Down Dog Flow for BJJ: 13-Min Mobility & Plank Sequence

Let's do that cat and cow that we learned. First, letting everything go except your straight arms looking forward. And then crunch your nose towards your hips. And then do three of those in your own tempo.

Find your rhythm with your breath. Very nice. And then stepping forward into a plank. Do a push up here nice and slow.

Lower down and push back up. One more but this time lift the hands as you're coming down. Pulling the elbows in and pushing back up. One more.

And then pushing this back into turtle where your head is not touching the ground. Maybe you're so flexible that you can but just go as far as flexibility allows right now. And then lift your head and look forward. Push forward into a high plank with straight legs and straight arms and do a couple of serratus push ups here.

You're dropping the chest lifting but resist the temptation to use your triceps to bend your elbows. Completely straight elbows. And then pull it back into downward dog. On this first one you can try digging the heels down just to stretch the calves and hamstrings.

And then walk forward to plank again. Inhale as you reach plank and as you exhale you push back. This time bend your knees and try to lift your butt with bent knees. So it's hard to do both at the same time.

You're both lifting your butt which means you have to straighten your legs but think about lifting your butt while you're bending the knees. And then forward to plank again. Let's take a little break on our knees. Do some arm circles here.

Lift the hips forward. Arms come up and arms come back. Three, four or five. Very nice.

And then find the down dog again. And this time we're going to windshield wiper our heels which means we're going to lift our heels first and then they drop over to the side so that the heel and toe is touching. And as you're here you tend to go forward into plank but we want to push back into a deep side stretch. So you should feel probably your left side stretching your ribs, your lat, your armpit and your waist.

Try the second side. Heel to toes. Push back. Drive into the feet with your hands.

And try to not tense your face and neck. That's very difficult but give it your best attempt to relax your head. Nice. Forward to plank lowering down.

Arms out in front of you superman position. And then push back to all fours and back to turtle. And from turtle lift your knees into down dog. Take three breaths and just figure out the down dog.

Make all the little adjustments that you need to make the pose feel more strong, stable and relaxed. And then lift your heels. Look between your knees and round your spine and roll forward into a plank and hold this rounded plank for one breath. Then place your knees down.

Relax your belly and chest. Look forward but takes your back. And then from here push into the toes and lift back to down dog. Do two more of those rounds where you're rolling forward and arching backwards.

I can only guide you 50 percent. The rest is up to you. There is a concept called JFI. Just figure it out.

JFI-O. J-F-I-O. Just figure it out. I'm not teaching you yoga.

I'm helping you discover movement that you are born with and you're most likely rediscovering. Nice. Let's take a break again on our knees. You can have your heels lifted or sit down on your heels.

I got heel hooked pretty badly so I can't really sit deep on my knees right now. Yoga doesn't make you invincible. I have come to learn. So you're interlacing your fingers behind your butt.

And if static is difficult add some movement. Freestyle movement is usually much easier than staying static. Nice. Find your way back to down dog.

This time we're going to cheat and add a training wheel. We're stepping the right foot forward about one foot length and then you're windshield wipering both legs. Before we were here, now we're here. The foot is helping.

It's like we have three arms so we don't have so much pressure into the arms. Now we can probably stay for a little longer than last time. The more you push into the training wheel the less pressure on the back leg and hands. Forward to plank, lower down.

Superman and arms back. Again, Superman and arms back. And then pushing back, up to plank, back to down dog. Windshield wiper the legs and add the left foot as a training wheel.

All right, now this time walk your feet to your hands and sit down in a high squat. So this is called a horse stance which is very wide like you're sitting on a very fat horse and high squat is a variation of that. So you're not trying to go as deep as you can but you're just chilling out here with some tension in your legs. You're not trying to relax into it but you're resisting it a little bit.

Everybody can do this. Even people with knee injuries can sit with a batai and I have a little trick that we're going to talk about in squat later. If you have meniscus problems or something where you can't compress the knee all the way it can really help to add your forearms to have some release into the knees there. All right, back to down dog.

Let's add a spine and roll all the way down to the belly. So lift your heels, look into your navel, roll forward and from this rounded plank look forward, knees down, lower down, lift and from here right back to turtle pretty fast and then to down dog. That's a full round. Lifting the heels, rolling forward with straight legs and arms, look forward, lower down, lift up for a hover and from here pushing back to turtle while you're looking forward and then as you lift your butt you can drop your head.

One more round just like that. Very nice. Sit down on your butt lay down on your back. Let's do the butterfly.

Feet together, hook your hands around your feet. If that's close to impossible, catch your ankles instead with your elbows on the inside. Relax your forehead and become aware of the sensation, the sensations that you have created by doing this little sequence together right now with me. You don't have to label anything like tightness, openness unless it helps.

If it helps to have labels to become aware of the contrast between before and after then by all means go ahead. But you can also just experience a sensation without saying explicitly what it is. That's also helpful. Nice.

Lay down where we started, arms and legs relaxed. Any variation where you feel comfortable is welcome. And take five, six or more breaths here. So and let's meet and see that.

Thank you very much. See you in the next video or see you on the mat.