Sebastian Brosche · 22 min · 2,241 words
Previously titled: Video 4 - Foundation Week 2
Welcome back, let's start in Turtle aka Child's Pose. Take five breaths. Slowly roll up to all fours. Do a couple of cat and cows stretching and flexing your spine.
Start rolling between Turtle and a back bending sprawling position. Rolling into a forward fold, into a back bend and repeating. Keep the lower part of your belly and your core muscles active if you have any types of lower back issues. Alright all fours, left knee forward just like we're doing a chair sit to take the back.
Again back bend here and lower your hips and go back to Child's Pose but this time cross your knees and go back as far as you can. Take a breath here. Repeat the process. So a sprawling position with your right side and a chair sit with your left side.
Take a breath. Cross the knees and lean back. Inhale, exhale. Switching sides, right knee forward, lower your hips, lift your chest, take a full breath cycle.
Cross your knees and go back. Sit. And cross your knees. Nice.
Four facing dog, stretch your calves, your ankles, your hamstrings. Right foot forward, back knee down. Don't grab the ankle, just high five yourself on the foot like this and then stretch both legs and try to touch your left knee with your right arm. So both knees can be bent or you can try to straighten them but you're reaching back to touch your knee.
Big circle with the arm, left knee down, high five yourself and touch your knee. So it could be here, it could be here, it could be all the way here. Sit. Two more, five total.
Hands down, do a couple of hop switches. One, two, three, right knee down, left arm up, big circle, high five your own foot. Stretch both legs and touch the knee. Repeat four more times.
Two more. Last one. Dog or facing dog. your knees.
Right leg up behind you, bend the knee and squeeze the right knee towards your right ribs. Try to get them as close as possible. One of the most important both defensive and offensive moves in Jiu Jitsu is squeezing the knee in towards the chest. Repeat the movement.
Inhale, open, exhale squeeze. Inhale, every millimeter counts. Try to squeeze the knee towards your chest. One more.
Inhale. Exhale, squeeze the knee to the chest and place the foot between your hands. Back knee down, arms up. Straight arms or catch the wrist.
If you have pain in the left knee, stop worrying about it so much and put more weight in the toes and the feet than in the knee. Now go back and forward a couple of times. Just like this. From this low lunge position straighten the back leg.
Open up for warrior two. So one more time from here. I'm just showing you can stay in warrior two. Straighten the leg, open the hips, stretch the arms.
This outward pressure with the right knee is just the outward pressure that you would need if you want to break a De La Riva because the De La Riva hook wants to push your knee inwards and you resist that by turning your foot and your knee out. Stretch and stay. Add on a side stretch, reverse warrior. Legs stay in the same position.
You're not lifting your hips. You're just side stretching your right side. Now right fist inside of the right foot. Left arm up as if you're holding a kettlebell in your left hand.
Turn the chest towards the ceiling. Look towards your left hand. Even if your neck is protesting slightly. Use your core to lift up back to warrior two.
Reversing the warrior again. This time grab your head and use the neck muscles to pull the side body even more. Your lats and your intercostals should be feeling this. Warrior two.
Step the right foot back into a very short warrior two. Open the palms facing the same direction as your chest. Lift your back leg. Find balance first.
Open the chest. Stretch the legs and then go deeper without compromising any knees or hips. Everything should be open and flat. Don't bend and close.
You're not going with the chest facing the floor. It's your right hand that is reaching for the floor but the left hand is reaching for the ceiling. Two more breaths. Hands down standing split.
Bend the left knee and do a couple of curls here just like we did in the beginning with the right leg. Left knee to left chest. Heel to butt. Stretch.
Do a couple on your own. You don't have to sink it with a breath. Just do a couple. And now with completely bent knees do a switch leg handstand.
So you switch to stand on the opposite foot with bent knees. Completely bent knees. Get your hips up but keep your knees bent. So we're basically going for a tuck handstand landing on a bent knee.
No flexibility involved. Just power and balance. Plank pose. Take two breaths.
We're down to half a push up. Hips down. Chest forward. Elbows in.
Cobra pose. All fours down dog. Take a break. Let's repeat the sequence on side number two.
Left leg out behind you. Bend the knee completely not half way. Use the hamstring and squeeze your heel in towards the butt. Very important in certain guards that you're able to pull your heel in towards your butt.
Roll the knee towards your chest and try to really squeeze the knee up as high as you can. Take a couple of seconds here on the first round. Just a quick assessment of how far we can go and then repeat. Inhale open.
Exhale squeeze. Inhale open and lift and stretch. Exhale squeeze and hug everything together. Inhale.
Exhale. Two more. Inhale. Exhale.
Last one. Inhale. Exhale. Foot between the hands.
Back knee down. Arms up. Move back and forth. Hips back.
Hips down. Hips back. Hips down. One more.
And then lift the back knee. Open your hips. Warrior two. Shoulders down.
Arms straight. Head on top of the shoulders. Not in front of your chest. Left knee points out like a De La Riva break.
