Gi Cool-Down With Belt: 14-Min Recovery Class for BJJ

So our options is to have the belt behind the head or in our hands. And with the other leg the option is to have the knee bent or the leg straight. What also can tend to happen in this stretch is that Sebastian has flexible hamstrings, so he's not shaking here, but we will see that some people are really shaking because the leg is not over the hip, it's in front of the hip. And when they try to straighten the leg, they both have to really activate their hip flexors.

And also it's really tight, so it's resistance both in the back of the legs and also in the front of the hip. So it's the whole leg is just like, ah. So I would have them move because when people are completely still they tend to tense up more. So I would have them try to bend your knee a lot, generously bend the knee and then just slowly see how straight it can become and just keep bending.

And so you try to help them relax. It's also the nervous system is maybe spiked from a lot of caffeine and if you've been sitting in traffic or other things, so just allow them to have some time to move into this other part of the nervous system that is not ready to fight or flight. So that's our first pose here is one leg up, one knee bent or one leg straight. So if people hold the belt with their hands or if they have it behind their head, it's up to them.

Our next pose is on the same side. So we do three poses on one side before we switch sides. So again, you can have the bottom leg straight or bent. Now we will move the leg out to the side.

So now Sebastian has his right leg up. Then I will say move your leg out to the right. Take your belt in your right hand, keep the left shoulder heavy because people tend to roll after their leg. So stay heavy on your left side.

I also say you can use your left leg to balance out. So he has his right leg to the right and his left knee can go to the left. So I would say you can have your left foot to the floor and start to pull your left knee to the left. At the same time, you try to bring your right leg to the right.

So this will maybe keep him from falling to the right. Same thing goes here. If they're really tense up, if they're really tense up, same thing goes here. If they're really tense up, if they're really, just keep your foot in the floor and knee to the side.

So if the leg is really tense here, they bend and straighten, bend and straighten. They don't stay still for too long because then they tend to tense up more. Some people might be able to grab their own foot here. And for some people, this is more comfortable to have the foot and the hand connected.

So basically this pose is keeping the left side on the floor, straighten and bend the knee, use the belt or use the hand. Then we move into the twist. So again, we do use the bottom leg, push down to do a little hip escape. And then this bottom leg goes straight.

And we bring the top leg across the body into a twist. So we change the hand on the belt so the opposite hand can move away. Into the twist and optional, so here to bend the knee, straight leg might be too much for some people. So we can start with bent knee and then slowly start to straighten.

We can turn you or use the other leg so they can see it better. So for many people, this part of the body is really, really tight. So of course it will help to just bend the knee a little bit. And then for some people, grabbing the outside of the foot feels really nice.

So that's our options here is to have the knee slightly bent or use the hand instead of grabbing the belt. That's our three poses from the back. The belt stretches from the back. So a quick recap.

We start by having them making a knot on their belt with a big loop. Put the foot on the belt. The belt goes behind the head. If this is no go, then we put the belt in our hands.

Make sure they're not pulling with their arms or pulling themselves up. Notice if the leg is way in front of their own hip. Then have them bend their knees instead, bend their knee instead. If they're really comfortable, they can straighten out the bottom leg.

They can bend and straighten the top leg. The second pose, you move the leg out to the side, open up the hip. So then you switch belt to one hand, bring the leg out. You can use the opposite leg to pull the knee out to the opposite side for counter the pose or for not falling after your leg.

Here I would just remind them to stay heavy on the left side when they move the right leg to the right side. Breathe. And then we do the twist. You use the bottom leg to hip escape and bring the leg across the body.

Keep the arm on the other side heavy. Keep the shoulder down if they can. Bend or straight leg. Grab the foot or the belt.

Bend or straight leg. Grab the foot or the belt. Anything you want to add on the belt stretch? No.

No. Okay, so that's our belt stretch. It's really nice to hold the poses for at least two minutes each. And if you have more time, three, four minutes is also nice.

