Competition Prep Part 2: 20-Min Strength Flow for BJJ

One more inhale and exhale. Now all the weight into the left arm, lift your right arm up and twist your shoulders, twist your chest, twist your spine but keep your hips leveled. So keep stretching your back leg straight and lower the right hip. Now walk the hands back to your left leg, bend your left knee, go from side to side, soften up your hips and your legs.

When you do this this Saturday or this weekend, you'll probably have to move your focus around to listen to when you're fighting next, talk to your friends but while you're doing that, try to stay connected to your breath so you never lose yourself and get completely distracted. Move your hands forward again, lift your right arm up and step back to side plank so push your hips forward and up and look towards your top arm, take three breaths here. And then slowly rotate back to plank pose, take an inhale in plank and exhale, low push-up. Cobra inhale, shoulders back, elbows in and exhale, down dog.

Take a big breath and release. Second side, lift your left leg up, stretch it first and then open your hips, bend your left knee and drop down on your right elbow. This is just so that you don't have any issues with the shoulder right now. We want to focus on our hip so look up towards your left thigh.

If you can see your leg, squeeze your butt more and lift your knee higher. So never like this, more like this. Engage your foot as well, so really try hugging your heel in towards your butt. If you're getting cramps you should do this more often.

Stretch both arms, inhale, exhale knee to chest, inhale, exhale knee to elbow, left elbow, inhale, exhale knee to right elbow, cross under your body. And last round, exhale knee to nose, foot between the hands, low lunge, knee down, arms up, thumbs are pointing back, squeeze the inner thighs and hug your hips, pull your hips towards the heel but at the same time lift your navel and your chest up. Lift your shoulders but relax your neck. Start rolling your arms forward and together.

Inhale, look up and exhale, fingertips down, stretch both legs, extended pyramid pose. Make sure you're not opening your hips but try to keep your hips neutral. So pull your left hip back, push your right hip forward, drop your head and look towards your right knee. Now inhale bend the left knee, look forward, exhale flow back.

Keep going, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale look forward, left arm up, twist your chest and your spine. Keep your back leg super engaged, lift your right knee, bend your left knee, so crescent pose with your legs, side plank with your upper body. Walk your hands back towards your right knee, this time without the hands in the ground. Use the power of your legs to slowly go from side to side.

Keep your hips either leveled, so same level with the hips all the time or go up and down. You can try both, both are good, just do what works for your knees and your hips. Hands forward back to the same twist but this time stack your feet for side plank pose. So top hip rolls forward and both hips up.

Spread your fingers and breathe more. Slowly rotate back to plank pose, inhaling plank, exhale low push up, inhale cobra, elbows in, neck is long, exhale down dog. Fall forward to plank and slowly lower down to the belly. Thumbs are facing inwards so palms are up, lift your thighs and place your thumbs under your thighs, feet together, lift your chest, lift your legs and push your thighs down into your thumbs.

So make sure you're not squeezing the heels, squeeze your shoulder blades and your big toes but push the thighs down into your thumbs. So really engage both sides of your back muscles, so not just the left side, not just the right side, both sides and lift your feet higher. Keep pushing down into your thumbs. Imagine you have been flattened out in your belly and your opponent is trying to crank your spine backwards.

You're just defending your neck, trying to survive until he makes a mistake and you can escape. So this is a shitty position to be in both now and in the competition but try to breathe and not waste any energy, just try to cope and survive while it lasts. Push back to plank, back to down dog and do a few rolls to soften up your spine again. It's scramble time, so this drill we're going to do now will get your blood flowing, your heart pumping and your breath belching.

I don't know if that's the right word but now it's scramble time. So bend your knees, look forward and jump forward on the exhale, land in a squat. Now straight up, jump up and turn half way around so you land 180 degrees and now shoot forward and land in low push up. Push back to plank without sagging your hips, back to down dog.

Let's keep doing this. Jump forward, jump around and low push up. Keep going as fast as you can without sacrificing technique. So this is like scrambling.

You're jumping, you're shooting, passing, floating. Keep going, keep going. Still scrambling. Scores are even, you're trying to get that advantage or those two or three points to decide in the fight.

Don't get distracted, keep your focus. Twenty seconds of the fight left, keep going. Now you can decide, don't be nervous right now. Just keep doing what you're doing, keep doing what you know, never mind what everybody is screaming, just do what you can right now.

End fight is over, kneel down, hands on your thighs, close your eyes. Just be present. Whatever happened a second ago, you can never change. You can only affect the outcome in the present moment.

So practice being present. Try to take a high quality breath. And another one. One more.

Nice. Fight continues, or next fight. Sit down on your butt, lift your legs. We're going to work core to mimic guard work, closed guard work.

We're going to try to break his posture and work with our hip flexors and our belly. So closed guard sitting up, inhale, exhale, stretch your legs. Lift your chest, inhale, pull your knees into your shoulders, exhale, stretch your legs. Keep going.

So inhale, knees in, exhale, squeeze your feet and push your legs. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale and exhale. Stop here and set up the cross choke. So cross your fists, cross your forearms, make fists and pull your knuckles towards you.

Now let's go all the way down to half boat. Stay here, squeeze your feet together, pull your elbows in and take a big breath. Let's rock back up to boat, inhale, exhale, half boat. Keep squeezing your arms, inhale, exhale down.

Inhale up, exhale down. Inhale up, squeeze the cross choke, exhale down. Inhale two more, exhale down. Inhale up and exhale down, feet down, arms overhead.

Stretch your hips up and breathe into your belly. So we have a short break, we have the opportunity to recover. Move your fingers around, try to release a little bit of the acid that has been building up in our forearms and our hip flexors. Keep your high quality breath to recover some more energy.

Release some lactic acid in your muscles. And fight continues. Feet down, hands down, lift your hips and take three breaths here and try to lift your hips as high as you can. Stretching the front of your hips and your shoulders.

Now move the butt back as far as you can go. When it touches the ground, stop there. If you can go all the way, go all the way. Lift your hips.

Three breaths wherever you are, don't sit down. Lift your hips up and inhale. Exhale, butt back as far as you can go. Inhale, hips up.

Exhale, butt back. Keep going, inhale. And exhale. Inhale, start lifting up your heels on your toes.

Exhale, push back further. Inhale on your toes. Exhale back. Keep going, fight continues.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale, don't make stupid mistakes and be sloppy. Be precise in every move.

Relax your face and think while you're moving. Inhale, two more. Exhale back. Inhale.

And exhale, stretch your legs up, arms up. Inhale. Exhale, reach for your toes or your ankles. Pause.

The match is now finished. You have no idea what the scores are, but you don't care because you did your best. You put a lot of effort and you tried to keep your head cool while the fight was hot. If you win, you go on.

If you lose, you probably learn a lot, especially if someone filmed the fight, you can watch it later. If you don't remember anything of the fight, you probably blacked out and you weren't able to stay in the present moment. If you have some glimpses of the fight in your memory, those are the glimpses when you were really present, not distracted by your thoughts. Sit up with crossed legs.

Hands on your knees. Finish today's session with a couple of minutes of nothing. Just sit up straight. Close your eyes and relax.

Sit up straight. Close your eyes and relax. Inhale. Exhale.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Inhale.

Inhale. Slowly open your eyes. Thank you for today's session. See you in the next one.