Do you have to be able to do a split i order to hold your legs straight up in the air. I see most tae kwon do practitioners do this. How do you acheive this standard because I belive that if I can acomplish this it will make me better at kicking.

Um, I cant kick up there and if I did I would probably jump and kick to my head height in order to do it.

Apparently, from reading loads of stuff, it takes a LONG time to get the flexibility to kick up there. Apparently there are muscles in your legs and other places which are slow growing but which need stretching for you to get flexible enuff to do the splits.

From what I understand, and correct me anybody if Im wrong, but kicking to that height is dangerous cos controlling your leg at that extent is difficult and so there is a danger of overextension of the muscles. I would love to kick that high cos im into trickz and need torque and flexibility.

Those leg stretchers are good for getting the splits, but you have to get the right one cos there are some gypsy ones out there.

scott

I use mainly kicks. I dont use my hands at all I counter all punches and kicks with my legs during sparring. I am not at all flexiable, I cant even touch my toes yet I can kick above my head easily in all directions. Splits do help personally the higher I want to kick the more I have my support leg bent that takes resistance off of the kicking leg. Splits remove this resistance so you can keep your legs straight and kick high personally it never really made a difference for me.