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  1. I have been asked this question privately a great many times. In one sense, this is not a simple question, and in others it is—let me explain. Talking now about the "Starter Course" (the old ABBS) and people who have never stretched before, I recommend stretching every second day, or every third, if you still feel a bit sore after the first session. Hot baths with Epsom Salts are excellent in between, too. One side effect of stretching is delayed onset muscle soreness (known by the acronym, "DOMS"). Some people get this severely; others not at all. Some get it mainly from strength training (I am one of those); and some people do not get it at all. Because the goal of this work is 'grace and ease in the body', we do not recommend trying to stretch sore muscles, usually, and the practical reason is that if you experience the muscles as sore when you are working them, you will not be inclined to explore more deeply. One way around this is to do a different program every day (or every second day); this can work for some people because in the Starter Course's short programs (15–20 minutes, typically), not a lot of work has been done, so the discomfort (should you have any at all) will be minor and doing the next program will target different parts of the body and they tend not to be sore. DOMS affects larger muscle groups far more than smaller ones, too (so the first time you get a deep stretch for your hamstrings, you can expect them to be sore for quite a while—advanced students working on, say, front splits and who have a breakthrough in depth on a particular day have told us that they were sore for a week!) but the Starter Course is very gentle, and this will not happen to you. The last point is I recommend very early in your practise that you put all of your awareness into the body as you play with these new positions and movements: you will not know how they will feel until you are actually feeling the effects, so take your time, go into any position slowly, and really try to feel what's happening. There is much discussion on other threads on the forum here as to what actually causes soreness after stretching, but that need not concern us here. My last point is that if you are working on stretching every day, have one day off a week. The adaptations we call "becoming more flexible" happen when we are not stretching—they happen when we are sleeping and when we are doing our ordinary daily life. Please post any questions or comments below.
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