Full-Body Flow: 27-Min Class for BJJ Recovery

Shake it out a little bit. And then grab the air in front of you. Just grab the air hard and fast. Just grab the air.

Pump your fingers. So make fists and open the hands. And really strong, like really grab the air and stretch it out. Nice.

And the dog thinks, if you have a dog, he's probably going to play with you. Okay, awesome. Back to all fours. Tabletop position, spread your fingers, stretch your right leg out behind you.

Become as long as you can here. And then crunch your knee to your chest or your chin or your nose. Pull the knee in. And then repeat that.

Inhale, stretch your leg out behind you. Exhale, pull your knee to your chest. One more of those. Inhale, stretch long back then.

And then exhale, crunch it out. Yeah, crunch it in. And then kick the right leg out towards the right. Flex the foot.

Hover, hover, hover. And then with a straight leg, place the foot down in line with your left knee. Yep. And arms up for half straddle.

So you're lifting your chest. Your right foot is touching the floor. Your left knee is touching the floor. Side stretches.

Slide your right hand down towards your right knee. And side stretch the left side. Yep. And then switching sides, either the left hand to your hips or the floor, stretching the other side.

So your right ribs fan out and you get a nice side stretch. Do that from side to side in your own pace. Finding a modification or variation that you like. And one principle I like to follow when I do movements like this is, if you feel it a little bit everywhere, you are doing it perfectly right.

If you feel it a lot in one place, you might want to try to modify it a little bit. So try to feel the stretch here and there simultaneously. Awesome. Plank hands, hands back to the floor.

Thread your left arm under yourself, place your left shoulder in the ground and touch your right leg with your left hand. From left hand to leg. Maybe the ankle, wrist or foot doesn't matter. And then your right hand, try to stretch it straight up towards the ceiling and arm bar yourself behind you.

Yeah, arm bar yourself. This is the last position we want to be in in Jiu Jitsu. And maybe that's why it's so good, because we don't find ourselves in positions like this, super weird, trying to turtle while we're getting arm barred position, more than half a second and then we get injured. So it can be really beneficial to place ourselves in this kind of worst scenario position.

So that we are a little bit more comfortable when that didn't happen. Hands back to plank hands and walk your hands forward as far as you can, but don't move your butt. Keep your hips where they are. Walk forward until your spine does a back bend.

So your chest or your forehead down into the ground. Keep your arms engaged. Don't rest your arms. Keep your arms strong so your forearms are lifting up off the floor.

And then try to push your chest even lower. A little bit of force into this one. Yeah, nice. Three, two, one, plank hands, hands back to plank.

Come up to all fours. Step your left right foot forward to the outside of the right hand. Yep, for a lunge position. And then move your hips down and forward, chest forward and up.

So really stretch your chest here. And then walk back until your right leg is straight, hamstring stretch. So butt back, flex your right foot. Try to get your forehead to your right knee.

And if you have a dog, battle the dog a little bit. No, dad. Forward to a lunge on the inhale and on your exhale go back to the hamstring stretch. Just finding the flow between these two positions.

Some people like to move fast here. Other people like to move slow. Just find your natural pace and try to add in the breath as you move. Awesome.

And then stop in a low lunge. All the weight is now in your left hand. Left shoulder is strong. Right arm reaches the ceiling.

Drop the hips as low as you can and catch the foot, the back foot. Yep. And try to even out the weight into the left hand, the right foot and the left knee. So you have three bases.

Try to have 33% of the weight in each. And if you want to try to turn the right foot out and move the right knee out and drop more into the right foot, you can do that too. So that the weight is going more into the right foot. I get a nice stretch in the right hip when I do that.

Just check it out. Awesome. Release the foot into combat base. So tuck your left foot under your butt and sit down into a half squat, half kneeling position called combat base.

Nice. If you want to have your fingertips in the floor to alleviate some pressure, do that. I like more intense here. So I go all the way down to my butt behind my left chin.

And then I roll up and try to get the left groin in the mat. That's impossible. I try to really push my hips down. Nice.

Do that a few times if it feels good. Nice. One more second here, a brief moment in this combat base half squat position. And then back to plank hands.

Hands forward. Back leg is straight. So stretch out your back leg. And then lift your right arm and make sure that your left arm is super strong.

And then stack your feet back on your mat so that you're in a side plank position. I will give you two options here. Three options. Stay here.

Or place the left knee down and work more technically and more nuanced. If you want a big challenge, lift your right foot as high as you can. But keep integrity in the left shoulder. Lift your hips and push them forward.

