Sebastian Brosche · 76 min · 9,929 words
A full 75-minute hip flow with Sebastian and Stine. Go deep on the hips, the most important area for guard, passing and healthy knees.
Welcome to the full 75 minute hip flow class with Sebastian and Stina. Let me start by prefacing a little bit what the purpose of this class is. So take the knee joint for example. The knee joint is just the femur bone and the shin bone connecting.
The elbow joint is just the forearm and the upper arm connecting. And what we call hips is just the legs and the spine connecting. There is no independent unit called the hips. The hips are just all the muscles that move the spine and the legs in relation to each other.
This is important to understand because if you just work one part of your hips and make it really strong that could improve matters in jiu-jitsu if you have like really weak muscles. But it could go the other way and you can make the muscles too strong and tight and limit and hamper your jiu-jitsu motion. So what I believe we really need in jiu-jitsu is a very meticulous and nuanced and detailed and you know being able to move the spine and the legs effortlessly and with control. And the class that you will do today is not what you think about when you think hip flow.
You think deep hip stretches. We all need deep hip stretches but that's not everything we need. We also need to be able to balance on one leg and move the whole body with the hips as our center of gravity without falling over and without you know exhausting ourselves. So during this class this seems like a balance and leg flow leg focused class but you will notice that your hips will dramatically improve their ability to move both independently compared to other body parts but also moving the thighs and the spine with control.
So with all that said let's start in a turtle position. Arms out in front of you just take a few breaths. This is a long class. It's a progressive class.
We start slow and then we progressively build up and what's easy about this class is we will do the same sequence six times and each time we will add on new poses but we will always start the same way. So in the beginning there will be a lot of explanation. Eventually we will just flow more and more and talk less. For now just take a couple of deep breaths in and out through your nose.
And as you inhale see if you can let your lower back expand a little bit. So you inhale so deeply that you feel some muscle release in your lower back. Officially started the time. Perfect.
Take another couple of breaths here. Your ultimate goal should be to be able to complete this 75 minute class without breathing through the mouth. That's a great goal to have. You probably won't do that today but eventually doing it many times you will be able to do this class.
So efficiently that you don't have to mouth breathe. All right from the turtle moving to a wide knee turtle. So spread your knees as much as you want and then find the position where you stretch your inner thighs. So the danger here is that you press really deep and feel the pain on the outside of the hips.
And that means you're just compressing soft tissue between your two bones. So I want you to find a place where you feel the groin and you feel the inner thigh. Stay here for three to five long nice breaths maybe painful breaths. So don't look at anyone else don't look at Stine and don't look at anyone else and compare your body to theirs.
It's better to close your eyes check out where you have the right kind of pain and breathe exactly there. So not too much pain and not completely comfortable. Just the perfect middle ground between good pain and too much pain. Take another couple of deep breaths.
Enjoy the quiet before the storm. And then ooh and ah your way back with knees together and come up to all fours and flip your fingers around and stretch your wrist a little bit. Forearm stretch and cat cow. So as you inhale you look forward and as you exhale you round your spine and look between your legs.
Do that a few times. If you want to do your own variations here moving from side to side or moving in circles freestyle time. One more breath here in cat cow. And then if you need to give your wrist a little shake before you come back into down dog do that.
And then as you're ready spread your fingers shoulders hands as wide as your shoulders and step back into a dog. Lift your butt maybe press your heels down or just press one heel down and bend the other knee. We call it walking the dog so just take your yoga dog for a little walk. Move your neck move your shoulders if that feels good.
A little side stretch here a little twist there. So I will be talking fast throughout this class but this doesn't mean that you have to move fast. So I'm just talking fast because I have many details that I want to add in but try to do this class nice and flowy and slow. Let's take some time to start our shoulders.
So on your toes roll forward through your spine to a plank and then in plank look forward and take a inhale. And as you exhale knees down and do a push up. If you do want to do this without the knees that's optional. Come back to dog and let's do this whole sequence a couple of times.
So on your toes roll forward maybe on an inhale and as you exhale do a full push up or half a push up or semi push up. And then back to dog. And then one more on your own with your breath. Nice.
Let's prep our butt a little bit. So take your right knee forward to your right wrist and tuck your foot under your hips. If this is too early for your hips you can sit down into more like a S mount position. But what we want to do here is try to keep a nice posture and then roll up and down.
So use your palms or your fingers and roll your spine up and down over your knees. So the lower you go the more intense it is. The more you press into your hand the more you relieve the pressure from the knee. So if you have an active knee injury this maybe doesn't feel good.
But there is for sure a way for you to modify this so that you stretch the butt without putting too much torque on your knee. So I leave that up to you to do this carefully. It's possible if you don't have the giving up mindset. Do a couple of more rolls and stretch your right butt.
