The Symbiosis of Strength and Flexibility - they help each other survive, grow and prosper. A flexible athlete can produce more force and a strong athlete becomes flexible faster. Any Dancer, Martial Artist, Gymnast and any other athlete knows this. The list extends to swimmers, javelin throwers, baseball pitchers, and the list goes on and on.

However we are here at EasyFlexibility to talk about Flexibility training, and the best way to develop it, keep it and use it. Everyone who trains EasyFlexibility knows by now that adding strength exercises to stretching, hastens the results, protects form injury, etc.

A very common question that comes up is how to combine them. Strength is useful under two conditions:

1. If it's used for pre-conditioning: then it can be in any range. 
2. If it's used to maintain flexibility or increase the rage of flexibility gain: then it must be used in new ranges only. 

Referring to the first option, stretching is best received when the muscles are properly prepared, through basic conditioning exercises. Second option is the one, which we get questions the most. So how do we combine Kinesiological Stretching, Extended Length Conditioning, Antagonist Short Length Conditioning and other exercises. Here is the answer:

How to Combine Strength and Flexibility

Where to Start

First we need to develop a deeper range that we want to keep and make ourselves comfortable in. Kinesiological Stretching Techniques are used for that range. A skill is broken down into muscles, and each one is hit with KST. Now you are deeper. If it's a kick or developpe, the leg can now be raised higher. If it's a split, forward or back bend, the angle is better. So now the strength exercises come in.

How to Pick the Right Exercises

The exercises chosen depend of course on the skill. The whole thing mentioned above is One Round.

• You did the stretching, you did the strengthening following the stretching. That is one round.
• Next you do a Second Round. Kinesiological Stretching Techniques are repeated. Usually with additional reps or with modalities added.
• After the KST are done, strength exercises are repeated.

What you will notice is that in the second round the KST can take the joints into deeper range, courtesy of strength exercises. And the strength and form is better on the strength exercises, courtesy of the stretches.

• This is Second Round. A beginner will usually do 1-2 rounds.
• A 48 hour recovery is expected. In other words, if you trained on Monday, by Wednesday, there should be no soreness.
• If that is the case, you add a round. If on the other hand you are sore.
• You should wait till soreness goes away, and either drop a round or stay with the same number of rounds (If, you only did one round), till recovery takes 48 hours.

How to Recover Faster

In between the training sessions, relaxed stretches are recommended. At the same time, if you can do a relaxed stretching session on the same day as KST and supported strength exercises, it's recommended as well.

So for example if you did an EasyFlexibility Program on Monday morning or mid-day, relaxed stretches can be done the same night, if time allows.

Since you're reading this it means that you're here to learn more about the ElasticSteel Kick Mastery System, so let's jump right into it.

If you are not in the mood for long a discussion of what it is or why you need it or how it will benefit you, explanation, etc, then all you need is to know two things that the ElasticSteel Kick Mastery System is about:

• Speed of Mastery (5-6 times faster than an average student) Imagine that you can learn how to kick in 3 to 6 months! That's right, high super powerful and mighty kicks can be yours in only 3 - 6 months instead of 1.5 to 2.5 years!

AND

• Safety. No longer will you need to take breaks from practicing your favorite sport due to injury, the program is designed with safety in mind, so that you don't go above and beyond of what your body is ready for and in the process end up wasting months or even years on getting yourself back on track due to injury. 

Now lets talk about ESKMS in depth

Once again, speed of mastery, means that an average student becomes an expert kicker in 3-6 months!

Safety means that anyone get's to master the system with minimal risk of injury, and learn how to position the body in such a way that kicks at high level are possible for the entire life of a martial artists.

Granted 3-6 months is not overnight. (If you want to become a master kicker overnight, this is not the page for you.) However,  a poll taken from dozens of instructors and hundreds of students shows that an average time it takes to master, not just to learn, but to completely master basic kicks is between 1.5-2.5 years, that is 18-30 months, 5-6 times as long as what ESKMS is ready to do for you. Let's compare this further.  

