Re: the stretching is good

I am new to these paticular exercises, but have seen many of them before in various kung-fu training. With the 5th in paticular, you should work on keeping your feet flat even if your knees are slightly bent. Work towards straightening your knees more each day, but keep your feet flat on the ground. If done right, this will yield a feeling of incredible heat moving up the legs from the ground. If you move smoothly into the lower position, you should feel this heat(i know it as chi)move up the spine.

I also add a variation to #2 where when my feet are in the air and holding steady, I push them up a bit heal first. This definitely helps in flexibilty for #5.

Hope any of that is useful to someone starting out.

Jason Tweet