45 Minutes of Yin: Deep Stretch & Recovery for BJJ

And relax. Relax your face. Relax your right leg. Relax your hips.

Relax your head. Now adjust the grip with either both hands or the left hand so that you need minimal effort to keep your hand up. Make sure you're not biting your teeth, but that you're relaxing your jaws, relaxing your ribs, and even relaxing your tongue. Just try to be heavy without trying.

Also place your foot in a position that helps you keep in balance. So relax your belly and see if you can stay in the midline without any effort. Inhale. Exhale.

Inhale again. Deep inhale. And let it out. Let's go with your back.

Place the feet together, knees out to the side, one hand on the belly, one hand on the chest. Let's stay here for a minute. Keep breathing. Your legs are heavy.

Convince yourself that there is no way you can injure yourself or feel pain here. All pain that you experience is only good pain. Consider that it's not even pain, it's just a different sensation. Inhale.

Exhale. This is on the other end of the scale. If furthest to the right is a match of five sparring, this is the furthest you can go to the left without falling asleep. Gin Yoga creates balance between the active extreme that is jiu-jitsu.

Gin Yoga helps you restore, rejuvenate and even heal your muscles, tendons, ligaments and joints. Let's sit up and try the back bend. So on all fours. Starting child's pose, which is this position, and try to get your hands behind your head.

Let's start here. If you make your knees a bit wider, it's easier to breathe in the belly. Make sure your shoulders are not too far away from each other. For many of you this one is going to be a bit extreme, but let's go slowly.

Inch your elbows further forward. Five breaths. Your chest is extremely heavy, it's almost in the ground. If your neck bothers you, just turn the side of the forehead to the ground and look to one side.

Let's go another inch forward and maybe turn your head to the other side. If you want to join me to go even further, until your hips are above your knees, you can go there. But if you're starting to slide forward, then go back. I don't know why they call it puppet pose, probably because it's like a play ball at Domino's.

But puppet pose should stretch your shoulders, your lat, and your chest. Let your belly and chest be even heavier, so that you sway your whole back. From table to neck, try to let everything hang. Relax your arms.

If it's too much to keep your hands behind your head, maybe it feels better to let the hands go down, almost placing your chest in the ground. Keep waiting. If you need to turn your head again, please do. Three more breaths in puppet pose.

And let's try to find a way back to all fours. Since we did the back bend, let's slowly do a few cats and cows. Let's lay down again. Grab your belt please.

Belt around the right foot. This time half happy baby. This is full happy baby. We're going to do half happy baby, which means, grab the belt in such a way that your elbows, elbow is inside knee, and the other leg pointing out to the side.

So a mix between this pose and this pose. So half happy baby and half butterfly. If you're tilting over to the side, place an object under your right knee, or just make sure you're next to a wall so that you can't fall over to the right. Let's stay here.

The better you get at BJ, the better you get at squeezing. But squeezing makes us different on the inside. If you squeeze with legs in half guard, you're going to end up with really tight crutches. So the inner thighs needs time to let go.

Let's stay here for some time. Keep breathing. Relax your face. Embrace.

Relax your face. Relax your face. Embrace. Ah.

Five more in the next items. Slowly stretch your left leg out. Stretch your right leg out. And exercise.

Left leg in happy baby. Right leg in butterfly. It is so much fun to increase the flexibility to such a point that you look at the guy trying to pass your guard, he's trying to control your hips, but all you can control is your You can keep moving your hips and just smile and push them away. It is possible with determination.

If you really learn the trick to relax. Using force against force is not jiu jitsu. It takes many years or some never even learned it. But when you get smashed, you have to try to relax while at the same time working.

The stronger the more intense guide will always be. Make sure you're not tense in your left bicep. If it's difficult to relax, you can shake a little bit. Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake.

And then stay still again. Relax your forehead. Relax your jaw. Five more breaths.

And let's walk up to a seated position. You can use your belt and tie your belt around your thighs. So that the belt prevents your legs from spreading. And then we stand up into the famous dingle-dangle position.

Grab your elbows, drop your head. And lay down on top of your thighs. So this isn't necessarily so comfortable because we need to work with our legs. But this is good for the lower back.

I have met many jiu jitsu practitioners that says, oh my lower back is perfect. It feels nimble and flexible and I have no problems with my back. Very few of us will ever say these words unless we start training persistently for results. So drop your head and relax your neck.

If it's easier to straighten the legs, straighten the legs. But that way it's more hamstring and we want more lower back. So bend your knees and lean forward and use your toes and your breath to become heavier. Try closing the eyes.

If you start feeling anxious and want to lean the toes, take ten more breaths. And slowly sit down on your butt again. Let's go for outside stretch. So left knee forward, right leg back.

Mercy on the knee, no mercy on the butt. So your foot can be under your hip, but the further you can bring your foot forward, the more intense it's going to be. But we all have different hip joints, so use caution. Try to neutralize your hips and if you're up here, stay up here.

If you're further down, that's also okay. We're going to be here for a while, so breathe and enjoy. If you feel pain in the left knee, just slightly roll over to the left side, trying to get your chest and your belly to your thigh and knee. No ankle pain, no knee pain.

If pain is okay. Let the skin of your face hang down. Relax your face. Stay here for another two minutes.

If your legs are falling asleep, then get out of the pose. Get back into it when they wake up. Inhale and exhale. If you can drop down even further, please do.

If this was too much, then get back up and relax, relax, relax. Let's get back to all four switching sides. Right knee forward, start on your side and eventually you might be okay up here. Add those three rounds if you may.

No ankle pain, no knee pain. Keep your shoulders to your side. Another two minutes, three pigeon pose. If you catch yourself thinking, then just inhale and exhale, relax.

Inhale and exhale. If you want to drop down really deep before you leave the pose, you can do that. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale.

Inhale and exhale. Let's get back up to seated. Two options. Either you spread your legs seated and try to go forward.

If this doesn't work, lay down next to a wall. Same position, but back flat to the floor. Let's stay here. No matter if you're laying down or seated, you can always bend your knees if it's too intense.

Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Take another minute and seated or laying down with spread legs.

Inhale and exhale. The last ten breaths, try to completely relax. Just melt down with gravity. Inhale and exhale.

Even if it's intense, don't hold your breath. Keep breathing. No matter where you are, grab your thighs and pull your knees into your chest. As you're laying down, sit up and stretch your legs out in front of you.

Grab and cross your arms and slide your heels down until you can't slide no more. If your head doesn't touch the wrists, place a pillow on your head so that you can relax the face down and breathe into your back. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale.

Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale.

Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale.

Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale.

Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale.

Let your head completely relax. Let the weight of the head scratch your neck. Inhale and exhale. One last breath here.

Lay down on your back. Talking relaxation pose. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale.

Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale.

Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale.

Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale.

Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale.

Inhale and exhale. Take a minute, big inhale. And a minute, big exhale. Knees to chest.

Let's rock up to seated. Yoga will never give you immortality, but yoga will help you feel forever young. Namaste.