I talk about how to completely master the kicks, but what does it mean? ElasticSteel sets the highest of standards and accepts nothing else.

So here's what it means to master the kicks

NO PAIN! Sure go talk about speed, power, height, but if you are hurting every time you do them, at some point you will stop. You better stop actually, because pain is an indicator you are doing something wrong.

With ESKMS, you learn how to move pain free and prepare the body to allow you to do just that. 

• FREE and EASY. Your kick that is. If your kick does not feel like your punch, then you can't use it just as well. However, the shoulders allow for much more untrained range of motion than the hips do. So don't expect to kick well without correctly training for the kicks first. And it's not just the kicking leg that you need to fully prepare before executing effortless kicks, but also the supporting leg, and the whole spine. (Decrease in back pain, better posture, proper alignment, are some of the side effects of ESKMS training.)
• GOAT-CRANE LIKE BALANCE Did you know that a mountain goat has the best dynamic balance in the animal kingdom and that the Crane can spend many hours standing, even sleeping on one leg? Well, mastering the one footed base of support is the foundation to everything else and ESKMS makes sure you get the skills comparable to these beasts.  
• NO RESTRICTIONS Kicking High, Kicking Low, Twisting Left, Bending Right. A master kicker has enough range of motion to do it all with grace and control.
• GREESED LIGHTNING If you can't kick very fast, you have not mastered the technique. Martial Arts is not Ballet, regardless of how high you stick or swing stick your leg. If you can't kick with lightning speed, you have not mastered the kick.  
• SUBSTANCE Finally the kick is a weapon meant to hurt. A mastery of the kick means you can use your mass to accelerate your foot, and drive it deep into or through the target.

Please note this is not an automated product. Once you register please allow 24 - 72 hours for us to get back to you with registration information.

The difference between ElasticsSteel Kick Mastery System and standard method of training, is that a standard dojo or dojang method to learn the kicks is to kick, and kick and kick some more, with some basic stretching and conditioning exercises randomly thrown in.

ESKMS is a scientific shortcut, if you will.

These are concentrated mass practiced routines, building the modality upon the modality, super quickly and moving on to the next step.

Now, in Plain English.  NO B.S.

Each Level drives hard toward a goal. Quickly achieving an objective of that level and moving on to the next one.

The levels are:

1. Core and Hip Positioning and Awareness, Posture/ Kinesiological Stretching
2. Kick Positioning/ Flexibility/Short and Long Range Strength, Stability and Balance.
3. Applied Flexibility/ Controlled Kick Trajectory/Precision/Control/Target Endurance
4.  Automatic Kick Trajectory, Pathway Absorption/Adaptation, Deceleration
5.  Reaction Forces, Mass Acceleration, Target Connection/Penetration
6. Application, Target Access, Distance, Timing, Attack/Retreat Vectors

Each level can take as little as 2 weeks and as long as 6 weeks. 4 weeks is considered average.

Please note this is not an automated product. Once you register please allow 24 - 72 hours for us to get back to you with registration information.

Many of the instructors in my test groups had the same thing to say."Paul, we trust you, but doesn't mastery of kicks should take years of hard work, sweat and dedication?" No, it should not. Kicking is a gross motor skill, and just like other gross motor skill should not take years for adults to learn. Not if you are training with a program specialized and developed for these skills anyway, and that program being the ESKMS.

I might add that even the instructors that have been kicking for 10, 20, 30 years, have all reported the improvement in the areas that they have been struggling with for years after training with the ElasticSteel Kick Mastery System.

So, if you want to know what training in ESKMS is all about, here is short look in.

Each Level's routine takes 50 minutes to an hour. The routine has many steps or internal levels. A beginner and an advanced student can train side by side in the same class, each training at their own levels. This solves a problem for the instructor who doesn't have time to run many different classes for each individual ability of each student.

The classes contain various exercises, designed to reinforce one another and quickly progress the student. According to my knowledge this is the most researched and tested martial arts skill oriented system in the world. It's not a new style of martial arts; it's not a style period. It's a system designed to have you become a kick master in record short time.

