If you’ve been following us for some time, you’ll have seen that we’re a huge fan of Kit Laughlin: he’s featured on the podcast twice [1] [2] and posted guest articles on ‘mastering the squat‘ and ‘What use is stretching?’.
I’ve just returned from my second weekend workshop with Kit. Like reading a book for the second time, the process meets you at a new place the second time round.
Once you’re acquainted with the Stretch Therapy approach from the above content, here are some pertinent quotes/insights from his workshop:
Principles of Stretch Therapy: The Mind-body interaction
- No. Unnecessary. Tension.
- Fitness is the ability to respond commensurate to the demands placed on the body. Does the body respond well, or, if not, how does it come up short?
- Treat the body like a wild animal: no sudden movements, no loud noises; don’t make it do anything it does not want to do! Gently gently catch the monkey.
- The body and its sensations ONLY exist in the present. They cannot be projected forward or backward in time as the mind can.
- The emotional body is a property of physical body; they are interlinked.
- Trying to verify the principles of internal work with conventional science is using the wrong tool. Internal work is subjective by nature. It is like using a telescope to look around your house.
- We try to understand things causally for efficiency, but empiricism is a valid approach. We don’t understand the mechanism for over half of medications used currently, for example.
- Practice can be effortless. Just do the practice, and the big picture takes care of itself. Don’t place unnecessary pressure on yourself to be big picture focused.
- The body always exists in the present. It is your vehicle to the present moment. The fastest way to connect with the body is to drop your awareness into belly and feel what’s happening NOW.
- We are overly mollycoddled these days. “I can’t do XYZ”. The body is made to move. It is a resilient, adaptive unit. People asked questions, concerned that they get certain sensations when they do a stretch. Kit would say “Great. Explore it”.
- The goal is to develop a cat-like body. Notice the difference when holding a cat compared to holding a dog. Notice how a cat relaxes on the floor after a fight, whereas a dog will walk around stiffly for an hour. Which animal do I resemble the most?
- The more relaxed your physical body, the more open you are to experiences in your environment. The less mental resistance to energetic influences in the environment. The more options you have in the moment. Tension is restrictive.
- Our life experience creates holding patterns/”character-armour” in our body.
Relaxation:
- We humans are terrible at lying on the floor.
- ‘Do a 20 minute lying relaxation practice daily for 3 months, and you won’t recognise yourself.’
- Use the lying relaxation audios. Don’t worry if you drift into sleep.
- Relax to the point where your lower back is resting on floor when lying down
Stretching 2.0:
- 5 steps to the contract-relax stretch method:
- 1) Enter the stretch
- 2) Allow your body to settle
- 3) Contract the muscle being stretched. Give it some welly.
- 4) Relax the muscle. Remain still.
- 5) Exhale, let your tummy go soft; breathe in again, deepen the stretch, and allow your body to go limp.
- Stretch 2x/week, and don’t plan. Work with what you feel like, literally. Feel what your body needs.
- In addition to your 2x/weekly practice, stretch while your coffee percolates in the morning: The 6 minute stretch routine.
- Keep your hands and feet in contact with the floor when stretching to increase the proprioceptive feedback; this remakes the map.
- Simple cues: Apply a global task to a complex system, and allow the small components to sort it out. Don’t micromanage the body. It is more intelligent than you.
- Stretching improves sleep quality in most people.
“Pay now or pay later”.
Mexican proverb
- ^ “Pay now or pay later” applies to most things: movement dysfunction, overwork, and coffee: digging into your recovery stores means you’ll need to pay the body its due later.
- Stretching the hip flexors is literally anti-aging. You are reversing the age-related decline into typical flexion/extension patterns.
- Where attention goes, prana follows. Breathe into the area, enter the present with your body. When you can do this fully, the mind STOPS.
- Use bolsters where possible to support the limb; this is to enhance the effects of gravity in some exercises; to feel support in others
- Relax your belly
- Do not give yourself a specific time to remain in the stretch. Staring at the stopwatch and grinding your teeth is counterproductive.
- For men, the best approach to gain a pancake is to get the pelvis horizontal first. The standing variation with bent legs is best for this. Use gravity to pull you into the stretch! Abduct hard.
Feet & Lower body:
- We pay too little attention to the feet. They are the interface between us and the world.
- The best exercise to fix pronation of the foot: Deficit single leg calf raise with eversion.
- Bunions or calluses forming on the medial great toe is a sign that you are pronating the foot, under load, and over time.
- Improving your toe spread reduces dampness from toes being squashed together → reduction in athletes foot and odour.
- Best shoes to strengthen the feet and regain proprioceptive awareness of the ground: Vivo barefoot shoes or vibrams. By walking around wearing rubber casts on our feet all day, we have lost access to essential proprioception.
- Everyone stretches their hamstrings at the start of a yoga session, because it makes them look flexible. Often it is not the priority
- Bent leg hamstring stretches are seen as a crime, but it helps overcome the sense of threat and achieves a more complete stretch.
- The hip flexor stretch reduces pronation of the feet, which redistributes the weight over a wider base → less wear on the knees, more glute activation.
Favourite partner variations:
Hip flexor:
Chest stick stretch:
Partner badhakonasana:
- Note for partner stretches: Leaning weight is felt differently than pressing weight. You can enter the deeper tissues without resistance.
Conclusion
Get up now, stretch, move your focus away from stretching to GET somewhere, instead feeling into your body.
