Base & Balance for BJJ: 62-Min Live Training Class

So just start on all fours. Just get into your spine. Just move your spine however you want. You can do static cat and cow yoga style.

You can roll all the way forward, hips down into a sprawl. Just take a minute and move your spine. We do a lot on our wrists today. So just a public service announcement.

If you want to do stuff on your knuckles to save your wrists a little bit, can be a smart idea. Again, thanks you guys for coming late, for coming at all. I really appreciate that. Get your neck in there as well.

The neck is part of the spine. So from the tailbone all the way up to your neck. Do some nice spinal rolls. If it's one word that's going to make a difference for Jiu Jitsu, it's emphasis.

You put emphasis on things. You don't just do things. You emphasize a movement, a position, a sensation. For example, knees a little bit tighter and then really drop the hips as low as you can without moving the shoulders much.

So really drop, drop, drop, drop the hips. And when you do it slow, you can go much deeper. If you do it fast, you don't really get better mobility or flexibility. You don't have time to do that.

So really drop the hips until you start feeling kind of something protesting. Then you take a breath and then you do the other side. People always ask, keep going, people always ask me for the shortcut. They want like three poses to fix everything.

And while being realistic, I also try to deliver. So here is a sequence that I think you can do every day for the rest of your life. You get a little bit of a sense of what you're doing. You get a little bit of a sense of what you're doing.

You get a little bit of a sense of what you're doing. So here is a sequence that I think you can do every day for the rest of your life. You go all the way back to turtle. And then you slowly roll all the way into a sprawl.

And then you roll all the way back to a down dog and then reverse. So you have down dog, you have up dog and turtle. So try to do that for a minute. So instead of just small spinal rolls, you emphasize and you go all the way to one pose, all the way to the next one, all the way to the next one.

And really push yourself backwards in down dog, lift the chin in up dog, and push your forehead to the ground in child's pose turtle. Very nice, keep going. Nice, and then sit on your knees and just move your wrists while you're watching. Everybody has seen this belly up, belly down movement in jiu-jitsu.

And it's pretty difficult for a beginner to do that. They tend to kind of do this instead. They don't know how to coordinate themselves with these movements. So let's do it the yoga way.

So we go here. We lift, we go here, we push back. We go here, lift, go here, push back. Your turn.

Do like five, ten switches. So again, I'm going to make sure that everybody does it correctly. We don't want to flip over. We want to do diagonal and then do that.

So always left knee to right, elbow and switch. If you want to go fast, you can do one, two, three switches and then a crab, and then one through three switches. And then you can do a two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. And one through three, one, two, three switches and then a down dog or like a straddle.

Yeah, good question. I'm going to address that. Nice. This is not meant as an insult.

It's rather an observation. You look like you feel a little bit clumsy in this position. Raise your hand if you agree, if you feel a little bit clumsy. Great.

That means we're not doing stretching and flexibility. It means we're doing mobility, movement ability. That's my definition. If you feel clumsy, it means that you are less flexible.

A couple of technical tips that's going to change how you feel. Look at my feet. They're close together. Look at my butt.

It's high. When I do it from here, I feel clumsy and weak. I would not want any one of you to stand on top of my back now. Come stand on my back.

Jump up. Yeah, yeah, just stand on my back. When I'm here like a box, I'm going to be able to do a little bit of a jump. Jump up.

Come, come, come. Yeah, yeah, just stand on my back. When I'm here like a box. Exit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Exit. Yes.

We call this structural integrity. Without making this a society, thank you very much. Without making this into our science and engineering class, we want a position where everything is connected and strong. So instead of doing it like this, with the feet close together and far away, we do it like a box.

So there is a box between the hand and the knees. And then when I switch, I don't put the foot there. I put the foot there. So there is symmetry.

And now I don't feel as clumsy. Think about this like a jiu-jitsu technique. If you put your hand in the wrong place, you get swept. If you put your foot in the wrong place, they get half guard.

So becoming conscious about how you do it really matters. Try again. Try to kiss the mat with your knees all the time. Don't have high knees, low, low knees.

Knees are just hovering above the mat. And then instead of looking down at your knees, look forward if you feel like you know where the knees and hands are supposed to be. So your chest is going forward a little bit. Not at all as clumsy anymore.

