Foundation Week 2 Yoga for BJJ: 33-Min Class (Day 2)

Butt balance and knee squeeze. Reverse tabletop, push high. And seated guard knee squeeze. All fours.

Spinal rolls. Inhale on the way back. Inhale as you roll forward. Nice.

Sit on your feet in a squat, roll your neck and wrists. Lubricating your joints. Plank toes with the knees down, some shearing push ups which means just roll down to your belly and roll back up. So it's not about strength, it's not about building strength or testing your strength.

It's just push up as a movement. A push up for your spine, not your triceps. A couple more. And then stop on your belly, arms out to the side and then lift one shoulder and roll it back and then roll the other shoulder back.

So you're making a figure eight with your shoulders. A slight back bend of course since you're lifting your chest but focus more on the side to side movement than the up and down movement. So get the shoulders working, your arms are your foundation, your neck and your spine is following your shoulder blades instead of what's usually come on the opposite. Maybe try rolling the other direction.

Back to turtle, squeeze your belly and your chest into your thighs. Forehead into the ground. And then downward facing dog, stretch your arms and your spine, keep your knees bent or stretch one leg and then the other alternating the stretching of the legs. Personally I use downward facing dog as a release for the lower spine, the lower back and the side of the waist where I'm usually stiffest.

For some of you it will be calves, for others hamstrings, for some of you this will feel nice for the neck. But for all of us down dog will find a part of the body which needs this kind of attention and enjoy it. Lift one leg out behind you, inhale. Small step forward, exhale.

Inhale lift the second leg, exhale small step forward, half a foot. Inhale up and exhale forward, keep going until you reach your hands. Only lifting the palms when necessary. Bend your knees slightly before you lift your palms.

When your toes reaches your thumbs stop, climb your hands to your shins, lift your chest, inhale, bend your spine and knees, exhale. Get your spine and legs half way up, inhale, exhale pull your forehead down slightly. Two more, inhale, exhale fold. Final lift, inhale, exhale fold.

All the way up lift your arms, interlace your fingers behind your head and start rolling your hips in circles. As wide legs as you need to be able to close your eyes. Don't balance with your vision, balance with your internal sense of balance. So the body should feel where it should be, not the eyes.

When you rely on your vision it's much easier for your opponent to feint you. If you fight an old fox that has been in a game for a long time it doesn't really matter what you show them. They will only react to their body response when they can feel you, not when they can see you because they know vision cannot always be trusted. Hands in front of the chest, feet together, basic sun salutation, take a deep breath, sweep arms up, inhale, exhale fold.

Halfway lift, inhale, step back to plank, exhale, inhale in plank, slow lower down, all the way down or half way down. Lift your chest, inhale, exhale down dog. Take five breaths and push your butt up and push your chest back. Big stretch.

Feet together, kick your right leg out behind you, flex the foot and bend the knee completely. And then lift the knee as high as you can and come up on your toes. Big split stretch in three legged dog. Knee to right shoulder, hold for a second and repeat, three legged dog, flex and bend and inhale.

Exhale, knee to elbow, hold for a second and repeat. Inhale, knee to wrist, hold for a second and repeat. Inhale, knee to nose, hold for a second and step the right foot between your hands. Lift your arms up, roll your wrists, give them some release.

Try to keep your hips where they are but twist your spine to the right. Left arm moves forward, right arm moves back. Your shoulders are twisting the opposite direction of your hips. Stretch your back leg too to twist in the opposite direction of the arms.

Stay here but switch the arms, back heel down, warrior two. Nice transition, right? From one steady pose to the next. Both arms up, interlace the fingers and with your arms completely straight bend backwards towards the left so your right side is stretching, a big stretch.

Inhale. Hands down, three legged dog, inhale. Exhale, plank, push up, vinyasa. Cobra or up dog, inhale.

Exhale, down dog, take a breath. Feet together, same sequence on the other side. Lift the left leg up, flex the foot and bend the knee completely. Lift the knee and lift your heel, big split stretch.

Inhale. Knee to shoulder, exhale and pause. Three legged dog, inhale, lift and stretch, don't cheat. Knee to elbow.

Hold. Three legged dog, inhale. Knee to wrist, hold. Last round, inhale.

Knee to nose, foot between the hands. Crescent pose, release the wrists. Front leg bent, back leg straight. Inner thighs squeezing in so you're not pushing the knees away, you're hugging them in.

Twist your arms, stretch your right leg straight. Big spinal twist. Balance in your left foot. Transition, warrior two.

Right leg straight, left leg still bent. Interlace the fingers, biceps next to your ears. But don't tense your traps, just lift the arms and bend backwards. Bend sideways, your left rib cage is bent.

And bend backwards. Bend sideways, your left rib cage is fanning out. Inhale. Exhale, hands down, three legged dog.

Inhale. Plank pose, vinyasa. Inhale. Elbows down, palms together, drop your head.

Do some dolphin squats. The pose is called dolphins and you're gonna squat down with your knees, touch the ground and then stretch back. A few times up and down. No need to look anywhere.

Drop your head and close your eyes. And feel what is actually going on in your body. Not what you think is going on. Try to be perfectly honest with yourself.

Don't be distracted with your ideas. Don't let your thoughts distract you from what is actually going on right now. Inhale. Exhale.

Inhale. Nice. Knees down, make sure your knees are not hurting. Hands either in the lower back or if your arms allow to touch your heels, camel pose.

