Stretching:  Here is a first step we can all do when trying to motivate ourselves to become more involved with Health & Fitness.  Start your training program here.

Stretching is highly important, useful and vital to the construct of the human anatomy.  So much so, that the designer and Creator of this endless marvel has built it into our nature as an involuntary act.  The average person stretches as needed 95 percent of the time with little to no awareness that he or she is even doing it.  It is such a key function that God didn’t even leave it up to us to make sure it happened.  Sure, we can choose to stretch when we want, but we do not need to be so actively involved each time such movement is needed or necessary.

Now I’m not speaking of the kind of stretching one does before or after a workout or training session.  Nor am I referring to the times that it is necessary because of a cramp or soreness.  I am only identifying your common everyday stretch.  The stretch you do prior to standing up from watching TV during the commercials, or getting up from your desk at work or even getting up first thing in the morning.  However, such stretches can be incorporated into your daily or weekly training plan.  I strongly encourage you to become more actively involved in common everyday stretching.  Add these stretches to your Health & Fitness plan.  Why?

Well, first of all, they are easy to do.  You don’t need any fancy equipment or fitness training tools.  Secondly, they can be done anywhere.  I do mean anywhere.  No one will be any the wiser, suspect or lost as to your ‘curious’ behavior.  And thirdly they are not time consuming in any fashion.

But what’s the most important reason?  What takes place, what happens on the inside, when you find your self needing to stretch?  Well, when do you find yourself needing to stretch the most?  When you’re tired and needing to stay awake, when you’ve sat still for too long, when your muscles ache, twitch or fall asleep & even when you first wake up in the morning.  This is because stretching stimulates muscle, it improves your breathing which helps to oxygenate the blood, it increases blood flow to the brain and it helps to increase your heart rate.  It also strengthens and relaxes muscle and improves body composition and stature. 

Have you ever noticed when becoming tired you feel compelled to yawn?  Yawning is a stretch and it helps to oxygenate the blood and increase flow to the brain.  There is a ‘monitoring control center’ that keeps track of certain functions in the body.  When the nervous system relates back to the brain that these functions are operating below their proper levels … you yawn.

So I say all of this to encourage you to stretch more often.  Do it on purpose, do it knowing what you’re doing, but by all means do it.

The benefits of having a community taekwondo program is most evident in the financial overhead it takes to run it.  Nearly everything that is needed is provided and rates for the school and instructor are kept relatively low.  However, as many of you have experienced and may already know, there are quite a few disadvantages as well.

For one, our training sessions can be interrupted, cancelled, postponed or even moved to a lesser than accomodating space.  The biggest disadvantage, though, is in the amount of time we are able to use the space we rent.  Many schools are unable to plan an adequate amount of training time for classroom sessions.  In my opinion even training three times a week is not quite enough to become as proficient in something as what would be required of a martial artist.  In the arts, repetitive training and practice is the key in mastering any one particular technique.  Knowing that we do not have this time together as I would prefer, I emplore you to train as much as you can when not in class.  Parents, please encourage your children to go over and practice what is taught in class while they are at home on weekends.  Help them find, or set aside, some time to train as much as possible.

Our school sets our test eligibility at around 2 months per belt level, but with only two sessions a week there is very little time left for them during classes to become truly proficient enough to qualify as skilled in those requirements.  If not only but 30 minutes at a time, I think it's important to try include one session of training 5 days out of every week.  This would include their knowledge on terminology and history as well as form and execution.  I ask for your help in this because there is so much time spent during class on reviewing what was already taught, there's not much time left over to cover something new.  Students review what you're taught throughout that week,  practice each technique at home several times over so that you can remember them.  I must re-iterate that mastery comes with much practice and dedication.  Knowing that repititive training can get boring I plead with you for your patience.  Nothing worth being proud of comes without labor or cost.

Remember everyone, Practice, Practice, Practice ...

     I just wanted to take a moment and welcome you all back to the internet.  CFTI has reopened a website and re-established their presence on the world wide web.  Thank you all for all of your patience.

     In addition to the community forums (which are now accessible directly from our website), I will be using this blog to keep you all informed and up-to-date on the latest news and happenings involving your Taekwondo School.  Please continue to check back frequently and comment as much as you like to my blogs.

Sincerely,

Greg Rouse