I like to say butt instead of hips. It's easier to say butt. It sounds funnier and it's also more accurate because the hips can be many things but the butt is the butt. So this is a butt stretch.
And then when you're done come back to dog. And you guessed it. Same thing second side left knee forward finding your angle and your hips are probably your butts are probably different right to left. So this one might be a little bit more flexible or more inflexible.
So just take your time to adjust and don't expect the same from the second hip that you did from the first tip. So take some time to listen to your breath. Tune out of your head and tune in with your body. Always doing a status check in the beginning of the class.
Where are you today and how are you feeling. Good stuff. And then as you're ready come back into down dog and roll forward from down dog to all fours and let's do a back then. So you like child's pose what with the butt over the knees.
We call it the puppy pose in yoga. So butt high chest low either chest or forehead to the ground. If you have any shoulder problems just modify. Sometimes I just prop myself up on the elbows a little bit like a forearm plank.
But you can choose how you want to do it so that you get a nice back. So this should be a passive back and you should not need any power in order to stretch the front of your body and feel a little spine stretch. Just take a few breaths in silence. And before you come out of the pose note that the start of the sequence is a lot focused on the on core strength and core stability.
So engage your core now and start coming up to all fours and back to dog and keep your front body engaged through this whole start of the sequence. So tuck your toes come back into dog and then lift your heels and stretch your right leg out behind you on a inhale. So lift your right leg and then roll the knee forward to your elbow on the exhale and place your shin under you like you did for pigeon. So stay high now.
So notice that scene is not dropping her left hip. She's staying high and squeezing the inner thighs and like pressing everything together and come up on her fingertips. And if you feel super stable here lift your arms up and then place them down. Come back to download stretch the right leg out behind you.
Yeah. And then we're doing three on each side. I thought we were alternating. Yeah.
So inhale here and exhale. Roll the knee forward shin under you. And then as you inhale either lift your chest or lift your arms as well and an exhale hands down. And then sweep back to three legged dog inhale and exhale one more high pigeon with balance inhale arms up exhale hands down and then three legged dog inhale exhale roll the knee to your face one more time.
And now look towards the left and kick your right leg over to the left. Place the foot down in the ground and lift your left arm and squeeze your inner thighs and lift your hips. Hold here for a full breath. And then left hand down right leg out behind you three legged dog inhale in three legged dog on the exhale move forward to plank left knee in the ground and then place your right foot in your neck.
That's impossible but really activate your butt and your hamstring and squeeze the heel as close to your head as you can and take one breath. Nice and then stretch the leg out back to three legged dog split your legs properly and now place your left heel down so that you have the foot in a 45 degree angle so that you have good balance and then take your left hand to your right shoulder and stabilize the shoulder with your left hand. So really feel your shoulder there. Take a breath.
And then place the hand down bend the right knee open your hips inhale and on the exhale step your right foot on the outside of your right hand for lizard. And for this one just place the back knee down and move your hips back and forward a few times stretching the right leg and then as we inhale bend the knee exhale stretch the leg. So this is the first level there will be several levers and layers to this. So this is the first one that everybody should be able to do modified and then if you eventually you will be able to move your right heel forward to like not 12 o'clock but maybe 130 so you can slide the leg out more and more.
All right from here lift the back knee sweep your leg back to three legged dog and then open your hips as much as you can and slowly in slow motion flip over into flip dog so the right foot is under your right knee. Grab the back of your head and lift the hips. It's like a side plank with a back bend and then sit down and reach for your left foot with your right hand for fold and then lift your hips inhale squeeze the butt. And exhale release the lower back and stretch one more inhale lift.
And exhale touch your foot. This time lift up high and then come back to three legged dog and roll the knee to your face one more time and place the foot between your hands. Put your back knee down lift your arms up maybe catch the elbows overhead hold for a couple of breaths in a low lunge so squeeze your inner thighs but drop your hips without compressing your lower back. Nice.
So the first time we do the poses we hold for a little longer just so we can get the details in and feel acclimatized to them and then we will just flow through them. So take your hands down to the ground and then drop your hips as much as you can forward and then straighten your front leg like we did in lizard but now walk back into like a more hamstring more hamstring stretch. Take a few breaths here. And then walk forward again tuck your back toes and lift your back knee arms overhead crescent pose so lift up high.
So really lift the back heel and engage your back leg so that it's straight also draw your core in this should be a nice stretch to the front of your left hips and your right knee should be more or less over your ankle. And then take one more breath here and then lean forward into standing split and just take one breath in standing split. And then stepping back through a down dog and then through a vinyasa so roll forward to a plank on inhale exhale lower down your choice of back bends today maybe a small sprawl or a full up dog and then let's meet back in down dog. Same sequence left side so left leg out behind you bend your knee open your hips on the inhale on the exhale roll your knee to your elbow place the shin down under you and then lift your chest and maybe lift your arms on the inhale.
