One hour Beginner-level class – the ‘Three Necks’

Kit presents a Beginner-level class, with 45 minutes stretching and a 15-minute lying relaxation to finish. The theme is the 'Three Necks' (oriental wisdom talks about the ankles, wrists, and the neck as "the three necks", and these are the three places in the body which tend to get stiffer as we age – and more quickly than the rest of the body).

We have recorded this class 'live to disk' – this means we recorded the program live, and we did not stop for anything, even when the lawn mowers started up at the bowling club next door ... live to disk is the way we intend to present these classes in the future, and is the closest thing to being in the room with the teacher.

A bit about the history of our classes: we ran stretching and strengthening classes on either side of a divide in a large room at the Australian National University in Canberra for 27 years. The same rooms were where the books Overcome Neck & Back Pain, Stretching & Flexibility, and Stretching & Pregnancy were worked out and photographed (we made the videos there, too). And as we have mentioned elsewhere, the system featured an Advanced class on Tuesday nights, which all Stretch Therapy (formerly named Posture & Flexibility) teachers attended – these were mini-workshops every week, and anyone who had experience in other systems was asked to present elements from it so we could play with these; ST is an open learning system.

For example, all of our current piriformis exercises were discovered and refined in a single evening, taught to students in the Beginner and Intermediate classes, and all feedback brought back to the Advanced class the following week. This became the fastest-changing and adapting learning system we have ever seen. Many people who attended these classes – some for the entire 27 years! – found that attending just one 75-minute class per week was enough to completely change their pattern of flexibility and maintain that. As well, all of our Canberra teachers were long-term students of Stretch Therapy before they trained as teachers.