And try to stay symmetrical here. Three. And a two. And a one.

And everybody back to plank. Straight arms, straight legs. Inhale here. And on your exhale move forward and down.

Squeeze your elbows in on the way down. Yes. All the way down to the belly. Lift your chest.

Roll the shoulders back. Squeeze the elbows in. Lift as high as you can without pushing too much in the floor. Lift high.

Lift your chest off the floor. Lift the ribs off the floor. And then exhale down. Do that a few times.

And maybe move your hands back next to your ribs. Hands further back. Hands still in the ground though. Use the hands in the ground to push up on the inhale and lower down on the exhale.

So you're kind of doing spinal rolls up and down with your breath. Do a few of those. Inhale, roll up. And exhale, lower down.

Nice. And you can use your fingertips to push higher if you want to. Nice. That's it.

Everybody push back to all fours. And back to a dog position. So your butt up and your head down. So head down, butt up, dog position.

Finding a comfortable position of the hands and feet. Spread your toes and fingers. And take a deep inhale here. And exhale.

Nice. Back to all fours, knees in the ground. Left leg out behind you from all fours. Same sequence on the second side.

Inhale here. Exhale, crunch your knee to your nose. Do that three times total. Inhale, stretch long arch your back.

Exhale, knee to face. Inhale, stretch one more time. Exhale, crunch it in. And then karate kick towards the left and hover.

Flex the foot three times. One foot down, arms up, half straddle. Most of the weight is in your right knee now. Lean over towards the left, left hand, left knee.

Side stretch. You can hold onto the back of your head if you want to. And then switching sides when you feel ready. Finding your pace, switching from side to side.

I find that I can always go a bit deeper on the second round because I already did this on the first side. So I really enjoy that sense of balance. So I really enjoy that sense of, you know, a 2 or 3% flexibility and mobility improvement just from doing it one time. Nice.

Hands back to plank hands. Stretch your right arm. Thread your right arm under your body so that your right shoulder is in the ground. Finding a super awkward position.

Arm by yourself so that you're almost rolling over back to guard. And then make it as uncomfortable for yourself as possible, but not so uncomfortable that you cannot breathe. So really push yourself into the most weird position you can and try to take two deep breaths there. Breathing in uncomfortable positions is extremely valuable if you ever want to spar in Jiu Jitsu.

Because even if you don't want to, people will put you here. You might as well learn to be comfortable. Hands back to plank hands. Push back up to all fours.

Walk your hands forward. And try again to lower your chest down. Stay here. Or if you want to add in a little of Catherine Kao's spinal movement, look forward and inhale.

And on your exhale, crunch your belly and put the top of your head in the floor like you're looking into your own navel. And then do that again. Inhale, chest down, look forward. Exhale, crunch and look into your own belly.

Really tuck your chin to your chest. Do one more of those. Inhale, back then. Exhale, crunch around your spine.

Awesome. Hands to plank hands. Left foot to the outside of the left hand. Left foot to the outside of the left hand.

Yep, lizard lunge. Chest forward, hips down. Inhale on your fingertips. On your exhale, move your butt back and get a nice hamstring stretch.

Try to flex the left foot and get your chin, your nose to your chin or your knee. Do that again. Inhale, hips forward, low lunge. Exhale, deep hamstring stretch.

Fold forward as deep as you can. Pull yourself down. One more. Inhale, deep stretch.

Deep hip stretch. And exhale, try to get your forehead to your knee. You might think that you can't, but try. Ooh, nice, eh?

Come forward again. Yep, forward, hands on the inside. Make sure that your right shoulder is super strong so that it can carry your weight. Yep, and then left arm moves back, catching the back foot.

Tuck the foot in, catch the inside. I like catching the outside of the foot. So if you catch the outside of the ankle with the thumb, yeah, oh, yeah, that was a nice tight spot there. Catch wherever you can catch.

But I like catching the outside and then flexing the foot to get a super, super good shoulder stretch for the left shoulder. Okay? Explore this position on your own for a breath. Remember that all my cues are not orders.

They are just suggestions. So feel free to explore. It's your body and your yoga practice, so don't follow my word down to the minute detail. Release the foot into combat base.

So keep kneeling in your right leg and keep your left foot in a squat. So release the foot and come into half squat, combat base position. And then again, check out your right hip. My left hip is very different from my right hip.