And as you exhale hands down back to three legged dog two more times of this rolling pigeon inhale exhale knee to nose arms overhead inhale hands down exhale one more three legged dog inhale exhale roll the knee arms overhead or just lift the chest inhale exhale hands down three legged dog inhale. And then roll the knee to your face and look towards the right kick your left kick your foot under your under you to the right flat feet in engage your inner thighs and lift your right arm for a fallen triangle. A weird side plank nice right hand down left foot out behind you three legged dog and then bend your knee and place your right knee your right knee in the ground and touch your left foot to the back of your head lift your knee squeeze the heel in and lift your right knee. If you have cramps you should drink more water and eat more magnesium or just do more yoga and then back to three legged dog stretch everything out and split your legs take your right heel and place it down so that you have good balance and then take your right hand to your left shoulder and stabilize your right knee.
Can you feel how everything is shaking that's good you're learning nice right hand down left foot to the outside of your left hand lizard pose back knee down move back and forwards with your hips preparing your hamstrings and then you can stretch your right knee down. And later we will turn this more into a full splits cheating cheating full splits so really prep your hamstrings and your the front of your right hip for splits later. Good stuff left foot out behind you in three legged dog lift the back knee open your hips and slowly drop back into a flip dog right hand down left foot down grab the back of your head and squeeze your butt and then sit down and touch your right foot to the outside of your right hip. And as you inhale back to flip dog finding a flow make sure that you're not breaking your right wrist find a good placement of the right hand under your shoulder so two more inhale back bend exhale forward fold and then you can stretch your right knee.
And then slowly drop back to a three legged dog keep your hips high and lift your knee and then left knee towards your face low lunge right leg in the ground behind you arms overhead maybe catch the elbows and then you can stretch your right knee. Feel your two legs in relationship to your spine try to keep your hips stable everything can shake but your hips should be the center of your pose slowly drop the head hands down and walk back so that your left leg is straight and then you can stretch your right knee. And maybe you can't go as deep as Tina just go as deep as you can and try to not hold your breath just because everything in your body is screaming all at once this is good pain. One more breath.
Walking forward bending your left knee tucking the back toes lifting the back knee crescent pose high standing pose like a high high lunch lift the back heel engage your hips front leg bent back leg straight lift your chest everything is working you are breathing one two and three hands down standing splits just for one breath and then stepping back either to a down dog or a three legged dog do your vinyasa from here so rolling forward to a plank on inhale exhale as you lower down a little back bend of your choice inhale and then let's meet in turtle and take a breather. We just completed the full round on each side and we're right on time very good so I will talk less in the next flow we won't do it faster we will just try to focus more on the transition so we will just flow from one post to the other taking one breath in each post more or less. So take a big inhale and a big exhale and lift your butt back to dog and let's start over lift your heels right leg out behind you inhale exhale knee to nose setting up for pigeon so chin down arms up inhale or just on your fingertips exhale hands down three legged dog inhale exhale rolling knee same thing arms up inhale exhale down. One more three legged dog inhale exhale pigeon back bend inhale lift exhale hands down three legged dog inhale now rolling knee look towards the left and set up for fallen triangle so kick your legs straight engage your inner thighs lift your left arm or maybe circle the big left arm in a big circle.
And then left hand down the right leg out behind you three legged dog scorpion plank so left knee in the ground if you want to keep the left knee off the ground you can do that but then you're a psychopath foot in the back of the head. Nice and then three legged dog right leg out behind you make sure your back heel is in the ground so either touch your right shoulder with your left hand or touch the butt with your left hand so reach the arm back for a two legged dog. You can see how hard it is to stabilize the shoulder that's why we use the hand on the shoulder before nice left hand down right foot on the outside of your right hand do the same thing we did before make sure your right leg is in the ground. Do the same thing we did before moving back and forward to the back knee in the ground or if you want to slide the heel out outside your yoga mat or on your jiu jitsu mat slide out into a nice hamstring and front of the hip stretch so keep your back leg a bit engaged even if it is in the ground and feel the stretch in both sides both in the back side and the front side.
So later we'll be bending the back leg and grabbing the foot Stine can do this without a problem but you can probably save that one for later unless you want to go crazy right now. Lift your chest inhale and then exhale slide the foot all the way back to three legged dog really reengage your core and whoops whoop it up and then back to flip dog falling backwards in slow motion. Grab the back of your head and inhale lift and squeeze your butt exhale sit down for full try to completely relax for half a second here and then reengage everything inhale lift and squeeze and lift and squeeze and open and exhale fall down into complete relaxation for one moment and then again inhale lift high. One more forward fold final one.
And then into flip dog inhale and then flip over to flip back to three legged dog and roll your knee to your face foot between the hands low lunge. So arms overhead inhale and as you exhale hands down fold straighten your front leg and fold back as deep as you can try to get your forehead down closer to your knee. Yeah, one second here. And then moving all the way up to crescent pose so forward and up stay in crescent for a moment.