Big back bend, lift your gaze, make sure you can still swallow. If you can't swallow, your head is too far back. Hips forward, chest up, throat exposed. And now to counter this, move into a deep squat, knees wide, upper body between the knees.

Perhaps letting your arms weigh your head down. Exhale. We are going to practice a tricky transition. Try to be as focused as you can as you move into down dog.

So this would be considered an advanced transition but we will break it down and make it simpler than advanced. This is a nice foundation drill for yoga balance. Right leg up, bend the knee and open. Then move into side plank from here, so on your fingertips on your right hand and almost touch the floor with the right foot.

So you are balancing and you are still hanging. If you lift your arm and leg, you will worsen your balance. So the more you hang here, the easier it will be to balance. Touch the right foot in the ground and sit down.

Release your shoulders, shake your wrists. And then move into this side plank with the right foot behind you. It's called flip dog in yoga, so it's a back bend in a side plank. So your left side is strong and your right side is open.

From here, move your right foot forward to the position we are always in in crescent pose and warrior 2. So your right foot is forward, right arm is up. And then move into crescent pose, arms up, just to release the shoulders and hands. And then reverse the movement, left hand down.

With control, this is the actual drill for today. Move the right foot through side plank, touch it behind you and sit down. Release the shoulders from side to side. The whole thing again in one slow controlled motion.

Flip dog, right foot moves slowly forward, crescent pose. Work the legs, release the arms. Left hand down, right arm up. Find the balance in the left hand and move your left heel down.

So you are turning your hips first. And then when you release the right foot from the floor, lift your hips and touch the foot behind you and sit down. Release your shoulders and let's do the whole drill one more time. Flip dog, transition the right foot forward, crescent pose, inhale look up, vinyasa.

Down dog, low push up, up dog and down dog. Same thing second side, left foot forward, left arm up. From here crescent pose, arms up, inhale, arms down, or sorry left arm up. And then move through side plank.

Slowly with control, place, don't fall, but place the left foot behind you and sit down and release the shoulders. It's not really necessary to release the shoulders when you master this, but in the beginning the shoulders are not stable in these transitions and that's why we need to give them a break. Flip dog, really expose the front of your body. Hang as your left foot steps forward.

If you can't get all the way, help your wrist, help your ankle with the hand to step forward. Crescent pose, shake and release your wrists and arms. Right hand down, big slow transition through side plank. Into flip dog, sit down and release, two more.

Flowy movement into flip dog, left foot steps forward, crescent pose. Never at any point are you holding your breath. Right hand down, transition into flip dog again. Sit down, last round.

Shake the shoulders, flip dog. Slowly with control, left foot forward, crescent pose. Inhale, exhale hands down, down dog, plank, push up, inhale back bend. Exhale turtle slash child's pose.

Give yourself a moment of rest, a break. The goal with what we're doing is to make it effortless. It might take 10, 20, 50 sessions, but it is possible for every single person to make these moves effortless. If we can make these initially very tricky movements easy within our own body, everything that has to do with an opponent is going to be much simpler.

Then if we struggle with ourselves and we struggle with controlling an opponent, then we have issues, big issues and real problems. So we start with ourselves because it's easiest to change ourselves before we try to break our opponent into a pretzel. Lay down on your back and let's do the same sequence we did in the beginning, right leg up. Now since we're warmer, since we have the breath, since we have warmed up our joints, we can pull a little bit, increase the intensity so that you feel an obvious response from your right leg.

Pull enough for your leg to respond, not in crisis, not panic, no red flags, but pull enough so that you get a yellow flag from the right leg. So you're telling your leg not let's go easy today, I'm injured, you're telling your leg, let's have a really good scrap, there is a tournament coming up and I need good sparring. The leg gives you a thumbs up and you pull a little bit. And then the leg taps and you switch partners and grab the left leg.

You're trying to give your left leg nose bleeding and injured joints, but you still want to come out on top of your left leg, you're really pulling your left leg enough for the left leg to start complaining. The left leg is a lazy bastard, always wants to go easy, you're forcing it to fight a little bit. Happy baby pose, this time try to straighten your leg so you're basically doing a straddle on your back. This improves your over under defence, being able to hold the legs here by themselves is ideal, but right now you're helping your legs, your inner thighs and your hamstrings to get a millimetre more flexible.

So actually push your legs away, push your feet away from your shoulders. Right ankle to left knee, hug everything in tight, try to finish this triangle, squeeze with your arms, sometimes you have a submission and the person tries to put a lot of pressure down on you to stop the submission. This is not necessarily wrong from your opponent's perspective, but you refuse to release such a nice triangle because someone is pressuring you. You're just squeezing harder and breathing with control all the time, waiting for his energy to drain out of him.

Switching legs, left side triangle, hug everything in. You shouldn't give everything in a submission like this until you have the sense that he is demoralised. As long as your opponent has high spirits, don't try to finish him off because it's mental. If he feels strong mentally he's not going to tap even if the technique is perfect.

You wait for him to start to struggle and you can feel a little bit of despair, that's when you finish your opponent with a deadly blow, that's when you squeeze everything. But 10 seconds at 90% is better than 2 seconds at 100%, so developing endurance is preferable if you want to finish your opponent. Release down into Shavasana, let's just finish here, take a minute or two to relax. Take a deep breath in and exhale.