Sperwerslog at http://www.sperwerslog.com/index.php/sperwerslog/snuffing_out_candles_w_a_sword/
is talking about snuffing out candles with a sword. This is very difficult and often results in flattened candles when your focus is off.
After a few minutes it also kills your eyes.
He also mentioned his legs getting stiff after being in a sitting position for a while, a problem I can relate too.
I remember doing a grading for Hapikdo in Australia. The most important thing in the test was not your actual techniques but you attitude, so no slouching while sitting on the sidelines. So there I was sitting there for 20 minutes, the instructor calls me as a sparring partner and I get up. But my whole leg is number because I had cut of my circulation. You know the feeling where your leg feels a few inches bigger and then when the blood starts to flow again you get that lovely electrical feeling where you don’t know if you should cry or laugh.
Fortunally in my class there are two students, a kid and myself.
So when the kid is being instructed I get to practise by myself. It also allows me the opportunity to stretch because I have found I really need to stretch otherwise my knee gets very irriated at me.
When you are part of a much larger class, you can’t really do this because the class is much more formal, not to mention a bunch of Korean children walking around with big sticks.
Goals
My number one physical goal is to do the splits again ( ok… 95% of the way there) Gumdo is number two.
I have found that if I don’t have a flexible body I get injured very quickly. Even when you are flexible I have also noticed that it is best to strengthen the muscles and joints that you are flexible in, otherwise, you guessed it — injury
Even more so for a fat prick undertall person like myself.
When I went to university I could not even touch my toes! But after 9 months of Aerobics and 6 months of Taekwondo I could get +30 cm in a straight leg test and could nearly do the splits.
I found Aerobics teaches you lots of safe ways to stretch while martial arts teach you lots of potentially unsafe ways (but a lot more effective).
So this means part of my routine again will be sitting in the splits position reading the Economist for 10 minutes. This is not the most effective or quickest way to obtain flexibity but it works and it toughens your mind.