And then from here place your hands either on your hips or in front of your chest and moving to a one legged chair pose so lean forward squeeze your knees together. Yeah, and bend your standing knee as much as you can do today. Nice, three, two, one. Great stand up arms overhead lift your left knee so either grab your knee grab your knee and then instead of pulling the knee towards your chin move the knee out to the side a little bit and pull it more towards the armpit.
If you lose your balance that's fine this is not a balance competition. This is just you trying to stack your whole body over your right ankle for a moment. If you want more challenge, you will get that really soon. So if you want to let go of your left knee and hold it where it is do that if you want to straighten your leg straight out in front of you or at an angle do that three and the two and the one and from here.
Sorry. Yes, left foot to right ankle. I was confused there left foot to right ankle. So keep standing on your right ankle.
It's probably burning right now and then hands wherever you want them in front of your chest resting your elbows on your shin or hands down to the ground. If you have insane flexibility like Stina. This is actually a really nice hip stretch when you're already super flexible but this is not attainable for most people but the option is there one day when you need it. One half second more here and then walking your hands up to back to chest up chest up as high as you can and then grab your left foot or your left knee and just throw the foot out sideways as far as you can go.
So if you have the proportions and the flexibility you can straighten the leg release the foot and stretch your left leg out behind your right leg out in front of you left arm back. Yes, flying warrior recall this one and then bend your standing knee and step back to a warrior to left foot out behind you left leg straight. Nice. Give your left foot a little release here.
So bend straight in the right leg a few times. Get get some blood back into that right ankle. Nice. Then hold warrior to for a couple of breaths.
Keep your chest lifted and stack your head on top of your spine like always. Nice. Now bend your right knee as much as you can and drop down into a one legged squat. So hands down in front of you.
Hands in the ground and then switching sides stretching the right leg and bending the left knee and just this is again freestyle moving from side to side dropping your butt as low as it goes today. If you have knee problems or issues here stay with your hips higher. Go for the ankles knees and inner thighs. I personally prefer to flex the straight leg foot and drop down really low.
But you choose and you experiment. Nice. One more on each side. And then coming back to warrior to and then inhale here and on the exhale circle your arms back to standing split lifting the back leg either stay in standing split for some moments or lean into your arms and do a few rounds of handstands.
Minimum three but three hundred is also OK. Just pause the video and do as many as you like. When you are ready you take your vinyasa through down dog plank back then and take a breather in dog. Good job.
Take a full breath in dog. Same sequence second side lift the left leg out behind you on inhale exhale rolling knee to pigeon set your chin up in under you and then arms overhead if you can inhale exhale press into your hands three like a dog big open bend and open inhale exhale knee to nose crunch your belly and then lift your chest arms overhead exhale press down into your hands one more pigeon. Knee to face all the way into your chin arms up inhale exhale down three like a dog inhale roll your knee to your nose and look towards the right roll your knees nose look towards the right for fallen triangle. So right arm up or in a big circle maybe a couple of times squeeze your inner thighs staying as stable as you can.
And then the right hand down three like a dog inhale scorpion plank pose rolling forward to a plank place your back knee down if you want and foot to the back of your head engage the butt engage the hamstrings avoid the cramps but only just nice and then three like a dog into two like a dog so place your right heel down either grab your right shoulder your left shoulder or grab your right butt with your right hand. Yep holding the balance but not holding your breath and then place the hand down left foot on the outside of the left hand. Back knee down moving backwards and forwards with the hips or if you want to slide down deeper with the left foot so maybe a 10 30 somewhere around there if you're really stiff you can go either further outside ways if you're really flexible you can go further forward or stay exactly where you are keeping your back leg engaged. Take another breath here and then re engage everything and swoop back into a three legged dog and slowly in slow motion fall backwards into flip dog big back and grab the back of your head and then on the exhale fold over your right leg.
Three more flip dogs inhale lift your chest and exhale fold forward inhale lift your chest and hips exhale fold forward and then final flip dog inhale returning back to three legged dog rolling your knee towards your face setting up for a low lunge back knee in the ground arms overhead. Inhale exhale fold over your straight left leg so straighten the left leg and fold over your leg and relax is probably the wrong word but just pretend that you're relaxing. And then coming up into crescent pose high lunge back knee off the ground arms overhead. Preparing your left ankle for some good pain hands in front of your chest or on the hips one legged knee one legged chair pose knees together lift your back heel whoop finding the balance and then come back up into crescent pose.
And then standing up grabbing your right knee and pulling your knee in towards not the chest but the armpit for a moment or two. And then straighten the leg if you want to or but let go of the knee and straighten your arms overhead and then come back up into crescent pose. And then straighten the leg if you want to or but let go of the knee and straighten your arms overhead. And then from here three two one right ankle to left knee funky chair pose so stay balancing if you need the break and you have a flexibility hands down to the ground.
