Acro Yoga for BJJ: Part 2 (Flying & Safety Drills)

We're trying to create alignment and I place her center of gravity over my hips. One really nice benefit of Acro that I noticed is that this pressure, her body weight straight my legs into my hip and lower back is actually a super nice release for a tired jujitsu lower back. It's very seldom that we have pressure in the legs when we're folded forward like this. So I really like this as a therapeutic thing for my lower back while she enjoys flying there for other reasons.

But for me, it's really nice for the lower back. Okay. So when you're comfortable here, that might take five minutes. It might take five sessions before you're comfortable being up here.

Then you can start trying to put a little bit more pressure into one hand and releasing the other. I keep my hand here, but she might want to try to take the arm forward or out to the side or back. And as a flyer, you always want to go a bit slower than you think because the base constantly have to adjust for your movement and your weight. So always go slow and try to communicate.

Look at each other and tell me a little more to this side, a little more forward, try to relax your fingers. And she can do the same to me. She can always keep telling me if something hurts. As soon as she says down, I was just unclear if she wanted me to talk about it or actually wanted to come down.

When someone says down, it can be me, it can be her, it can even be someone on the side because maybe something is about to fall on us. When someone says down, take them down and ask questions afterwards. So the down is like the, what do you call it? The code word that you should always obey.

It's better to start over than to try to fix things like mid-sentence and then dropping instead. Down always first. So another thing we want to have is exit strategy. So let's say we're up here and something happens and we're about to start falling.

She has several options. Option one is land on the face. That's probably not the option we want to start with. So if you can place your feet first, do that.

If you can just step down and land on your feet, that's the best option. If the feet for some reason are not coming down first, let's say we're going this way, hands first and then feet. Never face first. Let's say we're in a situation, you can hold on to my ankles.

Let's say we're in a situation like this and we're just about to fall and she can't really place her feet down or her hands down, then she can land on me. That's always a soft landing. That's like the worst case scenario. If we fall, just as a base, just let them land on your face, on your belly.

For me, it's never hurt to have a flyer come down on top of me, but you want to protect them. If you want to earn their trust, when you fall, make them fall softly so you're laughing instead of hurting and crying. And from our experience in Acro, it's usually the falling that is the funnest part. People crack up completely when they fall because that's part of playing, is failing and feeling silly.

But land on the feet or land on the hands or land on your partner, never on your face. Right? Let's see how we can, let's go through this one again. So hips forward, hands forward, lift up.

Release one hand, stretch it forward and back. Nice. Second side. Now, if I place my feet correctly here and if she keeps engaging her lower back and her legs, I can keep my hands, but she can release.

Now she uses her back muscles to keep her up. You can see how she has a back bend through the chest. This makes it easier for her to balance and I'm balancing her just with pointing and flexing my feet. Just by moving my toes slightly, I can push her up or down.

But notice I don't take my hands away. I keep my hands up so if she freaks out, she can either come with the shoulders to my hands or hands to hands. Alright, so in the beginning when you always keep your arms up for safety. Okay?

Down. Nice. I'm going to adjust my pants. That's it.

Nice. Okay, let's take another entry strategy. Let's catch my ankles again. I'm going to keep my hands here if she falls forward.

Yeah. So just catch them fingers down and thumbs in like this. Feet in the right place. If I place them incorrectly, she can just move them and tell me where she wants the feet.

When she gets more experience, she's going to know exactly where she wants the feet. She leans forward, I keep my arms up and we try to enter without connecting the hands. This is actually much easier than it looks. When you've done the normal entry 40-50 times, this one usually comes very naturally.

We can take this further and when she can release from here or if she keeps the hands there, I can try twisting her slightly from side to side to challenge my own balance. This is actually a really good core work for both of us. She has to keep engaged and I have to constantly adjust. As soon as I go out to the side too much, it's super heavy.

So I try to keep her centered. Nice. And come down. Nice.

Yeah. Okay. The next level would be not grabbing the ankles, just tilting straight into it. Let's count to three.

One, two, three. Straight up into it. And another thing I can do here to really challenge myself is doing squats. This is actually a really good workout.

The deeper I go, the tougher it is and also it's not just strength, it's balance and coordination. So as a guard player, this is really helpful when you want to try to flip someone. My flips got so much better after I started doing acro because I know exactly where I want the body weight in order to twist and flip and manipulate weight on top of me. Good guard workout.

The next pose we're going to do is considered intermediate to advanced. So don't start with this one. Take it after you're comfortable with the first two, then you can try this one. It's easy when you know how to, but in the beginning it can be both scary and a bit hard.

So bear with us. Get into the front plank first. This one is called front plank. When the arms go back, it's called the bird or front bird.

And if she keeps her head as high as she does now and I start pointing my toes up, she can bend her knees and I point my toes even more and she can try to catch her own ankles. What usually happens here is that she's a bit hesitant and she falls forward and she doesn't bend back enough and I don't point my toes enough. So I have to push my feet flat for her to get up high. But when you're here, it's easy, but it's just the getting up part that can be tough.

And release back down and come all the way down. Nice. Okay, so that was the first three poses, the front plank, the front bird, and this one is called the bow. Enjoy, have fun, smile, and see you in the next video.