Big side stretch through your left side. Left hand forms a fist on the inside of the left hand. Hold a kettlebell with your right hand. Imagine a 16 kilo kettlebell.
Turn your shoulders back and force the kettlebell high. Use your left arm to push the knee even further out for an inner thigh stretch. Using your core only lift up to warrior two. Reverse the warrior and catch your own head.
Use the neck muscles on the right side to give yourself a deeper side body stretch. Warrior two. Step the left foot back. Very short warrior two.
Stretch open. Balance first. Then go deeper and higher. Reach your right arm further up.
Get the bend out of your back knee. Flex the right foot. Try to not balance on the outside of your left foot. Keep the balance in the ball of the foot.
Move your arms and your hips until you are in a position where you are not wobbling from side to side. Be so precise that you stop wobbling and find balance. Two more breaths. Hands down for standing split.
This time with as straight legs as possible and even more than possible. Impossible straight legs. Switch the legs in the air. Try to land on a straight leg too.
Jump up switch and land on a straight leg. The back leg can soften the impact. You go up, you land on a straight leg, but the top leg is swinging both up and on the way down. Super straight legs.
Impossible straight legs. Do a couple more switch leg handstands. Plank pose for two breaths. Slowly lower down, squeezing your elbows in and your head moving forward.
Arms back, heels in, lift. Turn your palms facing out so that your thumbs are pointing up. Hands down, back to turtle position. Take a break in turtle.
Take a deep breath. I know that you are cheating when you are doing the three legged dog. We focused on getting the thigh to the chest. You probably did a good job there because you can see it and feel it.
But you are not strong enough in the back. You are, but you don't think you are to get a stretch in the front. What I am talking about is three legged dog, you are going kind of here. I want you to be going all the way here and squeeze the heel in and stretch so hard.
Using the back muscles so much that you get a stretch in the front of your hips. Since you are cheating, I can't really slap you. So we are going to do something instead to compensate for your cheating. That is this pose.
Notice that my butt is not behind my heels. When I go back, my butt is pressing towards my heels. What I am doing is lifting up and sitting my butt above my heels. I am sitting on my ankles and I am tucking my hips like this.
I am not arching my back, I am tucking and closing the front of the core. So that I get a deep stretch in the hips. Because if I am leaning back, it is more a back bend. And we are going for quad and hip flexor stretching.
Straight arms, bent arms or maybe even elbows down. I prefer to point the fingers forward and bend the elbows. Because then I get a bonus stretch on the front of the shoulders. Let's sit here for roughly one minute, 10 deep breaths.
The reason we have to focus so much on this is not just because the yoga we did today is hip flexor biased. Where we squeeze the knee tight to our chest. That is what we are doing in Jiu Jitsu. Every single training.
Defending the guard pass, squeeze your knee in. Passing the guard with a knee slide, you have to squeeze your knee in to finish it. Taking the back with a chair sit, you have to get your knee as high as possible. Doing a knee on belly from side control.
Getting the knee close to your chest so you don't want to get too high when you put the knee on belly. Countless positions are based on you being really really tight with your thigh to your belly or your chest. And this creates imbalance of course in our hips. The hip flexors are very very thick.
They are huge muscles. And they go deep from your lower back and connect to your thigh. And those are the only muscles that connect the upper body directly with the lower body. And if those are stiff, especially if one side is stiffer than the other, it is doing our lower back a huge disfavour.
So we need to stretch them and we need to relax them and we need to strengthen them too. So that we get full range of motions in the hip flexors. And front hip and the quad stretching. The quads of course are also vitally connected.
You have to be flexible in the quads and the hip flexors unless you want a sway back. And if you have a sway back from stiff hip flexors, then you have to compensate. And you will have a lot of pain and secondary inflexibility because of your dysfunction. So that is why I am so hard and tough on doing things properly.
Not just squeezing the knee forward but also stretching the leg up behind you. And really open the hip and squeezing the heel to your butt. Because you can't just throw in one minute of this and compensate for everything you are doing wrong. In every yoga flow and in every jiu jitsu class you have to find ways to improve your game so that it is more all round and holistic.
So that you are not just doing one thing. For example when you go to mount, instead of just mounting a high mount where you are sitting basically in a turtle position. When you mount, try to go to surfer's mount where you are here. And stay there for a while and work the Ezekiel or work something that is not just the same thing over and over.
We probably did a couple of minutes now since I talked. That's nice. Stretch the legs out. Let's do a forward fold.
Catch your knees, ankles or feet. Nice. Thank you guys for practicing yoga with me. It is an honor for me.
It is a bigger honor for you. And I'm happy we can do this together. Keep training. Whatever you do, don't stop.
Because you will regret the day when you look back and you say, Man, I wish I didn't stop 10 years ago and now I have to take it up and I'm on a much lower level than I used to be. Keep it up and have slight improvement over the years instead of a steady decline. Thank you. Us see you in the next video or see you on the competition or training mat.
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