And then climbing all the way up again grabbing your right knee or your right foot stretching the leg out sideways as far as you can. You can hold the left hand out in the air for balance that usually helps and then holding here for three two one right leg out behind you flying warrior left hand forward. Some control with the hips here bend your left knee and step back to warrior two and take a few breaths finding the correct placement for your hips. Feet in relation to each other I prefer having a really wide stance some hips can take a really narrow stance but take a couple of breaths with the bent knee in a full warrior to stacking your head over your hips.
Strong arms but relax shoulders. And then bend your left knee completely hands in the ground moving from side to side in one legged squat so kung fu stretches from side to side. And if you want to keep your head low on your hips high you can do that if you want to keep your hips all the way to the ground and lifting your head you can do that completely up to. We will add in an extra post this round stop in the center lift your hips straight legs for straddle pose to keep your hands in the ground and do a few push ups here so lift your chest on the inhale on the exhale fold forward and use this movement up and down.
To get as deep as you can into your hamstrings and your lower back so your hamstrings are stretching in your lower back is relaxing but the front of the thighs is engaged stay down when you feel like you want to stay down hang in the air or if you have the proportions or the flexibility. The top of your head can actually be in the ground that's not a goal in itself but for some people a rare few people that can feel really good. Take three breaths in this relaxing is probably the wrong word for most people but you know pretend to be relaxing. And then re engage your core and come all the way up to standing bend your left knee for warrior to and take a big inhale here and on the exhale hands circle down to the ground standing splits setting up for a standing split and stay here and torture yourself or take it upside down and balance on your hands.
Minimum three but you can go for three hundred if you want to and when you're ready you just come through a vinyasa and take a break in turtle. Take three breaths in turtle. How are we timeways. Very good.
Before we're doing the next round let's take a quick break and then we'll go to the next round. Very good. Before we're doing the next round let's come back into a squat so find down dog bend your knees and walk back into a squat. And use a minute in squat to either move around here stay still if you want to do the knee taps that's something I really like you have the hands in front of you and then you tap your right knee to the ground like a combat base and then you switch side to side and if my toes are feeling happy then I can place the hands on my knees and do this without holding the hands in the ground.
This is something you can do if you want to play with some arm balancing here if your arms are feeling strong today you can do a crow pose or whatever arm balance you are playing with in your practice. This is a 75 minute class so we have time to play a little bit if you want to drop down and just relax into a deep forward fold in the squat so but touching the ground and head touching the ground at the same time is impossible but pretend that it's possible take a break. Take a few breaths. Nice and then to counter this place your knees down in the ground sit on your chins and lean back a little bit hands behind you.
Knees can be together or feet can be together and knees wide just lean back and squeeze your butt and stretch the front of your thighs and maybe hips. This is just a interlude before the next round. Good stuff. Hands back to plank back to dog let's do the full sequence again and add on a few poses in the end.
So right leg out behind you inhale exhale roll the knee forward to a shin pigeon maybe arms up inhale exhale hands down. Two more inhale. And exhale you know the drill by now. Inhale.
Exhale. Inhale. One more pigeon exhale. Inhale arms up.
Exhale and then inhale three legged dog knee to nose exhale look left fallen triangle circle your left shoulder in a big circle. And then stretch your left arm forward if you want to try to come into a two legged plank pose here you can try that or just place your hand down and come back into three legged dog. And then from here bend your right knee and place your left knee in the ground and then back foot to the back of your head scorpion plank really try to get that foot to your head you will get a gold medal if you do it. Not really, but some motivation.
And then back to three legged dog right leg out behind you either grab your right shoulder with your left hand or grab the left butt or try to grab the right foot with your left hand. You really need to find a good placement of your hand and bottom foot. Awesome. So good, so good.
And then release right foot on the outside of the right hand and now slide out into your variation of the splits. So split as much as you can and if you want to place the back knee down bend the knee and grab the back foot with your right hand. You can do that just like we did a second ago but just the opposite. So before we used the left hand to grab the right foot now it's the opposite.
The masochists in the room can try to get the heel towards their butt if they're, if they're feeling for it and then release. Swoop everything back to three legged dog and flip back into flip dog and let's do that flip dog flow another time. Inhale lift and exhale fold in your own time. You know the drill.
Two more back bends one more forward fold. And then flipping into three legged dog rolling your knee to your face. Come into a low lunge left knee down. And on your exhale fold over your right leg.
This time you can straighten the back leg and do pyramid pose instead. So two straight legs fold over. This is an option on this round. Now your hamstring is ready for it.
If you want to go down into the deep variation we did a couple of times before you can do that. One more breath. And then let's meet in crescent pose arms overhead. Find the balance on your right ankle.