Looks really good now. Nice. Okay, everybody. Left foot forward, left arm up.

If you do the right arm, we're going to do that later. But now the same side hand as the foot. So one foot forward, same arm up. And then step back to down dog and do the second side.

This one is called the world's best stretch. And I agree, but it depends on how we do it, if it feels great or not. Step back to down dog. Second side.

Do a few more times. And there is no need to look up. If you feel like the pose is not feeling great, look down instead and push harder into the hand on the floor. One more on each side.

And then make a big circle with arms. Look, I'm here in the world's best stretch. And then I make a circle and look at my arm. And then I place the heel down and circle the other arm.

Yeah, so here. Your turn. Do three on one side and then switch and do the other side. Yes, very nice.

When you do that one, you can place the heel down like this. That's it, yeah. And then you have stronger hips. And now when you do that, you do this side.

And then when you place that hand down, you lift the heel and you go back there. Yeah, exactly. All right, one more exercise from the world's best stretch positions. Instead of going up now, we go forward and lean down as far as you go into the hips.

And then we reach back and give ourselves a low five. So we go forward, back, forward. One, two, three times. And then do a jump switch.

And the second side. Your turn. If you want to do it more statically, you can do that. If you want to flow a little bit more, do that.

But make sure that you're reaching the right hand towards the left foot. So you're not doing that now because that's not that easy. Here, here. Here, here.

And the jump switch, you can bounce a little bit and then jump forward, back. Make sure the foot is on the outside. Instead of being in between, you have the foot on the outside. So the hands are here.

Very nice. This is not hard because it's something wrong with you. It's just hard because you never do it. Trust, trust, trust.

It is only hard today. You can do it. You can do it. You can do it.

You can do it. You can do it. You can do it. You can do it.

It is only hard today. It will not be hard forever. Okay, different position. Stand up.

This is the problem in jiu-jitsu. When we have this posture, which we need in order to not be submitted, this is how it looks when we do positions. What we want is more of this. These are the show muscles.

Those back there, those are the go muscles. We want to boom. So not here, here. No, yes.

I'm going to repeat that many, many times, not in a row, but I'm going to remind you again and again. So this is what we're doing. Hand in the ground. If your legs are long, walk them further.

If they're still really long, hand forward so we have a triangle. Then bow and arrow. Boom. Boom, your turn.

Just bow and arrow. Lots of power in the arms. The weight is mostly in the hand, not so much in the feet. Place the hand forward even more.

And then lots of power into the hand. Your arms should get tired. Your legs should get flexible. This looks nice.

Look down or look up or both. Yes, you really got that back thing that I talked about. Back looks good. Now, when the hand is down, side kick, technical stand up, switch.

Side kick, technical stand up, switch. Go. Beautiful. Everybody stand up.

That looked great. We're going to add on because you did it very good. So now we're doing airplane and then we go a little bit faster. One, two, just touching.

One, two, three, kick. Coming back and really whoop. One, two, three, kick. One, two, three, kick.

One, two, three, kick. One, two, three, kick. One, two, three, kick. Go.

Yes. Okay. Two more options. One is to interlace the fingers behind your back and just chill out here.

If you really enjoy this movement, you can also kick. Instead of kicking in front of the leg, you can kick behind the leg and sit down into dragon squat and then come back up and experiment with that, maybe grabbing the foot. So one advantage of this is that you can actually do this with your hands. So maybe you can do this experiment with that, maybe grabbing the foot.

So one advanced option, one more chill option. Thirty more seconds. Go. One more each side.

Okay, beautiful. Use your butts and sit down. Grab your hamstrings, rock and roll. Roll forward into a fold, bounce a little bit.

Move your neck. And then arms overhead, roll back. And roll up, stretch. And then you can do the same thing.

Roll. Adding in one pose in between, we're going up, touch, fold back. Roll up, find the balance, touch, fold. Nice.

Now roll up to your shoulder here and then roll up into combat base with a penetration step. So you're rolling back on your shoulder, rolling up, penetration step. Go. Remember, slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

Fast is not fast. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Nice one. Adding on.

Now we're rolling back, rolling up into combat base, coming straight into airplane mode. And then when you come back, don't do this one sloppy. If you do this one carefully, you're going to get really good at pulling guard. So from here, down.

