Foundation Week 2 Yoga for BJJ: 35-Min Class (Day 5)

This stretch helps for a couple of hours. And then I have to do it again. I personally view poses like this as a glass of water. It is tremendously healthy, it feels so nice.

But one is never enough. You will always need another glass of water after a while. It doesn't make it good or bad, that's just how it is. Move your spine.

Sit back on your heels, hands behind you. And then you can do the same thing. You can do the same thing with your hands. You can do the same thing with your legs.

Sit back on your heels, hands behind you. Tuck your tail under and squeeze your butt so your belly is flat. You are pulling your belly in. Stretching the hip flexors, but mainly the front of the thighs.

Nice. Tank pose. Do a couple of straight arm push ups. Shoulders up, shoulders down.

Arms straight. Move back into down dog, bend your knees and stretch your legs. Bend your knees and stretch your legs. And then you can do the same thing with your hands.

Back into down dog, bend your knees and stretch your legs. Bend your knees and stretch your legs. Down dog squats. Roll through the spine once to plank.

Place your knees down and do cow pose on the way back. And from a cow pose, child pose, you are in child pose, but you are looking forward from here. Straighten your legs and roll forward to plank. A combination of cat and cow and plank pose.

So you are rolling with straight legs. From plank, knees down. Arch your back. And repeat.

Nice. Alright, first exercise. Step your right foot between the hands and the left foot and then out to the side. So half way forward and then far out to the side.

Move as much weight as possible into your right foot. So you are dropping your hips down towards the foot. If the heel comes off the ground or not, it doesn't matter. Just move all the weight out from the hands and into the foot.

And then back to dog, but keep the foot there. We are doing a down dog with trying to straighten the right leg. And then we are repeating. So we are going deep hips, all the weight, left hip goes towards the right foot.

And then hamstrings in down dog. Repeat and find the right intensity for your body today. It will probably not be the same intensity as you did yesterday and not tomorrow. Some days you feel like a cold shower, some days you feel like a hot shower.

And every time you take a shower you are very good at adjusting the intensity, the heat and the cold to your preference. Learn the same skill that you master in the shower when you are doing yoga and you will be a yoga professional. Now, right hand grabs the right ankle, drop the left hip down so the foot stays in place. All the stretch should be through the left body.

So ribs, waist, hips and IT band on the left leg. If you have pain in the shoulder you need to activate the shoulder. So you are doing side plank with the left shoulder, the hips are dropping and the foot stays in place. I like to use my elbow and push my thigh out so that my knee doesn't collapse in towards my chest.

Hold for a couple of breaths. Breath is easy to say, breaths is really hard to say. For a while when I started yoga for BJ I just gave up and I said breaths instead. Five breaths.

Now I am back at struggling with the linguistics. Take another breaths. And back to down dog. Step the left foot forward half way and then out to the side.

Drop 101% of your weight into your left foot. And then push back mostly with the right hand into down dog and keep your heel where it is. Rinse and repeat. Deep hips, deep hamstrings, what a nice combination.

A couple more reps. Reps is so much easier to say than breaths. And breaths, breaths, reps, breaths. One day I will learn.

Now left hand, left ankle turn to face your left foot. Drop your right hip down so that your right knee is in the ground and your hips are maybe or maybe not touching the ground. But you are forcing your chest open with the power from your back. And your hips are turning leftwards.

Static strength and patience is something you hate that you didn't have. When you lose a fight and your opponent said if you had held me for one more second there I would have tapped. Or I would have given up and let you get the pass. So when you are impatient and you give up on your static strength that feels so shitty because you could have won if you just persevered for another second.

And this is a perfect moment to practice that patience and perseverance. It's not fun to be here but it's fun to get the guard pass and it's fun to get the reward when we exit the pose. Down dog. Amazing.

Let's go to turtle and recover for a brief moment. And then plank pose and then down dog. And then slowly take your time and start walking towards the hands. Not in five seconds but in fifteen seconds.

Hands to shins, straight legs, straight arms, straight back. Inhale, bend your knees, exhale. Fold. Again, inhale.

Exhale. Repeat. Inhale. Everything straight.