So I always tend to do different things on those two sides because I'm working around injuries, something I wanted to do too. Don't provoke more pain, but move around the pain and make sure you feel good at all times. Even when it's kind of really awkward, try to feel good while you're doing it. Awesome.

One more breath here. Plank hands back to the Lister position. So back leg is straight, super strong in the right shoulder. Tuck your back toes.

Left arm up. And then move back into one variation of the side plank, either the standard variation or the right knee down for some more getting everything into the right place. Or if you want to try, lift the left leg and wobble a little bit. So that's the side plank.

Try to lift the left leg and wobble a little bit. Three, two, one. Plank pose, everybody. Inhale.

Move forward, lower all the way down. Do the same thing like before, those Cobra rolls. So roll your spine up on the inhale and then down. But try to move your hands a bit wider.

So you can turn your fingers out and place your palms outside your mask. So you're basically in a push-up position. So wide, wide hands. Put your hands out wider to the side.

And then use the arms to push yourself up this time. I really like having wide hands and lifting up on the inhale, getting a deep back bend, as deep of a back bend as I can do without hurting my spine. Yeah, one more of those. Push high, but not too high.

Nice. And then lower down. Tuck your toes and hands. Inhale to press.

And on your exhale, push back to plank or all fours and let's meet in the dog position. Yep. Butt up, head down. Take a breath.

Lift your heels as high as you can. Look into your own navel, nose to navel. And then roll forward to plank. Make sure you have the same distance between your feet and hands as you have in plank.

So move forward to plank, strong plank. And then without moving your arms or feet, move back to dog. So I want you to practice doing the dog and the plank as similarly as possible. So roll forward to a plank on the inhale.

On your exhale, push back to dog and really get a nice hamstring stretch there too. Roll forward to plank, strong plank. On your exhale, push your hamstrings backwards and say, ugh, one more of those. Look into your navel.

Roll forward and then all the way back. Push forward to plank. We're gonna suffer a little bit. So plank pose.

Plank pose. You can keep your knees down in plank. So plank pose with your knees down, but yeah, hands down, knees down. Strong arms.

Look forward. Widen your knees a little bit and stretch your right arm forward. One arm plank. Right arm forward.

Yes. Three, two, one. Good. Back to center.

Switching side. Left arm forward. Three, strong core. Good job.

Two, one, and down. Awesome. Come all the way down to the belly. Let's do a belly twist.

Arms out to the side. 90 degrees. So three o'clock and nine o'clock with the arms. And then take opposite foot to opposite hand.

The right foot to left arm. Right foot to left hand more or less. So yep. Open up and peel your body up.

And then you can use the opposite hand. So if you did the right foot, you can use the right hand to kind of push yourself deeper into this weird twist. Again, a position we never find ourselves in. And that's maybe why it feels uncomfortable at the start, but it's so good because we're compensating so much by being, you know, following the same rut over and over.

Always sitting on a chair. Always driving. Always doing the same jihadi technique. It's so healthy for us to do something completely different.

Switching side. Right arm. Three o'clock. Left foot to right hand.

Use the left hand to push yourself open. Maybe get a nice peck stretch, shoulder stretch. Weird hip cramps. Also part of it.

Three, two, one. Awesome. Back to center. Pushing back to plank pose and then back to a dog.

Make your dog a little bit shorter this time. So walk your feet forward and then squat down so that you're in a squat. But don't move your hands backwards. Keep your hands where they are in dog pose.

It's still a dog, but you're squatting down so that you're sitting down as low as you can. Do that a few times. Dog squats. So down dog and bend your knee.

Down dog and bend your knee. Bend your knee. Yeah. Awesome.

Feet together and then prep on an inhale. And as you exhale, lean all the way into your hands. Lean all the way into your hands. So stand on your tippy toes and grip the floor with your fingers and push all the way into your hands.

So lean forward. Your head should be moving forward in space. Come up onto your toes. Yes.

Yes. And you can even try to lift your feet there. So inhale to prep. As you exhale, lean into your hands and lift your legs.

Yep. So small jumps. But keep your arms perfectly straight. Yeah.

Not the fingertips, though. Palms. Yep. Inhale and exhale.

Move forward and jump up. Three more. Good job. Keep going.

Even if you're tired, that's the point. Yep. Two more. Lean forward.

Exhale, jump. One more. Lean forward and jump. Awesome.

Let's meet in a squat. Wide feet. Wide knees. Squat down into a nice squatting position.

Place your hands, palms together in front of your chest, and push your knees out with your elbows. So posture up and look forward. Hands together in front. Yes, that's it.

