hard. For flexibility, by my limited knowledge, it takes time. Slow, long-time taking stretches, time to recover, no overdoing things (especially, not when muscles are cold), when doing technique try not to 'force' it (your muscles will be fighting each other then)..

With respect,
Riku Ylönen