Rolling up. Don't do it like this. Really stretch out and then come down again. Go.

Pistol squat, innovative. Very nice. Beautiful. Yes.

Nice. Always shoulder blades together. Here. Then I stand up and then I do it.

Yes, that's it. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay. Another option, easier and one similar difficulty, one harder.

So now you roll up, catch the foot and do classic yoga pose and come back. Or you come up into figure four, stand up, high five yourself and come back down to figure four. One more time. I either roll up into dancers pose or I roll up through figure four, stand on this leg, high five the other leg and come down again.

Your turn. Yes. Yes, all the way up. Yes.

Yes, all the way up. Yes, correct. Or freestyle and make up your own pose. Bring your own pose.

Come join, join us, join us, please. Just find a spot and kick your own butt. Just find a spot and kick your own butt. One more each side.

Everybody stand up. Single leg defense, this is a good idea to be able to do this. You can hold under the hamstring, you can hold the calf, maybe you can hold the foot. But we want to try to get the leg straight to make it harder.

It's not so difficult to stand like this a little bit, but we want to try to get the leg straight. So single leg defense into Uchimata. Yes, here standing splits. And now moving between these two is not easy and that's why we do it.

It's not supposed to be easy, it's supposed to be hard. If you want to make it super hard, grab your ankle. Grabbing the floor is more than difficult enough. Five times up and down and then we switch sides.

And when you emphasize, when you really do it as far as you can, it quickly becomes a workout. There is strength, there is tendon exposure. You can battle yourself with this simple drill. If you do five in a row, you probably start feeling it in the ankle and leg and the other leg.

And your will to live maybe. Nice. Same thing, second side. One arm out sideways for balance can be a good idea.

It's so much better to practice this without someone trying to throw you or smash you. I'm not going to do that. And if this is your first yoga class, I promise you this is the worst class. It's never going to get worse than this.

It's only going to get easier. Everybody squat down. Heels can be in the floor or up depending on your ankles. Collapse one knee inside, switch, collapse the other knee.

So the foot goes inwards. We don't lift the heel now. We turn the foot sideways like this. And then find a strong squat.

Arms up on the inhale. On the exhale, drop your head, lift your butt. Seven like that. Inhale up.

Exhale forward. Emphasize. Nice. Walk your hands back.

Lift the right hand. I'm going to do it with you. So lift the right hand. And then lift the butt as high as you can.

And then heel to butt. So the right foot lifts. So you're balancing on one side. And then you flip over.

Roll the knee to your face. Look left towards the ocean. And then sit back into crab. So now the left hand is up.

We did a 180 degree turn. So again, left arm up, left foot up. Flip over to scorpion. And then roll the knee to chest.

Come back to crab. And now we did a full 360. Just watch me one more time. This is how we do it.

We go up and around. Up and around. This is not supposed to be easy. This is supposed to be very difficult.

Go. I'm going to do it with you. If you struggle, copy me. Thirty more seconds.

Yes. If you feel clumsy, it means you're improving your mobility fastly. Keep going. The dancing crab.

Yeah. Yes. Very good. Nice.

Everybody sit down. Same thing from a different starting position. Now we're in all fours. Kicking sideways and then stepping over ourselves.

Kicking sideways. So it's exactly the same movement, but we don't come to crab. We just come here and then we go sideways. Step over.

Sideways. Step over. And if you have the mental capacity without your morning coffee, instead of doing this and flipping over with the knee tight, do the opposite and get the heel to the butt. It's so much easier to balance here than here.

So when you're lifting off the floor, keep the heel to the butt glued until you come forward here. Kick out. Lift and keep the lift. If not, wait for the coffee.

Yeah. Try this. You're in all fours. Side kick, lift and flip over.

Side kick, lift and flip over. Same movement, different emphasis. Follow me. Look.

From here, foot comes under. Now lift the left foot. Yeah. And now kick this foot under.

So now you kick it all the way out. This way. Yeah. And now you step over and kick it under.

And you got it. Very nice. Okay. I know you don't want it, but I want it.

So stay with me. Same movement in reverse. We just did the knee slide. Fion taught us yesterday about doing these, what you call basic bitch knee cuts.

