Balance & Strength Flow for BJJ: 16-Min Standing Class

This is not something we ever do in everyday life. So give your nervous system and your muscles and your joints some time and some chances to adapt. Let's move into a lunge. So from all fours, step your right foot forward between your hands, and then walking your hands slowly back until you sit down on your heel, and then flex your foot and point your foot.

And then walk the hands all the way forward so that your heel is lifting and you're maybe even stretching your toes, hips down, and then walking all the way back, as far down as you can come with a flex and a point. Walking forward, deep lunge, walking back, try to get your head and nose forward as far as you can. You should feel a nice stretch on the whole backside here. For some it's in the calf, for some it's in the hamstrings, lower back, your butt.

Nice. And then switching sides. If you want, you can walk over to the other side, doesn't matter. But we try to go all the way forward into a deep lunge here where the heel lifts, and then walking backwards into a low position where we flex and point.

Nice. Getting back into a plank position, moving back into a dog position. So drop your head, wiggle your butt, bend the knee and stretch the other leg. And then stretch your right leg out behind you, bend the knee and open hips, lift your heel and try to really lift your right leg much higher than you think it's possible.

And then roll your knee all the way to your armpit three times. So inhale, sweep up, exhale knee to armpit. One more. And final one, step the foot on the outside of the right hand, walk your hands to the center and without lifting a heel, bend your left knee as much as you can.

Back to center, bend the right knee as much as you can, don't lift the heel. From side to side, so the knee points out and you're dropping down. As soon as the heel starts lifting, you went too far. One more on each side.

And then stepping back into a dog, switching sides, left leg bends and open, roll the knee to the outside of your shoulder three times. So exhale, roll forward, inhale, stretch high up, exhale knee to shoulder, place your left foot on the outside of the left hand and then bend your left knee so much that your left knee touches the ground and then sit down on the butt. Using as little support, maybe one finger, two or three fingers to get up from the floor, moving over to the other side, tapping the knee and sitting down on the butt. Switching over to the other side, tap the knee, tap the butt and come up again.

Switching sides, tapping the knee, I have pain in my toe there, tapping the butt. One more on each side, knee, butt, knee, butt and come back to plank, come back to dog. From the down dog, stretch your right leg out behind you, place the foot between your hands. You might wanna come up on your fingertips or really squeeze the knee forward to place the foot down and then back knee down, arms overhead.

Take a breath here and on the inhale, prepare. On the exhale, come into standing split. So your fingertips are in the ground and your left leg is out behind you. From here, come on up, using as much balance as you need with your arms, maybe arms out, maybe hands in front of you.

Kick the left leg out in front of you as high as you can, really lift the leg high and then come back into the standing splits, back to low lunge where we started. Let's do that a few times. Inhale arms up, exhale standing splits. Inhale, come on up and kick out and exhale standing splits.

Back to low lunge, one more round. Arms up, inhale, exhale standing splits. And come on up and kick the leg out. Stay here.

And from here, try to come through a balancing position where you're flat, your whole body is flat and then stepping back to the dog. Same thing on the second side, lift the left knee open, roll the knee to your nose and really move forward, forward, forward. Get the foot all the way, come into low lunge, take a breath. Arms up, hips down.

Inhale here. And exhale standing split. So really stretch both legs as far as you can and drop your head. And from here, come up to balance.

Maybe lift your knee and kick it out. Inhale here. And exhale standing splits. Coming back to the lunge, arms up.

Big inhale, exhale standing splits. Coming all the way up, kicking the leg out in front of you. Inhale, exhale standing splits. Back to low lunge, arms up, inhale.

One more, exhale standing splits. This time, stay up here, kick the leg out and then try to balance arms and leg back over your left foot, stepping all the way back to low lunge and coming through to your knees. Sit on your shins. Interlace the fingers behind your back and drop your neck.

Take a moment here. And then coming into dog again, lift your right leg out behind you, walk your hands back so that you have equal weight in the hands and the bottom foot. And then with a straight leg, kick up and switch. Land on the other foot.

Walk forward, do the same switch again. Walk backwards, do the same switch again. Walk forward, do the switch. Walk backwards, do the switch.

Two more. And one extra. Sit down in a squat, relax. Now, let's combine these two.

So we start in the dog. Step your right foot forward, knee down and come up with the hands. And then we're gonna do the same switch again. With the hands.

From here, let's kick the left leg straight forward, balance and hands down, switch the legs and step back into low lunge. Again, kick the right leg forward, hands down, do a switch and then land in low lunge. Again, left leg out, kick. Left leg back, switch.

Start over in low lunge. Functional mobility, one more kick, boom. Handstand switch, low lunge. Una mas.

Kick, switch. Low lunge. And let's meet in down dog. Take a breath.

And then sit down on the butt again, just like we started the class. Right knee bent, left leg straight. Come on up with your right hand behind your left arm up. Three circles.

And one more, stay up here and lift your left leg and catch it with the left hand for a chest opener. Release, sit down, switching sides. Kick your right leg straight, left hand behind you. Three circles.

Stop on the third one. Catch the right ankle with your right hand. Open your chest, your shoulder and the front of your thigh. Release, sit down, straddle position, both legs.

Ear to knee, ear to knee. Hands behind you to really push your belly forward and then try to get your hands and tiny ants crawling forward. Tiny ants crawling forward as far as you can go. And where you feel it starts to be like a heavy metal concert in your inner groins, push back a little bit so that your arms are strong and let your head be heavy instead.

So you're resisting the pose a little bit. And then when you feel that the heavy metal concert is a bit quieter, you move forward a little bit. But creep yourself forward until you've had enough and then stop there and take a few breaths. I don't want you to think about, come out of the pose.

I don't want you to think about doing 30 minutes or 45 minutes or 60 minutes right now. 15 minutes consistently is a hundred times better than 60 minutes once a week. Consistency beats volume and intensity every day of the week. So just do what we're doing now at this level for a long time before you start considering adding on and doing more.

Because your problem is not that you're, you're either doing nothing or you're doing too much. This is the perfect starting point where we can get consistent without overdoing it. Keep working, keep showing up. And I guarantee you that you will amaze yourself with your results.