Unbelievable Flexibility: Discover the Behind-the-Scenes Secrets of Professional Dancers! | Shen Yun

All of my stretching stories, I've forgotten them because I've repressed them. I was really, really sick. Hey, welcome back. We're the 3 Musketeers. And today we're going to share with you how we stretch and give you some tips. And we have a special guest here. Hello, everyone. My name is Lee and I joined SHIN in 2019. And we managed to invite some female dancers. Hey, everyone. We're back. Before we start, make sure to subscribe if you want to see what the live-streaming dancers are actually like. Small disclaimer, if you want to improve your flexibility, make sure to do it safely with professional help. When we first started training, we spent countless hours stretching. And we still do every single day just to maintain it. Matthew, is it painful? Uh, not anymore. Who's the most flexible person in the group? Dude, just look at the poster. She's like a piece of licorice. She doesn't even stretch. She goes so fast and starts kicking. And this is extremely flexible. You're like a bendy piece of macaroni. Okay, they're all flexible except for me. That's the truth. That's total truth. This finger. My feet. The point. You have a very good point. Oh, wow. Beautiful. And very flexible. Let me tell you. You can put it away. Okay, it looks kind of disgusting, right? This point is actually very good. Very beautiful point. Can I be obnoxious and say my hair? Yes! One day. One month. One day. One month for the front split. For my flexible leg. But the other leg, that took pretty long. One day. I'm not really sure. Probably. She took a long time. I'll just say something like two weeks? One week? Half a year. Maybe even longer. And let me explain why. Okay, it's not because I was really stiff. It was because I didn't want to dance. My mom kind of forced me in the beginning. And that's what happened. So it took me a long time. And that goes to say that if you don't want to do splits, you're not going to get it. But if you really want it, it's going to be a lot faster. Rebellious young man. I'm sorry, mom. I appreciate it now. Where did all the blocks go? Children often find even the strangest events rather commonplace. Sam? Can I borrow a block? Oh, I really want to, but I'm kind of using it. All of these? Yeah, can't you tell? How about that one on the floor? Can I use that one at least? That's for my coffee mug. Just put your cup on the floor! Put it on the floor? That's disgusting! Go away, Will. I'm reading Peter Pan. In minutes, he cried when he returned. The ship was blown to bits. During class time, we would put our front leg on the bar and then just kind of like try to go down. I feel like you're spreading peanut butter and jelly on me. And then you go like this. You need to press your leg and your stomach together. And then you go like this. You're trying to get your torso in. This is the worst feeling. Voila! Let's make Diana do it. Okay, Diana, you can try it. Now you made Lin Jie do it. You have to try it once. Put all the requirements on her. Ow! I can't reach it. So the method that I started out with is Siren Ban Tui, three-person stretch. And what that is, is you're lying flat on a mat and there's two other people stretching you. One guy on your bottom leg and one guy on your top leg. Don't forget to like and subscribe. A stretching method that I use is actually different from what you guys mentioned before. So it's a dynamic movement. It's kicking. So it's not exactly holding splits, but actually throughout this kicking motion, you're also stretching. And actually, we'll talk about it a little bit more, but I think that it actually is better than static stretches. Oh, really? We'll talk about this later. Kicking, dynamic stretches. Oh, please. All of my stretching stories, I've forgotten them because I've repressed them. A deep, dark memory. I don't want to think about it anymore. When I just started to dance, and so before class, we do stretching over splits. What we would do is we have the whole class together would be paired up. And then after, we'd have our front leg on top of like an elevated surface. Everyone had like a classmate and then we'd stretch together. We would sit on each other and then the time was for three minutes. And then I was paired up with the teacher and I was like 10 at that time. I was like 10 at that time. And I was paired up with the teacher. I won't name you. I'll just say the teacher. Okay. And then afterwards, what would happen is it's a three minute timer. And then afterwards, I remember really clearly. So I was already prepared and then I was done. And then afterwards, the teacher just like sat down on me, you know, like full weight. Three, two, one, go. While everyone else in the class was still taking their time, preparing their timers and preparing the yoga mats and like putting their legs on really slowly while I was just like dying there. And then afterwards, what would happen is if someone puts their hand down on the floor, we'd restart from the beginning. And that three minute turned into nine minutes and I will never forget that day. Can Marilyn look more in pain? Three, two, one, go. Hello. This is obviously not painful. You guys, the girls are way too flexible. I can just do this. Yeah, then we should do a comparison of the girls. Although it's like the most unforgettable story for me, I remember she told me like, you know, if you go through this now, you don't have to go through the pain later on in life. So like, it's all for our own good. Marilyn Yang is from classical Chinese dance company Xinyuan, a former gold medal holder. This is her third time joining the competition. That's why she doesn't even stretch in the morning anymore. Oh, good job, teacher. That's all you're doing. Thank you. The most painful stretch for me is Kai Kua. And the reason why it's so painful for me is not because of the physical pain, but more because of the mental pressure. Mental pressure. Yeah. So every time before you do Kai Kua, you have to get ready and it's a 10 minute stretch. So you've got to hold your leg for 10 minutes and you start at your limit. So you want to go to if your limit is 180, you start at 180. That's when you start a 10 minute timer and then you go back more and more. So that's why it's the most painful just because of that pressure every single day you're thinking about okay, Kai Kua is coming again