I loved it. And being able to go from here and quickly go there and come back, you don't get more passing in Jiu-Jitsu than that. How about the back step passing? When you're here and you go, bah, and then hop, and you're in side control.

Yeah. We can mimic that and feel really good doing it. Difficult for the shoulders and core to stabilize. That's what we want.

Look, we just did this flipping over, this flipping over. Now falling backwards, retracting, scorpion falling back, retract. Exact same thing just in reverse. So you can start here, do a kick, and then pause.

Okay. Everything backwards. Retract, scorpion dog. Control on the descent.

Pulling it back, scorpion. Your turn. Go. Yeah.

It helps to sit down on your butt, take a break, and then keep going. Because you're falling onto your butt, might as well just take a break there. If you feel lost out, just come closer. I can help you more when you're over here.

Morning, Bodo. Yeah. Yeah. Not looking so clumsy anymore, looking great.

All right. Take a break. If you need some water, take 30 seconds of break. Just drink some water, relax a little bit.

Okay. Just come a little bit closer, please. I don't feel like I want to fill the room with my Scandinavian accent voice too much in the morning. Trying to explain three different modalities with three different poses.

Yoga. Crossfit. Jiu-jitsu inspired yoga for BDJ. Exactly the same thing on the movement ability instead of just strength, stability, and flexibility.

You get it? High plank, low plank, lay down, relax. Low plank, high plank, and repeat. Your turn.

Everybody turn your head. Make sure you have your head that way so we're rolling the same way. Just turn around so your head faces better. You want to feel clumsy.

You want to feel like your nervous system is trying to figure it out. It's never going to feel as bad as this again. That's the good news. Time.

You're all doing it so well. I want you to push yourself to a place where you still feel uncomfortable because you start to look a little bit too comfortable. We're going side plank, rolling a little bit faster all the way up the side plank, and then flipping it into a back bend. Maybe you're even throwing the arm under rolling a bit faster coming up into a back bend.

Back bend and emphasize. Don't go here when you can go there because it's just for one second. Roll under. Your turn.

Thank you for... Stay there. Stay, stay, stay, stay. Foot comes behind.

This foot pushes the hips up and then hand behind head and boom, that's it. Stop there. Stop, stop, stop. Come back, come back.

This foot is like a kickstand behind you. This one pushes the hips up, hand behind the head, and then you go boom. That's what I mean with emphasis. You really try to excite.

Stay there. Go back, go back. Put the foot firm in the mat and use it to bam, bam, and then look towards the ocean. Yes.

Let me see. Sure, absolutely. No, no, now you go all the way around to the other side. You're always looking inside.

Thank you. Nice. Alright, let's do a test. 99% of all statistics are made up, including this one.

99% of people cannot do this. You can if you practice. Everybody plank pose. Everybody plank pose.

Lift the left foot, look forward and catch your left foot with the right hand and hold for five seconds. I repeat, you can do this with practice. Sit down, relax. Are you feeling demotivated?

Good. Second side. It's important to look around and compare yourself with others. It's the secret to being miserable.

Nice. This was not just a test of your mobility, flexibility, stability, but also proof that muscles don't help unless they coordinate and collaborate. Yes. The strongest guys in the world that are lifting a lot of static weights, they can't move at all.

They can't do this because this muscle doesn't know how to interact with this muscle in a coordinated fashion. That's what we want. Flexibility, yes. Strength, yes.

Without them, you break. Without them, you break. But if you want to move and flow in jiu-jitsu, you need to do stuff like this every day. 15 minutes minimum.

Minimum 15 minutes. And age is not an excuse for lack of mobility. Muscle mass, yes. If you're 85 and you have a little bit lower VO2 max than the elite athletes, you have a legit excuse because of aging.

Mobility, not. You have 100 years old that can everybody do this. Sit the stand test. Cross your legs.

Sit and stand up again. No shame, no blame if you can't do it. But this is a scientific test how long you're going to live. If you can't do this, the chances of you dying within five years is much higher.

Science, bro. Science, bro. I have a degree from Bro Science University. There are so many reasons why someone can't do this and all those reasons are what do you call it?

Synergetic with other lifestyle problems. Yeah. So you really need to prioritize this. Sorry, this is not supposed to be a sermon.