It can be used by any martial arts stylist who employs basic kicks.

Now, I am going to share something I probably shouldn't.

Martial arts school teaching is a business, you can pretend otherwise, but it is. Some do poorly; others are comfortable, while others become wealthy doing it. So it's not surprising that the same question came up too often to count. "Paul, I love it, it helped me, thank you very much, but I have reservations about teaching it."

After 2-3 people gave me a similar intro, I knew the question that was about to come up.

This is the question many instructors have asked. "I love your method, but if my students master the kicks so fast, there is a chance that they would leave the school quickly and I am looking for long term retention."

My response is always swift and if you are asking yourself the same question right know, hear this.

Injury and frustration with an inability to master a skill, is the primary reason someone quits physical activity, including martial arts. You stand a much better chance retaining that student if he is mastering the skills and doing that safely, than he pulling a muscle, getting lower back or simple struggles with a skill to the point of giving up. I have done enough research on psychology of athletics.

And just like in tennis, volleyball, baseball, or any other activity the better your skills are, the more you want to play. Mastering the skills is just a step to beginning to play the game. If you can't serve, bump or throw---you can't enjoy the game. If you can't kick, you can't fully enjoy the training, competing, demonstrating, etc.

Just imagine when you take your students to a tournament, you arrive and there is a rival there with his students, the competition starts and the competing school's students beginning winning every match, showing off perfect high powerful kicks. Whose school do you think all the people in the audience would want to register their kids to? Yours or your rivals? Exactly, they would want to register to the school that has the best performing students. Sure, you might have a few black belts that have been training with you for years and years who look good out there, but just imagine that everyone of your students shows off perfect kicks at the tournament, or at the promotion in your school, or on any given day when potential clients are passing by. Wouldn't that be great? And with much less effort from you! Just think about how much more money you can make by getting many more students to line up to be part of your school.

Okay now that you've got a pretty good idea about what you will learn in the seminar and how it will benefit you and your students let's talk about the details involved in actually taking this seminar.

Please note this is not an automated product. Once you register please allow 24 - 72 hours for us to get back to you with registration information.

The Seminar

So here is how this seminars works. Right now they are offered online, soon they will only be offered land based. The price will be much higher for the land based seminars as always, please take a note of that. The information is going to be the same but the price is going to be much, much higher for land based seminars to cover all the overhead costs involved.

So when you decide to register for the online seminar (and I hope that you won't wait long, or else you'll miss your chance at getting the same knowledge, the same certification, but with a much bigger price tag) you get an access to online video lessons, each one covers each exercise step by step, in and out. You get full routines, and individual explanation. Explanation of the most common mistakes, case studies, etc.

The Certification

You then get to practice the routine. It takes on average of a few weeks for the instructors to master it. Once you have it down, you record a video of yourself doing it. The video gets a thorough review. You get comments sent to you. More often than not, some mistakes however basics are made. Depending on the number of mistakes you've made you either go on or you may have to send a correction video demonstrating that you've understood your mistakes and can now do them correctly. Once that is done, the next step would be for you send in a video of you teaching a class. Same procedure is followed.

Having mastered a specific level, you get your ESKMS certification for 2 years and the rights to teach this system.

Note: Only Martial Arts Instructors can get the certification. Enthusiasts can take the course, but not the tests, and can't get certified.

Martial arts instructors must present proof that they are indeed instructors. Both working instructors and school owners can get certified, but only the certified persons can teach the class.

Don't wait register today, learn more, spend less, and earn more!

© ElasticSteel Corp., EasyFlexibility, Paul Zaichik, et. El., 2022. No part of the materials available through ElasticSteel.com, EasyFlexiiblity.com, site may be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated or reduced to any electronic medium or machine-readable form, in whole or in part, without prior written consent of Paul Zaichik EasyFlexibility.com, Elasticsteel.com.. Any other reproduction in any form without the permission of Paul Zaichik EasyFlexibility.com, Elasticsteel.com is prohibited. All materials contained on this site are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of Paul Zaichik, EasyFlexibility.com, Elasticsteel.com.