Years ago I heard it said that as we age the first thing to go is our flexibility. This then begs the questions: If you don’t lose your flexibility, do you get older some other way? Or not at all?

The fact is that some very young people are as stiff as steel while some people I’ve trained with in China — men and women in their 70s, 80s and 90s are flexible as cats.

Last November, in Beijing’s Tian Tan Park I watched a man stretch his hamstrings with his foot high on a tree above his head and his nose way past his knee. He was without a doubt a “senior” so I approached and asked his age.

“Eighty-four,” he replied.

“What do you do to get so flexible?” I asked.

“I stretch everyday.”

“Do you ever take a day off?”

“No,” he said.

“How much time do you spend in this position?” I asked, noting that he’d not moved from his perch in a few minutes.

“Six minutes,” he said.

“Do you do anything special to stay so flexible other than get into position?”

“I breathe into the muscle I’m stretching. I feel it melting and getting warm. And I tell the muscle to let go, to relax and unwind.”

“Do you spend this much time in every stretch you do?”

“No. Only this stretch.”

“Why so long in this stretch?”

“Because when you stretch your hamstrings you stretch your mind. You get more relaxation overall when your hamstrings are flexible.”

This man’s summation reminded me of what Lama Lar Short, co-author of Body of Light told me some years ago. “Emotional tension is stored in the hamstrings.”

After talking to the man in Tian Tan Park I began to devote more than the typical one minute to stretching my hamstrings. On the first session I noted a deeper level of both physical and mental relaxation.

I then began putting some of my students on the same program for hamstring stretches. Straight across the board, they all reported the same benefits.

Just think how easy it would have been to assume there was nothing to learn from asking for the details of this one stretch. There was definitely MORE to it than met my eyes.

Yes, you will still get older even if you stretch, but your mind and your muscles can maintain flexibility and emotional well-being for as long as you consciously take care of them.

[Ed. Note: Martial arts and discipline titan Matthew Furey motivates thousands of people with his politically incorrect fitness, fighting and maximum success instruction. For more information, click here.]

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