I actually love the belt stretch because you get the hips in almost every direction and you get the spine. So it's very, very efficient. So you can spend more time in the three plus three poses instead of doing many different poses for many different purposes. They're all combined into one.

So I love it because it's so damn efficient. Yeah, and it's still after many years of yoga. This is still my go-to. If I only have 10 minutes, this is what I do.

I do this. So it doesn't get old. That's the spine and hips. So let's move to the shoulders.

You can have people seated on their knees. Then they will also get a nice stretch for the front of the shins, front of the feet. And take their belt in their hands. Behind their back.

So turn the other way so that you can just see the hands. Some people want to grab the belt with the thumb in and some people want to grab with the thumb out. So it's totally up to them. Just slightly different stretch.

You can have them try both ways. So it's nice to just maybe go forward and back a couple of times. And then they can stay with the arms behind them. Just breathe here.

If they want to go a little deeper or just slightly different variation, they can shift forward to the top of their head and bring the arms overhead. So it's called a rabbit pose in yoga. So here you just have some help from gravity. This is not a pose I would hold for minutes.

Between 30 and 60 seconds usually does it. So not so much to cue her other than that they should breathe, try to relax, and allow gravity to do the work if they're in this variation. If they're seated up. Trying to relax the shoulders down.

Trying to make sure the head is resting so the neck is straight. So the neck is on top of the rest of the spine because people tend to do this. A neck stretch can be nice. Yeah, intentional neck stretch where you actually draw the chin in is nice, but not like this.

Okay, and then we move into another shoulder stretch. So one arm goes behind the head with the belt, then the opposite arm goes behind the back and starts to climb up the belt. So some people will walk the hands all the way up to meet each other, then that's fine. Then they can clasp the hands.

But for some people it's nice to have the belt because this tends to happen, that people push their own head forward and down around the top of the spine and are just basically collapsing in. So there's no stretch for this and there's no stretch for the front of the shoulder. So belt can give you the space to actually lift the elbow up and roll the shoulder back. This is also pretty intense to hold for a long, long time.

So I would focus on the belt stretch on the back for a long time and these maximum one minute holds. I actually love to open up a little bit and do the towel on the back. Yeah, towel on the back. So you do that before or?

Before the static. Yes, before the static. So you can have them move a little bit and then hold. So first half some movement, second half just breathing.

And then you of course release, it can be nice to just move around a little bit and then they do the other side. Same thing, one arm belt overhead behind your back and the other arm starts to walk up the belt. There's not so much to say here, like you can talk about alignment, but doesn't really matter in the cooldown other than they shouldn't collapse the chest down. They should make space.

Okay, that's the shoulders. And yes, and then we move into to Shavasana, just a straight up Shavasana. They can of course have the knees together, feet slightly wider than the hips to rest the back or release the legs and arms. So we've been through this in another class where we talked about just lengthening the back tailbone forward and also shoulders underneath the body, chin in and then.

This is really cool. Yeah. So just place them in, roll the shoulders down underneath the body, lengthening the neck, chin pulls in and then just drop the weight of the body. You can if you're a really cool person, you can do, just help them to relax a little bit before you completely go into stillness.

If you have time, then you will say relax the feet, relax your calves, relax your thighs, relax your hips, relax your belly. If they want friends for life. Yeah, if the social distancing disappears and you want friends for life, you walk around and you just gently, not with your whole weight, you just push the shoulders down. A lot of people with tight shoulders and strong shoulders, the shoulders are lifted.

So when you, this is actually why I continued to do yoga. Someone did this to me. I pushed my shoulders down on the mat and it was amazing. After you put the, press the shoulders down, then you can grab the back of the head and just lengthen the neck for them.

Just pull slightly back and place the head back down. So when the social distancing is over, this, it's happening right now and we record this, then you can maybe start to do something like that for your friends. Again, the belt stretch on the back should be the long holds and slightly shorter with the shoulders because it's just more intense.