It knows what's coming. Try hands on the hips or arms out to the side for balance. One legged chair pose knees together. Stay here.
If you want to place the left knee in the ground and try to squat down and do like a pistol squat but with support do that and then stand up. And then grab your left knee. Grab the knee towards your armpit. Stay here and hold and then stretch your left foot out in front of you as straight as you can arms overhead.
Inhale exhale ankle to right knee right thigh up and then funky chair pose. Stay here balancing or hands in the ground. There is a variation arm balance variation here where you place your hands in the ground and lean your shin bone on top. It's like a pigeon pose but flying flying pigeon.
Great. Oh my God. And you can attempt that unless you're pregnant with twins. Then you can also attempt it.
But I don't recommend it. And then grab the foot left foot out to the side. Don't drink alcohol before the class. And then into flying warrior left foot out behind your right arm in front of your flying warrior stepping back into warrior to take a breather.
All right. Hands down in the ground bend your right knee single leg squat kung fu stretching this time try to tap your right knee like we did before. Tap the right knee in the ground so either back down. Yeah.
So that either sit down and tap me or tap the knee in front of you. You can choose and then switch sides. So two variations you sit down on the back and you tap your inner knee or when you come up you can also tap the front of the knee and then switch. So so many variations in the same exercise.
That's why I love this one. She just go from side to side and freestyle free solo this exercise. This is definitely something that will keep your hips and spine young forever if you do it every day. No one does it every day but everybody should.
All right. Let's meet back in warrior to time to take this to the next level. Do a reverse warrior so left hand to knee and then side stretch and then lean forward into a flying warrior. So right hand forward left leg back and now stay with the right hand stays where it is but try to get your left foot up towards your right hand.
So grab the knee or the leg. Yep. And then left hand all the way to the ground release the leg left leg out behind you reverse half moon. Yeah.
So open twist your right your body to the right and then left leg out behind you. Now everybody's going to hate this stand up again and do the first pose again. So standing twist. Stina hates me right now and so are probably everybody else.
And then do the same thing again back to twisting and we're doing this 36 more times. So back up to standing 35 to go standing twist and then into twisting half moon this time actually stay here and grab your back foot with your right hand if you can or just do standing splits. Three and two and a one and a half and a one handstand to shake it all out or take your vinyasa and let's meet in turtle and take a breather. No actually actually do some handstands sorry do some handstands not take a breather.
We have a couple of poses left. Stay in a standing split and roll your left knee through to a pistol squat. So pistol squat and then slowly sit down on your butt roll all the way down to your back and roll all the way back to upside down. If you can just lift the hips as much as they can tolerate today a little bit or a lot stay here for as long as your body recommends you to do it.
And when you're ready but down feet bent setting up for a back bend. So the smallest version is just lifting the hips and interlacing your fingers under your butt. If you want to do the one where you place your hands on either side of the head and lift up to the top of your head or a full back bend if your shoulders can do it you do that. So easy medium or well done.
Just take your time on this one when you feel ready you roll up and down and do a vinyasa and let's meet in dog. Take your time. Perfect. We have the last side the last round and then some nice premium is some some nice reward is waiting in there.
So on your toes lift the back lift the left leg out behind you inhale exhale pigeon poses set up on your chin and inhale lift your chest exhale hands down inhale three like a dog. Two more exhale and inhale and exhale and inhale one more need to know arms overhead inhale and exhale. Okay three legged dog inhale need to know look towards the right fallen triangle engage your inner thighs roll your shoulder open. And come back into a three legged dog.
And then the right knee in the ground try to get that god damn left heel to the back of your head. If you were a five year old and Chinese gymnast you would do it. You're not you're not gonna back to three legged dog either grab your your your left shoulder with your right hand or grab the butt or grab the foot and try to hold your balance in tiger pose a great name for a weird pose. And then step forward to lizard slide your left foot out into a nice nice nice splits maybe grab the back foot with your left hand if you're a half borderline psychopath.
Maybe even pull the heel in towards your butt just as a revenge because the heel didn't get to the back of the head. And then let's swoop it all back into one one more three legged dog into the final flip dog flow so flipping back into a back then and then do four flip dogs and three four folds in your own time. Stretching your whole front body on the inhale and one more for fold exhale and then flip dog inhale flipping over to three legged dog rolling your knee towards your face setting up for low lunch right leg in the ground arms overhead inhale exhale either both legs straight pyramid pose or fold over your left leg with a bent right knee. Everybody meet up in crescent pose engage everything your left foot knows what's coming and then knees together one legged chair pose if you want to try to tap your right knee to the ground find a way to do that.