today. It's coming again tomorrow. So, yeah, I remember when I first started dancing Kai Kua was also a very big struggle for me as well. Every day, it's like I wake up and I'm like, Kai Kua. Alright, but your class when we did Kai Kua, you were actually one of the more flexible ones. This is before coming, before you taught me. Before I taught you. The other students in your class were a lot stiffer. People would be like screaming and crying. So, it is really painful. For Kai Kua actually, you know how it's three people, right? For me, I was really really stiff when I just started dancing. So, the two people couldn't push me because I was too stiff and I didn't feel anything. So, I had to get two extra guys who pulled me backwards. So, that's like five-person stretch. Five-person stretch. Wow, that was pretty bad. Yes! I was there. This is a famous story. The bridge without hands touching the floor for ten minutes. I believe that you go down a stretch or whatever stretch and just completely relax. After I keep injuring myself, I figured out that static is the best way because if you go too hard, you might harm yourself. If you just go down and then stay at that position and then relax and then the muscle is going to think that okay, this guy is not harming me. So, it's going to relax, relax and then it's going to stretch out. For myself, my muscles are tight. They're more tight. So, just like hold there for a split and then secondly, I can stay on that position and then feel my other parts. So, when I use it, it's more useful, I guess. Go, go, go, go. Hey, can you help me stretch? I'm kind of busy with something right now. Don't worry. It's only going to take a couple of minutes. All right, man. Let's go. Thank you. Oh, man. I'm so ready for this. Let's go. That's right. Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. What? I got something. You got to have a pillow. It helps you relax. Let's go. Okay, you have to go. Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. What now? Sorry. That's really important to me. Oh, man. How did I forget this? Okay, I'm ready now. Let's do it. Okay, sure. Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. What now, Sam? Sorry, last thing. Last thing, last thing. Monsieur Lavin, please. That's much better. Okay. I promise you, this is the last time, okay? Do you need anything else before we start? Eye mask? Ear plugs? Don't be stupid. Why would I need an eye mask and ear plugs? Let's go. I'm ready. Wait. All right, I'm done. Wait. I was going to tell you to push harder. Oh, my gosh. Who's going to help me now? You want to help me? Man, how do these people expect to get flexible without any patience? Take things slowly. All right. So what that means is don't be in a rush. Like, if you want to go down like splits, like let's say you're already 30 years old and you have this. I want to go down splits today. Don't just go jump into splits but take it slow. Maybe it'll take you like a few months but as long as every day you're working on it and you're slowly like advancing towards your goals, that's a good thing. That's one thing. So don't be in a rush but specifically when you're actually stretching what you want to do is don't go down too fast because your muscle actually tenses up immediately because it's a way of defending your body so you don't get hurt. So you want to take it slow and your body will slowly relax. You have to make sure you're relaxed. Like, my muscles are very tight as well and then sometimes it's engaged without me knowing so I actually have to focus a lot while stretching by telling myself to, you know, connect with my muscles and, you know, make sure to relax so it's actually kind of like tiring mentally. It's not just like sitting there in a split and just waiting for the time to go by. Breathing is very important. When you hold your breath your muscle is going to go really like tense and then if you breathe very like deeply then you can relax your body very easily and your muscle is not going to use the force against you it's going to just relax and actually stretch out. And actually I heard a story that a 40-year-old middle-aged guy was very stiff he just stayed there like he kind of stretched and stayed there and then just kept like breathing like deeply. It took like one year for him but he was able to go to 180. I've actually tried this before I like tied my leg to the bed frame and then after I slept like that and then when you wake up yeah, you're like yeah, you're numb. Stretching before going to sleep. So what I mean is I do like a nice like soothing like not too intense stretch right before I sleep and it's actually really helpful especially the days when you stretch a lot and your body's feeling really sore what it does is before you go to your sleep and you recover what happens is you kind of just elongate it just enough for it to get the blood flowing and kind of like relax kind of stretch and that's really good because the next morning it's really tight but after I started doing this nightly stretch just before you go to sleep just stretch for like five minutes even and then just let everything relax and it helps a lot. After teaching many students what I found that would be really helpful is you have to have these focused sessions of stretching period so if you're actually working on your flexibility right now you actually have to find at least an hour of a chunk to stretch for that one hour and that really helps and if you really want to improve you would find two hours a day if you only stretch like five minutes and then you're done you're not going to improve that fast spend a lot of time and allocate it and then do different stretches in that period of time so like warm up get your blood flowing and then do some like dynamic movements like hold some poses and then go through like do some motion and at the end do some isometric where you just actually hold it you want to do varied stretches that actually helps a lot having someone like helping you is actually a little bit different than doing it by yourself like a push or something so you can only focus on like relaxing and there's a force that actually like pushes down a little bit I hope you found this video interesting and I hope that our tips will help you improve your flexibility let us know what else we should talk about hope you enjoyed this video don't forget to like comment and subscribe see you guys next time