This starts with a story. In the summer of 2024, I had the opportunity to train with Master Ernie Wu of the Wu Association, in the art of Eight Step Mantis. Master Ernie Wu has been teaching Traditional Chinese Martial Arts here in Houston for over 50 years. I was excited to learn from him.
During warm up, he did a ridiculous elbow-to-touch stretch… My mind was blown. I was nowhere close to reaching my toe. He turned around, saw me, and just said: Johnny… Wudang people don’t stretch?
That was a total mind f- I mean, “yuck” to me. I was blown away.
Then something happened, maybe the Gods of Wudang sensed something. About a month later, my Shifu of Wudang sent a group chat to all of his disciples and pop quizzed us on various skill development and forms to see where we were. Among them, was the elbow-to-toe stretch. I must’ve missed this class, because I don’t recall this part of the curriculum.
But to my surprise, EVERYBODY WAS ABLE TO DO IT. Except me. I was the only failure.
I reached out to one of my martial art brothers and asked him how long did it take him, and what exercises to do.
His response was: About a month. Just a few exercises, let me show you.
The whole routine was 6 minutes. Since I am a strong believer in quickly developing attributes (gong) in short amount of time (100 days). I thought I’d give it a try. Honestly, I didn’t think it would work. I’ve been training for 25 years. I went through tons of different stretches and programs. There was a period I did 800 kicks everyday for an extended amount of time. There was a period I would spend 40 minutes to 1 hour every single day on stretches, for months.
I was so sure I reached the max of my flexibility. Truthfully, I did NOT think it would work. But I had to put my money where my mouth was. So I thought, I’ll do this for 100 days. And if I can’t do it, then I accept my leg as is. I do not have the natural flexibility to achieve this.
Growing up through school, I was always the stiffest person in EVERY PE CLASS. I have not met a person stiffer than me. So I already gave myself an excuse if it didn’t work. But I wasn’t going to give myself an excuse for not trying. 100 days, 6 minutes a day. Honestly, I felt I was being unfair to the word “commitment.”
Here’s a video of Master Ernie Wu doing Li Pi “Power Chop” form from Eight Step Mantis:
And here was my training progression on my elbow-to-toe stretch.
Day 50: I’ve made very little improvements. I probably increased my reach by 1 cm. So I thought… At this rate, maybe at Day 100 I’ll have achieved 2 cm, or maybe a little more and hit 1 inch. Not great, but still better than nothing.
Day 61: Something felt different. It feels like I made a noticeable improvement compared to 11 days ago, but I didn’t measure it with a ruler.
Day 79: If I wear shoes, and jam my foot against bricks or object (like the first guy in the video above), then I can actually touch my toe!! Take away the object, or take off my shoes, I can’t.
Day 87: I can now reach toe-to-elbow without having an object, but I have to keep my shoes on for that little bit of extra thickness. Take my shoes off, I can’t reach it.
Day 88: I CAN NOW BRUSH MY TOE, even if it’s just a little bit. I did it! In under 100 days.
There you go. It’s doable. I just did it. I didn’t even believe I could do it. No positive mindset here. But one thing is, you DO have to DO it, every single day. Truthfully, it was the toughest 6 minutes of my everyday. I freaking hated every single minute of it.
The most painful, the most suffering, the most dreaded 6 minutes of every single day.
But hey, that’s what we martial arts practitioners do right? We do martial arts.
Imagine going to your supervisor saying, “I love this team, I love this project, I am so excited of the opportunity to work on this. In fact, I am so excited with this opportunity, I promise you I will spend 6 minutes on it everyday, for 100 days.” Most supervisors would probably look at you funny.
Yet, how many people can commit to improving an element of their martial arts for 6 minutes a day, for 100 days? And once you do it, you become the top <1% of this very specific skillset. I haven’t met more than 10 practitioners in my whole life that can do this. And believe me I’ve met a lot of people…
Now you know. Now go do it. 6 minutes a day, 100 days. If you want to put in double the work, do the routine once in the morning, and once at night… That’s a total of 12 minutes a day!
For others Gongs that we focus on, here is the overview blog post: Gong Development within 100 Days