And then stand up again grab your right knee pull the knee in towards your armpit for a moment and then kick your leg out arms overhead three and two and one funky chair pose set up into a weird triangle on your thigh if you want to try the arm balance again do that or just stay here and suffer the good suffering. Steen is absolutely crazy but that's fine and then grabbing your right knee or your right foot stretching the leg out sideways left hand for balance and then into flying warrior left arm forward right leg back bending your left knee stepping back to warrior two take a breather in warrior two set everything up. And then into flying warrior left arm forward right leg back bending your left knee stepping back to warrior two take a breather in warrior two set everything up. And then hands in the ground or hands not on the ground maybe hold the ankles if you want to do the same thing we did before freestyle from side to side a little twist a little knee tap or two knee taps.
There are many more variations here that we can play with in the future. But try to get into the parts of your thighs and your hips and your spine that you haven't touched yet there are so many muscles that are underused. And kind of borderline inflamed so try to get into where you feel resistance and you don't feel really like moving and see if that's a place you should be. Alright let's stop in the center and do another straddle this time you can hold your ankles if you want to or you can find anything you want to do in straddle do that now and take a moment.
Stina is interlacing clasping her hands behind her stretching the front of the shoulders and bending the knees something I also love to do. Bending the knees can be so nice when your hamstrings are you know twitching from the pain. For some people they feel it more when they bend the knees most people get a like a more stable pose when they bend the knees. And then release the hands down come re-engage everything and come up to warrior two.
Throw in a little reverse warrior here so big side stretch through the left side keep that length as you lean forward into flying warrior. Prepare to lose your balance then take your back leg and throw it up towards the left hand try to grab the knee or the foot standing twist. And then with control of your hips reverse the right hand down twisting half moon really try to backbend here even though it's almost impossible. And then keep everything stable come up into standing twist another time and then windmill your arms down looking towards the left or maybe up to your left hand almost impossible.
But possible all the way up to standing twist one last time we're not doing 34 more this is the final one. Twisting half moon grab the right leg with the left hand if you can if you can if you can and then lift the knee the higher the knee goes the more intense. But it becomes easier after a threshold so that's the goal to do this that becomes easy. And now do a few handstands or just staying standing split and torture yourself.
Handstands is the easy option as many as you want as many as you need and when you're ready come down into pistol. So right foot swoops through sit down into a pistol eventually touching down your butt to the ground rolling back into upside down guard saying. Do the upside down guard while I check the time we are perfect on time great. And then setting up for another back band take a little breather on your back if you need to.
Small back band big back band medium back band your choice. If it's a day where you should push yourself you push yourself if this is another of those non pushy days. Respect it. And as you're ready rock up and down a couple of times move through your final well deserved vignasa.
And let's meet in the down dog. And we have deserved after all this to do pigeon for a little bit longer. Everybody that does pigeon regularly does pigeon. So take your right leg forward and set up for pigeon.
You have done it more than 20 times today. Then take your time to really sink into it really drop your left thigh down. Find the perfect placement of your right foot and then maybe just fold forward into it stack your hands on your forehead for example or whatever you want to do. Let's take a nice minute or two to get this done.
E dialogues or not speaking you can just sort of rewind and start reading everything. One of the benefits of doing this type of class is that we quickly notice our weak link. In Jiu Jitsu there is always a weak link in your body or in your game that kind of hampers the development of everything else. So when I do a class like this it's usually my ankle.
My ankle starts burning and it's maybe not because my ankle is weak. It's just that my balance, I have to compensate so much for my bad balance that I'm overusing and kind of burning out the energy I have in my ankle so that I can't really access the rest of the point of the poses. So I want to stretch my hips but my ankle is giving up early. That's great.
Then I know I have to work on my balance in my ankle in order to get further. This is just one example of hundreds. You will always, when you do a full challenging all-around vinyasa class like this hip flow, you will always notice where you're weak and you can try to blame anything but if you accept the fact that this is a weak link and you work on it, progress is so much faster and it's such a nice revelation to realize, okay, there was a problem and I fixed it. Coming out of the pigeon, just basically roll over to your spine.
Just roll sideways to the right, hold on to the right foot with the right hand, keep your knee bent and I prefer bending the other knee too so I'm doing like half butterfly and half one of these key master guards from Tommy Langaquer if you don't know the guy. He uses this a lot in his game. It's impossible to pass his guard because he can get the knee all the way to the ground. So kind of a hybrid guard pose.
If you want to do something else here that feels better for your hips, do that. You did everything I asked of you today which is insane and I applaud you for that and now it's you time. You can do exactly what you feel like. This pose is just a suggestion.
So the challenging balancing flow that we did is to work everything and also one of the benefits is that you will quickly find your weakest link but this is not the time to find your weakest link. You're not staying in that mindset. Release that mindset and just feel good right now. Take another breath and let's move on to the next pose.
So place your right knee over your left thigh. So squeezing your knees and wrapping your knees over each other and then finding a place for your hands where you can hold on to your knees or your thighs or your feet depending on your proportions and your flexibility of course. And this is very nuanced. If you move the feet a little bit or press a little bit in the wrong place it can hurt a lot but if you do it right you can feel, you can really feel, for me it's the outer hips and the IT band.