Exhale, everything bends. Slowly roll all the way up to standing. Legs wider. Push your hips forward.

Open your arms. Inhale. Exhale, squat down. Round your spine.

Repeat. Inhale, roll up. Back bend. Exhale, squat down.

Couple more. Inhale. Exhale. One more.

Take a couple of moments in a squat, softening your ankles and your knees. If a deep squat is not for you, hands forward, keep your butt lifted. It's going to be taxing on your quads but gentle on your knees and ankles. I was a frog in my last life and therefore I can keep my butt just off the ground.

If your femur bones, your thigh bones are longer and your ankles are not as flexible as mine, not flexible but just not as mobile as mine, then you're probably going to fall back if you try to go too deep. So find your depth. Stepping back. Two down dog.

Kick your right leg out behind you. Take a couple of breaths, lifting the right leg on your toes. Why drop your left heel down when you can lift it up? If someone is back mounting you and you want to kick the hook out, you don't want to be low here.

The higher you can go and the higher you can kick here, the easier it is going to be to wiggle out and have your opponent drop down into a pathetic little pile in front of you. Then you can catch his neck and you can smother him from north south. Lots of passive aggressive energy coming from me today. Right foot forward.

On your fingertips get your right foot between your hands. Squat down with the left knee, hands on the right thigh. Flatten your left foot so you're in a deep lunge. And then we lift the knee.

Pull the belly away from the thigh. Deep front of the hip stretch. And then balancing while you're leaning back into hamstring stretch. So a balancing pose, squeezing knees together.

Repeating. Intense. So as lunge. Mediocre hamstring stretch.

Repeat repeat. One more. And then stop suddenly. Left, no we're not doing that one, sorry.

Both hands down on the inside of the foot. Turn left so that you're in a half squat, half straddle. So left leg is straight. Sit down on the ground.

Right knee comes to the floor so we're actively turning the thigh inwards. Try to go with the right hand towards the left foot. Take a second here. And then right hand turns all the way back so we're twisting the spine the opposite way of the knee.

Very weird position to be in. And then go deeper. No tension in the right leg. Lots of tension in the left leg.

And move between this twist with an inward rotation of the right thigh. And then go for that knee, ankle or foot. And try to find a flow between these two poses. Neither of them is probably comfortable.

But you can do a pose in a comfortable way. Half guard is not a comfortable position to be in. Until you make it comfortable. Some people have mastered the art of getting smushed from bottom half guard and enjoy it.

Some people can actually put so much pressure on you that you feel really awkward being on top. Even though you have gravity on your side. Those half guard bastards can make you feel so uncomfortable and they don't even break a sweat. And it's the same here.

This might be horrible for you right now. But you can learn to do this in a more comfortable way. When you know how, that would be called mastery. Okay, right knee off the floor.

Get up off the floor without looking too pathetic. And then straighten both legs. And do some push ups. And your push ups might be small.

Maybe just shoulder push ups like this. Or you go forward slightly and drop your head. So if your legs are long and your hamstrings are stiff, you walk forward far. And then it's more of a back bend.

Then it's more shoulders and chest. If you are shorter or more flexible you could go in between your legs. But everybody can start far forward. Dropping your chest and head.

And then eventually, now I'm doing five years worth of yoga in five seconds. But the goal is to go further and further back. Eventually you might even not use the hands and just dangle from here. Everything in due time.

Take a couple of breaths. I want to officially rename it to BREAFS. B-R-E-F-F-S. Take a few breaths.

That would make my job so much easier. Brrr. Relax the shoulders and arms because we will need them soon. Walk hands to your right foot.

Left hand is not behind the shoulder. Left hand is in front of the shoulder. Right arm is up. Move into the same position that we did before but now place your right foot in a good position so that we can drop the left hip, right hand touches the inside of the knee or wherever and then lift as high as you can, use the right foot to push up, you should feel this in your hips somewhere and repeat.

Drop and touch. Lift and stretch. And repeat. Side plank.

Right arm overhead, right side is stretching, left side is contracting. Down doggy. Plank pose. To the floor.

