Closed Guard Mobility for BJJ: 24-Min Class

And sprawl. This sprawl move from side to side. Windshield wipers. Nice.

Then lay down on your back. Most of the class is going to be from the back now. Place your feet in figure four, which means place your right ankle on the left thigh. Arms overhead.

Stretch everything out first and hold. Just make sure that your lower back is okay. And then hands behind the head, feet in the ground. Lift as hard and high as you can.

Really push everything you have upwards and then make a crunch. Try to touch the elbow to the knee and maybe the other elbow reaches for the foot and touches it. Back to bridge. Push your elbows into the ground.

Squeeze your butt and lift really high. And then pull it all together really hard. A couple more. Push elbows down, spread and open the chest.

And now crunch and squeeze. Two more. Last one. Thread the needle right hand in the hole.

Catch around your left knee or hamstring. Drop your head and relax. Rock your hips from side to side gently. Activate your biceps and pull in a little bit so that your right hip is protesting.

You should be stretching your butt intensely here. Make sure that the right foot remains flexed and don't push on the ankle. Don't push on the foot joint. Make sure that it's your ankle.

Make sure that it's your ankle receiving the pressure. Switching sides. Switch to figure four. Stretch everything out.

Make sure that your lower back is on. And then same thing second side. Bridge. Two or three breaths.

Push high and hard. And squeeze it in. Bridge. Squeeze.

Bridge. Squeeze. Two more. Last one.

Interlace the fingers. Thread the needle. Relax. Nice.

And then rock and roll up and down. And then find balance on your butt. Wrap around your hamstrings and try to touch your elbows if not your forearms. But get as deep as you can.

And lift the chest and then straighten the legs as much as you can. I can go far here because my hamstrings are really flexible right here. Hold for a breath. And then lower the legs not all the way down.

Hover them and then arms overhead hollow body. Gymnastics style. And then rock up. Hug.

Hug and stretch. Whish. Whish. Whish.

And hollow body. Normally the hollow body is the more intense version but this is kind of the break between these really intense ones. Really squeeze with your arms and really push your legs. We have a battle going on between the upper and lower body.

And then hollow body to relax. Four more. Up. Two more.

Last one. Up. Okay release one leg. Hug the other leg so that your left arm is around the left leg.

Imagine that your opponent's head is here. You want to push the head out of the way and then take a gable grip. And then you're crossing your ankles for the Sean Williams guard. I call it the figure eight guard.

I figured out this one on my own but it turned out a lot of people are using this very effectively. From here squeeze your forehead to your knee or just pull the knee in all the way to your armpit and squeeze really hard. Three. Two.

One. And then release everything and flip over to your belly. Keep your ankles crossed. Hands behind the head.

Lift for three breaths. Lift everything. Keep your legs crossed and then flip back. Do the Sean Williams guard on the other leg.

Make sure that you imagine the head and clearing that head out of the way to get a super strong rubber guard set up and the Moplada set up. Squeeze tight. Super tight. And flip over to the belly.

The other side. Interlace the fingers behind your back and lift. One more on each side. Squeeze clear the head.

And flip over arms outside overhead. Forward and overhead. Lift. Lift.

Lift. And flip over. Last one. Squeeze tight.

Super tight. Use your legs to squeeze. And flip over. Grab your feet and lift.

And then sit up. Reverse tabletop. Lift your heels. Lift your butt.

Sit down and then kick your feet as wide and high as you can. One. Two. Three.

Again reverse tabletop. Lift. One. Two.

Three. Sit and kick. One. Two.

Three. Lift. One. Two.

Three. Sit and kick. One. Two.

Three. Lift. One. Two.

Three. Stop. Lift one leg here in reverse tabletop. And switch.

Sit down and kick. One. Two. Three.

And hold. Five. Four. Three.

Two. One. And then lay down. Grab your calf or your ankle.

L your legs. Split your legs. And then make arch in your lower back. And then switch.

Grab an arch. Grab an arch. And then do a normal triangle. Not a figure four but a full triangle.