Yeah. Push your knees open and try to get your upper body in between your thighs. Awesome. Good stuff.

With or without using the hands for support, sit down on your butt. Place your hands next to your butt. So sit on the floor on your butt. Rolling back, sitting down.

Fingers and toes pointing the same direction, more or less. Lifting your hips for a reverse tabletop. Wide feet. Feet as wide as your hips.

Yes. Lift your hips as high as you can and look up and maybe even back. So drop your head back if you feel comfortable with that. Lift your hips even more.

And then drop down and sit down. Let's do three more of those. Inhale, lift as high as you can, pushing the arms straight, trying to stretch your arms straight, trying to straighten the legs. Sit down.

Sit down. One more of those. Lift up as high as you can and really push yourself, force yourself. Give yourself a little bit of good pain here.

Awesome. Sit down. Balance on your butt. So lift your legs and arms.

Lift your chest. Lower the shoulders. Stretch your arms out in front of you. Bend your knees more.

Your toes can be in the ground. Bend your knees. Lift your chest. Lift your chest.

And then lower all the way down to the ground. Awesome. Legs up. Lift your hips so much that you can place your hands under your lower back.

Yeah. So really, yeah. Squeeze your hands in under your lower back. And now point the toes and then flex the feet.

So point the toes straight and then flex the feet. And do that and feel how that affects the whole back chain of the body. Your calves, your hamstrings, your lower back. And if you want care, stay here.

Or if you want to use the hands to kind of lift the butt higher, you can use the hands and lift your butt up off the floor. And if you want, you can go all the way to upside down if your neck is okay. If your neck is not okay, that's not something I recommend to do. Take three breaths here in upside down.

You're doing absolutely perfect. It's awesome to see. And maybe use a little bit of momentum and roll all the way up to the squat where we started before we sat down on the floor. So roll up to a squat.

All the way forward and up. Whoop. Awesome. And then all the way back.

See if you dare to roll all the way back. Keep your arms overhead now so that your weight is in your shoulders. So arms and legs are pointing the same way. So arms behind you.

Arms, hands touching the feet basically. Awesome. Yes. And now all the way up to a squat.

Roll up to a squat. Whoop. Awesome. Final round.

Final round. Rolling all the way back to upside down. Arms overhead. Touching your toes if you can.

Hands to toes. Whoop. And then roll all the way up to a squat and move back into a downward dog. Squat and dog.

Squat into barking dog. Barking dog. Yeah. Let's meet in the barking dog position.

Whoop. So plank pose. Whoop. Awesome.

Whoop. All right. Whoop. Jump forward.

We're going to, we're going to, we're going to, what we're going to do now next is get the blood pumping a little bit. So jump your feet towards your hands. Whoop. Then either spin around or jump around 180 degrees.

Walk forward into a plank. With or without your knees in the ground, do a strong push up. Nice. And then back to plank, back to dog.

One more round of that. Bend your knees. Jump. Float your hands down.

Forward. Land in a squat. And then spin or jump around. Plank pose.

One final push up. And let's meet in a kneeling position. So you're sitting on your heels again. Good doggy.

Good doggy. Lift your hips and push your hips forward. Tuck your back toes. Tuck your toes under.

Reach your right hand to your right heel. Right hand to right heel. But push your hips forward towards the dog in front of you. And then left arm up.

And I like looking down towards my right hand here. But keep lifting your chest. Push your hips forward. And also try to lengthen both side bodies.

Your right side becomes long too. Not crunched up. Awesome. Switching sides.

Left hand to left heel. And feel that right side open up. But try to keep your left side open too. Squeeze your butt a little bit and push your hips forward.

But keep your whole front body a bit engaged too. Three, two, one. Sit down on your heel. Keep your eyes closed.

Relax your face. Hands resting on your lap. Lower the shoulders. Try to breathe all the way down through your lungs.

The diaphragm is pushing your belly out on the inhale. And on your exhale you're just relaxing. Take a moment in quiet solitude. And just try to feel the difference where you are in your mental space now compared to 20 minutes ago when we started this class.

We did some stuff. We moved around a little bit and we breathed. We took some breaths. But see how powerful that can be.

Small nuances can make a huge difference in our attitude. Let's close the class by a big inhale through the nose. Fill up your lungs completely. And then together a deep exhale.

Thank you, Veronica, so much. And thank you everybody for joining. That was a really, really good job. Amazing.

Thank you. Give each other a big round of applause.