I feel so damn stiff but if I take a few breaths it feels better. This is definitely a fidgeting pose. You fidget and you fidget and you fidget and you fidget and then suddenly... Huh?
Squeezing the baby pose. If you have a couple of twins in your belly you probably feel this pose some extra. Let's do some spider lacer drills. So just holding on to your feet, stretching one leg, bending the other just to release this.
Static poses suck when they're intense. And let's roll up and down and come do a 180 and come back to down dog. Setting up on the other side, left shin forward, setting up for a nice and slow and chilled pigeon. I started babbling in the other pigeons so now I'll shut up for a couple of minutes.
The video didn't stop, I'm just being still. Press your face and feel your breath moving in and out through your nose. Take three more still deep breaths. And then slowly rolling over towards your left, grab the left foot with the left hand.
Hybrid guard as a starting point and then take it wherever you want. Only allow yourself to fidget in the first half of the pose. If we're doing one minute then it's okay to fidget for 30 seconds but avoid fidgeting throughout the whole pose because then you miss the best part which is being still and just listening to your breath. We burnt off all the bullshit in our mind throughout the flow we did.
That's the purpose, that's the spiritual purpose of the flow is just burning away all the shit and now you can just glow and be still. Take another breath. And then stacking your left knee over your right thigh, officially the shittiest guard in the history of Jiu Jitsu but great for your outer hips and your outer legs. Great Jiu Jitsu technique is many things but it's definitely efficient movement, it's part of good technique.
So if you can do a movement without much expenditure, spending a lot of energy into it, just efficiently economics, first of all you have several attempts. So instead of doing three attempts and you're gassed out you can maybe do 30 attempts and the other guy gassed out and suddenly the technique works. Also you feel more accomplished when you do something efficiently instead of struggling with it. Just look at white belts and see how they do Jiu Jitsu.
It's horrible to watch because you can see the pain they're in because they're in so much tension, they're so inefficient. So when we do a flow like we did today and you struggle you are improving your efficiency and your flaws are coming to the surface but you can choose to repress them and push them down again and ignore them or you can just accept that these are my flaws and I'm working on them. So do the spider lasso again, pull one foot in towards the chest and stretch the other leg for a spider. And if you have a towel or a belt, grab your belt and wrap your one foot, sorry, wrap your right foot for example around, your belt around your right foot.
Hold for a moment and again this is freestyle so these are just my suggestions. You can stay here holding on to the belt straight up. If you want to grab closer to the foot and let your foot slide out to the right you can do that eventually. Christina is like why would I need a belt when I have a big toe, I can just grab that.
And if you by now start feeling like this is enough then switch, don't switch the feet, just move your right leg over towards the left for a spinal twist. So maybe hip escape a little bit out to the side. I love having my top leg bent a little bit. If you got super sweaty in this one and want to grab your right foot with your left foot with your right hand you can do that.
That's probably too much for 99.99% of all people but some people like it. And as you're ready let's start over, grab the belt again, wrap your belt around your left foot. If hamstrings is your main priority you stay here for the whole sequence. If you feel better letting the leg fall out to the side you do that eventually.
And when you feel ready to switch, you switch. Left foot over towards the right, a little hip escape usually helps. Maybe grab the other foot if that was enjoyable. And when you're ready to come back to your back, feet together, knees apart, then just arms out to the side or one hand on the belly and one hand on the chest, your choice.
Let's take a minute to close down with some box breathing. So I count to four, four times and we breathe with that. So inhale one, two, three, four. Hold the breath, one, two, three, four.
And exhale one, two, three, four. And hold the breath out one, two, three, four. Inhale one, two, three, four. Hold the breath one, two, three, four.
Exhale one, two, three, four. And hold one, two, three, four. in one, two, three, four, hold one, two, three, four, exhale one, two, three, four and hold one, two, three, four. Keep going on your own, counting yourself silently in your head.
And then release your arms and legs down for Savasana, complete relaxation pose. Drop the breath, drop your thoughts, drop your feelings and just be still. For the last couple of minutes, you can choose to stay here or if you want to roll over to or come up to seated and sit for a couple of minutes, feel free. And then take a big inhale and sigh it out.
If you're still on your back, then slowly come up to a seated position, cross your ankles, lift your chest and take a brief second to check in with your body and mind and your hips, your connection joint between your lower and your upper body. If you got challenged today, that is great and I did my job and if you are feeling satisfied with your efforts, then you did your job well. Don't get lazy and don't beat yourself up too much if you are not getting instant success. Open your eyes and thank you guys so much for practicing with me and Stine today and huge respect to Stine for doing this wicked strong class while being halfway through twin pregnancy.
That's really awesome. Thank you guys and thank you Stine. See you in the next one. Osu!
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