And pull the knee towards your chest and armpit. Squeeze everything in. And then L your legs. Arch your back.

Switch. Switch. And switch. And now triangle opposite way.

Grab the triangle. Try to get your shins on a line. Lift and squeeze and hug. And then again.

Split and arch. Split and arch. Split and arch. Triangle.

Again. Split and arch. Switch. Switch.

And triangle. And now rock up. Swivel your legs over to the side like a hip-up sweep. So left hand is behind you.

Knees are pointing to the left. And then step over and catch your ankle here. And push your hips forward. We're not dropping all the way over to mount.

We're just staying here. And then we're laying down from here. And then sweeping the left arm under like a flower sweep. So the hips are lifting.

And then we're coming up on the other side. Hip-up sweep. Grab the ankle. And then you're laying down again.

Sticking the arm under your butt. And using that arm to move over to the other side. Come up into hip-up sweep. Grab the ankle.

Laying down. Lifting the hips. Coming over to the other side. Two more.

Last one. Nice. And now we're only going to do half of that. So as we're rolling back, we take the arm under like we did.

But now it's like a lumberjack sweep or an arm bar. Where we're coming up twisting the hips. And then coming back up to straight leg, straight arm, straight back. Everything straight.

Hold for three. Two. One. And then when you're rolling down, your elbows is turning your hips and lifting.

So you're turning and lifting using your elbow frames. And then rocking straight up. Everything is straight. Three.

Two. One. Rock up into arm bar slash lumberjack. And then back to straight.

Three. Two. One. Lift and twist.

Back to straight. Lift and switch. One more on each side. And switch.

Switch. Oh, lay down on your back. Interlace your fingers behind your back, behind your head. And then cross your legs.

Legs are straight. Lower down all the way until your heel touches the ground. And then with some momentum, kick your straight legs overhead. And lower down as slow as you can.

Again, but now with bent knees, maybe you need to straighten the arms for balance. Hug your knees into your armpits as fast as you can. All the way up and then slowly, as slowly as you can. Lower back down.

Straight legs. Overhead. Lower down as slowly as you can. And then bent knee.

And. All the way to straight. Straight legs overhead. Three more of each.

Bent knees. Straight legs. Bent knees. Straight legs.

Final one bent knees. Stay upside down as long as you can. And then lay down on your back. Legs are still up.

Push one forearm in between your thighs. And then for 20 seconds, squeeze as hard as you can. Don't wrist lock yourself, but really squeeze the forearm hard. Working the inner thighs and the lock of the legs.

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. Five, four, three, two, one. Relax. Bridge pose.

Lift your hips. Stack your hands under your glutes in a way where your elbow frames are making it easy to stay here. There is, it is possible to do this, but it can take many tries for you to figure out how to do this more or less comfortably. But we're done, we're working hard.

Now we're going to try to wind down. From a technical point of view, especially if you're training in the gi, the biggest mistake that you can do in close guard is just relying on grips when you're on the bottom. You want to be using every muscle that we use today. You want your bottom close guard to be a full body workout.

Using every muscle of your body to tire your opponent out and off balance them. That's what we did today. Relax your face. Relax your jaw.

Don't bite your teeth. And then lower down, give yourself a hug. And then grab your feet. I like grabbing from the inside.

Do as you please. Butt drop down, pulling the knees down. The fingers are working, the rest of the body is relaxing. If you want to spread the legs more and get a more of a stretch or just stay.

Let's relax. Take a deep breath. Inhale some extra. Hold the breath.

And long, slow, soft exhale. Very good. Sit up. If this was your first class doing this, it probably sucked.

I can guarantee you that if you get consistent, it's never going to suck this much again, because it's as much skill as attributes. You get more flexible and stronger, but you also get better at executing this. This is the type of movement that you want your jiu-jitsu body to know. Because when you know you can play this with yourself, you can execute it against an opponent.

The opponent is not your problem. Your body is the problem. And this, what you just did, is the solution. Us, see you in the next video or see you on the mat.