So let's do the let's do one more thing from side plank. I really love this one. You're in side plank. You're walking as far as you can without moving the hand.

And then you walk all the way back as far as you can. One round on each side. Maybe full 360, maybe 270, maybe somewhere in between. No, two points.

Make sure you do both sides. Make sure you do both sides. Nice. Okay, I tricked you yesterday.

If anybody saw the post on Instagram yesterday, I tricked you. Tomorrow is the guard class. This was hopefully, obviously, the best day of my life. Okay, I tricked you yesterday.

If anybody saw the post on Instagram yesterday, I tricked you. Tomorrow is the guard class. This was hopefully, obviously, the top class and balance and base. Let's look at something, a simple exercise that you can add in instead of doing burpees, jumping jacks, high knees, belly in, belly out, all this bullshit that we do in Jiu Jitsu warm ups.

That is a waste of time, my opinion, opinionated opinion. Let's do this instead. So, we're in a squat, just look first. We're in a squat.

Do one gorilla jump. Then, spinning around. One gorilla jump, spin around. Just do that as a warm up.

Go. Don't jump, actually float like this. Yes. So, hands come in between like this.

Yes. Look at me, look at me. Look, you're here. Hands are in between like this.

Yes, that's it. Time. I'm in mount, someone is pushing me, I push back and there it is. There it is.

If your foot drags the mat, the arm bar is not going to work. You have to learn how to tuck the heels in and go there, just for a brief second, pulling it up. Let's do an exercise, another test if you will. You're here, hands down, see how high you can tuck the heels up here.

So, it's all here. Hamstrings, core, chest, triceps. Not straight arms, bent arms. Here.

Your turn. Very nice. Two new challenges, you all did it way too well. So, two more challenges.

Baby version, not so scary but still very hard. Second challenge, going from crow to headstand. To headstand, back to crow, shake it out. Your turn.

Baby crow or crow to headstand? Use your face more. Yeah, nice. Nice.

Why into bridge? Nice. Okay, you guys are looking a bit too miserable. Let's do the opposite.

Let's counter this jiu-jitsu move with something else. Option one, here. Option two, with toes in the ground, here. Back bend emphasis, not here but...

Five more seconds. And then turtle, lay down and relax for a moment. Nice. Okay, one final, two options.

One more chill one, one really difficult one. The first one is a low lunge with a classic yoga twist. You can take this one and flip it into the position we just did. I saw some of you enjoy doing arm balances.

So you can go from here like a toe squat and then place your hands down. I'm going to turn to face the beautiful Borro and his camera so that we don't just see my ass. From here, really get the elbow as far down as you can. Lean forward into side crow.

And then maybe straighten. This is actually much easier to split the legs because of balance, bro. So two options. You're here twisting it or you're flipping into the arm balance version.

This is the last intense thing we will do and then stretch it out. Stay there and now... Yes! Place the knee in the ground.

Yeah, stay there. And then allow yourself to relax. Yeah. Knee in the ground and then instead of looking back, look sideways and be more there.

Harder but feels so much better for my ribs at least. Yeah. Good stuff. That's nice.

That's really nice. Yes. Beautiful. You didn't need any help.

Yeah! Crow, bro. Yeah! If you want, you can grab your inner thigh with...

Yeah! Nice one, guys. Beautiful. Beautiful.

Beautiful. Sit down on your butt. Straddle. Rock the hips.

Catch the elbows. Elbows overhead. Lean forward. Come back.

Don't do this. Don't do a cheese pop. But chest forward. Look forward.

If you want to pretend to hold a ball and go further, do that. But don't do this. Now, one hand up, reaches over for the foot. Switching.

Maybe support yourself with some help from the backhand like this. Hands behind you. Lift the hips. Five seconds.

Dig the heels into the mat and squeeze your butt. Sit down. Butterfly. Rock from side to side.

Come back. Come back. Come back. Come back.

Come back. Come back. Come back. Sit down.

Butterfly. Rock from side to side. And then use the hands to pull your chin backwards like this. So the chest goes forward.

Pull yourself down. Chin forward. And then stay here with the foundation. And neck relaxes.

