On February 16, I wrote a mini-essay about the values of stretching. I’d rediscovered a book entitled simply Stretching by Bob Anderson, and I’d begun to follow his advice. It’s now three weeks down the road, and here’s what I’ve learned.
Stretching is a good thing. It is easy on the body; yet it has health benefits too. Stretching makes one more flexible at the very least and, at the very most, makes one more able to compete in other realms. Like tennis or basketball or skiing.
Someone once said that if you do something faithfully for twenty-one days it becomes a part of you. It’s been the rare physical thing for which I’ve had a twenty-one day commitment, but stretching qualifies. (I did have a three-year love affair with inline skating once, but that ended badly with a broken leg!).
To date, I’ve grown in flexibility so that I can sit cross-legged once again. I can bend over easily and touch my toes too. And when I do the various stretches first thing in the morning, I feel more limber for the entire day.
Author Anderson also has a section on how to stretch so that one can eventually do the splits. It’s not that I have a burning desire to do them, but it might be interesting to see how long it would take before I could. It would probably take more than another twenty-one days.
In fact, it would probably be quite a stretch at that.
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