Importance of Martial Arts Stretches

Video Transcript

"So, why do we stretch, in Martial Arts? Well one of the most important reasons, of course, is to increase your flexibility and you don't get any sort of injury but really, who are we kidding? We all want to be able to do some kicks right? So, Mr. Pride is going to go through some different kicks for us here and basically you have to be able to work on increasing your flexibility, to get your legs to start to do these kinds of things. A lot of these kicks are fine. They aren't always practical, as far as the super high kicks and everything but you'll see him start to flow, from one thing to another, kind of zipping through from one technique to another, nice high kicks, just like you see in the movies. It takes a lot of practice and a lot of discipline to do these things. You have to learn to enjoy stretching, just like you would any other kind of exercise. It's important, just with any other type of routine, gets lots of good rest, drink lots of water and make your routine regular. Make your strategy routine regular, otherwise your body won't respond to it a lot. He's going through these couple combinations of kicks and it takes a lot of practice to get high. Notice the combination of his balance and his flexibility, it's making these kicks nice and easy for him. I'll tell you something, when you get into a sparring match, it's kind of nice to have these kicks, in there, to work for you. It gives him one more thing to have to deal with. A kick could be a tremendously powerful tool, when being used to defend yourself. Notice that the flexibility, that he has, makes his legs seem very light, so it's very effortless for him to get a lot of his kicks out there. That's obviously going to be very important because you don't want this to be a very difficult activity that you do. Good. Front position. There's our kicking routine."