Emphasis on stretching?

[JonWal]

Interesting points about stretching before class, we've always done 15mins of warmup/stretching as a starter.

I'll stretch whenever and wherever I can, waiting for kettle to boil, sitting at my desk etc.

Every pause in my life is an opportunity, haha

[xo-karate]

New research shows that static stretching at age 40 and over does not hinder your performance like it does for younger athletes.

(Maybe we are too stiff that it does not matter:-)

[Himokiri Karate]

I agree warm up before stretching, some push ups or shadow boxing would do in small places if no room for running.

That being said, I am kind of suprised, I thought martial artist stretching as much as contorsniost!

[brickshooter]

I know that it's heresy. But I generally don't stretch.

During training, I generally do 50-100 low level kicks, then progress to 50-100 midlevel kicks, then to high level kicks. By the time I'm well over 100 kicks, my hips and legs are flexible and warm enough to do high level kicks.

[JonWal]

I'm going to give this non-stretching a go for a few weeks, see how I get on.

Everyone still in agreement on stretching after a class though yeah?

[cheesefrysamurai]

We stretch every class.

We bow in, then immediately, either 50 jumping jacks or running around the dojo, side stepping, then go into stretches

[sensei8]

Stretching is a prerequisite of each and every class; the lack of any stretching can lead to an injury; one that can be avoided if proper stretching is attended to before each and every class.

This includes...the cool down as well.