So arms, legs, back, lats are strong. Everything else, try to relax. Nice. One leg swings back into 90-90.

Move a little bit towards one leg. And then the other. Then back. And the other.

And then place the hands behind you and do five push-ups. And then come to the front leg. Elbows down or hands forward, you choose. Drop your head as low as you can.

You're a lot more flexible than you think. You just need to give yourself time to sink into the position. If you're afraid of hurting yourself, you really should be, because that means that you're not used to these positions. And you need to do them more and become less afraid.

When you are fearless and mobile, almost nothing in jiu-jitsu can hurt you other than yanking heel hooks. I believe that 90% of injuries in jiu-jitsu are completely our own fault, which is good news. Because if it's our fault, we could have prevented it. It just takes consistency and time.

Switching sides. 90-90 the other side. Front leg. Back leg.

If you really want to piss off an older grappler, do like me and tell them, oh you're older. Well, then you have less of an excuse because you have more time to train. And it is cynical, but it is true. If you are wasting your time doom-scrolling instead of doing mobility, then you have excuses, but they're not legit.

15 minutes a day of doom-scrolling replaced with mobility makes all the difference in the world. Five push-ups behind you. And then front leg, elbows or hands, but really create a supportive frame and from that frame, relax. And then come on up.

Just watch first. Everybody has done this one, but I want you to instead of trying to twist and look sideways, go for the side stretch instead, which means arm overhead, create length and then you relax into it. Instead of going and hanging out there, go overhead and chill out. Your turn.

And if static is difficult, do dynamic instead. Do small movements in and out. Like we call this one open the book pose because you can have your hand behind the head and kind of turn pages like this. Adding on the really valuable part of yoga, inhaling, holding the breath for five and then slow exhale with the nose.

And switching sides. To make sure we don't get lost in our own thoughts, we connect with the breath with a deep inhale, holding the breath for five and long exhale. Rolling back to center, arms and legs up, lay down on the mat, arms and legs up. Just shake it out for five seconds.

Shake the arms and legs. And then lay down. I encourage you to close your eyes and just relax. Starfish position, wide arms and legs is nice.

Relax your face for a brief moment. Take a long, long deep inhale. Let's do one big communal sigh. One more.

And for the second time today, let's wake up. Move the thumbs, fingers, big toes, feet, arms overhead. And then wake yourself up and find your way back to seated in your own time. Arms overhead, inhale.

And hands down, exhale. Hand and fist together. Thank you guys very much. I am a believer, I'm an idealist, I am a dreamer.

I believe that Jiu Jitsu can save the world. But who's going to save Jiu Jitsu? This is going to save Jiu Jitsu. Because who here has trained more than 10 years to raise their arm?

This is a pathetic statistic. It means that you guys, four of us out of 25, are the only survivors of the last 10 years. Now who has trained more than 20 years? Which means that statistically all of you are going to be gone in a decade or two.

This is not good. Because we're doing it wrong. We have to admit, the scientific method is we have to count the mistakes. We have to count the dead people.

The people that are not here anymore. And the only way to do that is to stop running in circles and doing push-ups and going really hard round after hard round after hard round. You need to adapt how you play. If you have an injured knee, respect the injured knee.

It's part of you. So play half guard. Find a way to adapt the game so that you survive. And what you do before Jiu Jitsu really matters.

If you're warm and if you're mobile and flexible. And even more, the best muscle that you can practice is your presence. If you're present, you're going to tap in time. And what you do after class, if you do recovery, as soon as the session ends, the recovery session begins.

And how do you start your recovery session? By doom scrolling? Just complaining in the locker room? Or do you take five or ten minutes with legs up the wall and breathing?

For me it's magic. It's better than any drug you can ever find. And it's free. Just legs up the wall, deep breathing for ten minutes.

And then you feel like all these blissful hormones after training just get X2. These things really, really count. Go to sleep earlier, drink more water, eat healthier, yes, yes, yes. But on the mat, before and after, how you sandwich your Jiu Jitsu class really, really matters.

Black belts always have an end of class speech. We can't help it. I apologize on behalf of all black belts. You need a speech.

Because these speeches really matter to me. And maybe if I just hit one out of ten, for me it's worth it. If the rest of you are just sick of it, I accept that too. Thank you very much.