Lizard Pose & Deep Lunge Twist: 15-Min Flow for BJJ (Day 9)

Toes on the side of the mat, arms up, take a full breath here. Interlace your fingers behind your back, inhale chest up, exhale head down. Humble warrior. Keep your back leg engaged, don't cramp your toes, relax your toes.

And then warrior one arms up, inhale, exhale hands down. Vinyasa low push-up, up dog and down dog. Second side, lift your left leg, bend your knee, open your hips, take a breath. And then lift your heel, roll forward slowly, left foot between the hands, set up for warrior one, left knee forward, back leg straight, take a breath.

Switch the interlaced behind your back, back bend first, inhale and exhale full deep, hands up, head down. And then arms up, inhale, exhale hands down, vinyasa. Deep back bend, inhale, exhale down dog. Walk your hands back, sit down in your variation of a squat, take five breaths here and move around your neck, your wrists, your ankles, your knees.

And then let's meet in down dog and let's do the standing sequence. Start by lifting your right leg, let's do a couple of rolling knees, bend your knee, inhale, exhale right knee to right elbow. Again, three-legged dog, inhale, exhale right knee to shoulder, inhale, leg up, right knee to nose, foot between the hands, set up for warrior two. So stretch your left arm forward, circle all the way, start by taking three breaths in warrior two, engaging your legs, lowering your hips and finding a straight alignment of your spine.

One more breath and then reversing your warrior. So slide the left hand down, stretch your right arm without straightening your right knees, bend your right knee, side stretch your whole right side, the lats and your waist and your armpit. Side angle pose, elbow to thigh, left arm over or straight up, just try to be engaged and lift your left hip and get a nice stretch through the left side. Reversing your warrior again, inhale and exhale hands down on the inside of the right foot, so move your right foot out to the side, set up for lizard pose.

So inhale, lift your chest and exhale lower down as low as you can. If you can put your elbows to the floor, do that. Take two more breaths in lizard pose. And now let's twist it out.

So either place your right hand on the knee and push your knee away, or lift your arm up and lift your back knee and go for a deeper lunge twist. So if you lift your knee, it's more lunge twist. If you lower the knee, it's a lizard twist, your choice. If the back foot is there and you can grab it, go for it.

But try to lower your left hip, even if you lift the knee off the floor, lower the left hip and get weight into your right foot. But twist your right shoulder away from your right knee, so you're turning your chest towards your right knee. Now lift the back knee off the floor, twisting lunge and from here transition slowly into side plank pose. So right foot over the left foot, you can stack the feet as well.

Take three breaths in a super strong side plank. Try to not wobble so much. Try to find a place where you can be still and breathe. And vinyasa plank, low push up.

As you back bend, take a deep inhale and exhale down dog. Second side, lift your left leg, bend and open. Lift your heel, inhale. Exhale knee to left elbow.

Three legged dog, inhale. Left knee to left shoulder. Inhale, three legged dog. Exhale knee to nose, foot between the hands, back heel flat, up on your fingertips and then don't stress up.

Take time to slowly circle and windmill your arms up. Take three breaths to find a good alignment of your knees and your spine. Flip your left palm open, stretch your left side without straightening your left leg. Slide your right hand down to maybe under the knee.

So back leg is straight, left leg is bent. Stretch your left side as deep as possible. Left elbow to left thigh, right arm up or over. Try to not turn forward, turn upward so you're engaging your back body to stretch your front body and your sides.

Reversing the warrior again, inhale. Exhale hands down on the inside of the left foot, move the left foot away from for a lizard. Inhale, lift your chest and exhale lower down. Maybe place an elbow down to the ground.

Try to have weight into the left foot and you can even squeeze your butt slightly to push the hips down. The only time you shouldn't push in a position like this is if you're not warm enough. If it's cold in the room then you should just try to build heat instead of stretching deeply because cold stretching is dangerous stretching. The three alternatives for a twisting lizard is either catch the knee and push it away, lift your left arm and twist or catch the back foot.

If you prefer to lift the back knee for a twisting lunge you can do that too. Left shoulder moves away from the left knee, chest is turning towards your inner thigh. Twisting lunge, lift your back knee, left arm up and then transition slowly with balance and control and breath into side plank. Do that 50 times and you will master it.

One more breath vinyasa. Low push up, back bend, finish in turtle. Take a few breaths, listen to your breath, listen to the quality of your breath, how it's changed from the first sun salutation until the last move we did. Sit up and finish by a minute and a half of seated contemplation.

Relax your shoulders and your hands, close your eyes and just take in everything, all the sounds and smells and everything that is going on around you. Try to be passive like a camera. A camera is not projecting anything, it's just recording. Imagine you're a camera filming everything but you don't have a memory card so it all just passes through.

So take a deep inhale and exhale. Open your eyes. I hope you guys feel fine, I feel great. Tomorrow is the final lecture, the final class, the final tutorial and then the flow.

So see you tomorrow, thank you very much for today. Good job!