Take a few, lifting your arms and legs. Maybe that's the trick, I'm going to say breaths implicit. So when I say take a few, it could be seconds, moments, breaths, more mysterious. Take a few here.

Plank pose. Down dog. Second side. Lifting the left leg on your toes, get that clingy bastard backpack off of you by going really high, wiggle your hips, get one hook out, get the other hook out, catch the neck and destroy.

Knee forward on your fingertips, foot between the hands, right knee down, hands to knee or thigh, foot flat, deep sova slunge. Get your left belly away from the thigh. Knee down, mediocre balancing hamstring stretch, repeat. A couple more.

Reps that is. And hands on the inside of the left leg, turn into a half frog split squat, kung fu stretch is what I usually call them. Sit down on the ground. Left knee inward rotation, left hand touches the ankle or foot.

And then turning the spine the opposite way of the left knee. Uncomfortable, yes. Healthy, also yes. If I remember at the end of the class I will give you a tip from John Danaher where the inward rotation of the knee very much helps your hip escape.

I will probably forget. Alright, without looking too clunky, get up off the floor, into a straddle pose, same as on the last side, just relax your neck more, no need to look down, drop your head and close your eyes. And take a few. Walk your hands towards the left foot, make sure your hand is not under the shoulder but in front of your head so you have a nice angle in the right arm.

Find the placement of the left foot, drop your hips, touch your inner thigh with the left hand and then use the power from the left leg to lift up and stretch. Going down. And up. And repeat.

Every single millimeter of my body is protesting here. But as soon as we are done, instant reward. Side plank. Contract the right side, stretch and open the left side.

Down dog. Let's go into puppy pose, which is a down dog with the knees stacked under the hips. Chest or forehead to the ground. If you are insanely inflexible in the neck or shoulders, just elbows to the ground.

What we want here is a passive back bend, so find your way into a stretch of the front body. And take a few. And down. No, I feel very much like going to my back, rolling my legs over my shoulders.

So stay in position like this. Or if you are comfortable with inverting, do so. All right, sit up. I did remember a thing I learned from John Danaher watching his God Retention DVD series.

Whenever you do a hip escape, I will do it with the feet facing you. This is good. So whenever we do a hip escape and place our feet to the butt, whenever we lift the hips, it's really hard to turn the hips here without using a lot of speed. So I'm really stuck here.

If I know I'm going to put my hips out to the side and I put my feet in towards my butt, the position of the feet, even if I have the heels off the ground, I have to start turning the hips now. And my hips will kind of stop before the leg is straight here. So now my hips got not even over shoulder level. But when I know which side I'm going to, if I swivel my legs sideways and put the foot outside the hips instead of close to the hip, not super far out, of course, but just a quick swivel, then the butt is not stopping my foot.

So my foot will get further. And if you look at my hips now, I have a deep internal rotation of the right leg. So I'm not very strong there. If he puts pressure on me now, my leg is in a bad position.

But my leg is not going to be here for more than a fraction of a second. I'm going to move my hips and now I got a lot more reach in my hip escape. So this is one of the benefits of having a good internal rotation. That's why we did this pose.

This is a deep, deep, deep internal rotation of the legs. And you probably feel your femur bone cranking into your socket. But since we're not using a lot of leverage, it probably feels quite natural for you now to go here. It's not like you're popping your MCL from just doing this after you can do that pose.

So you're probably going to have immediate success with this. Let's say he's passing my guard on that side. I stiff arm, I swivel my legs. And now this foot is, well, if this foot is flexible enough, I already have defense here.

But now it's easy to put my foot on the shoulder and I have superb guard retention. I struggled with the hip escapes for many, many years. My shoulders have been flat in the ground and my hips don't really get off the floor. So just this swivel of the legs into the hip escape has made a huge difference for me.

And it made me, as soon as John showed this in his DVD, I realized that internal rotation is extremely, crucially important if you want to be able to move your hips quickly in a guard retention situation. I hope you enjoyed the foundation series and I hope you're continuing to practice in your WFBJ because not soon, but I am working on a huge project that will benefit all of you. And I'm very, very excited to see the feedback on this program. So stay tuned.