Sebastian Brosche · 21 min · 1,772 words
Previously titled: Video 3 - Foundation Week 2
Hello, this is a no down low flow, so if you have any shoulder problems or stuff going on with your arms, you should be able to do this class just fine. Start on your back, find your breath, relax your hips and shoulders. Start moving your fingers and your toes, your wrists and your ankles. Stretch your arms and legs up, keep moving every joint in your arms and your legs.
Freestyle on your back. Stretch out as far as you can, arms and legs straight. And then squeeze your knees in towards your ribs, with your hands pull your knees in, lift your head. Grab your feet for spider guard happy baby.
Stretch one, stretch the other, and in every guard it is important if you want to generate power that your hips are not stuck on the ground. So when we want to attack we'll lift the hips to have more options. Of course in yoga if we want to go for more alignment and flexibility and strictness we try to press our hips down to get more intensity in the stretch, so I would recommend that you do both. Grab one leg and stretch the other one out, do a couple of pulling the leg sit ups.
Not strict just to enjoy a bit of a stretch. And then roll up to sit and roll back. Pulling your heels forward for momentum, stretching your legs for momentum when you go back. Sit up, cross your ankles, arms in down dog.
So support your upper body with your straight arms and then from here do cat cow, which means inhale look up and exhale chin to chest. Repeat, inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, and exhale.
Sit up and switch the crossing of your legs, go from side to side. Nice. Arms behind your feet flat, reverse tabletop, move forward with your hips towards your heels and then move your hips back to your wrists and then back to tabletop. So a big triangular circular movement.
Nice. All fours, cat cow. Inhale, tense up your back and exhale tense up your front. Inhale, the more you work with the back muscles the more you will stretch the front muscles and vice versa.
Exhale, keep going but now as you inhale you go forward, exhale go back. Inhale forward, exhale back. Rolling through your spine, together with your breath. Nice, right foot forward on your fingers or knuckles, inhale hips forward, exhale hips back.
Go as far as you can without feeling direct pain, you should feel some nice aching pain in the muscles but not the joints so you should feel this just not too much and not for long. As soon as you leave the pose the sensations should end. So if you go into a deep pose and you feel a lot of tension when you exit the pose you should feel instant release. Nice.
Kick your right foot out to the right so instead of having the foot forward kick it out to the right, arms out to the side, go from side to side like this. If your left knee is hurting you should have better padding or stop complaining. Nice. Hands forward, right arm up, inhale, right shoulder down, exhale.
Repeat, inhale twist up, exhale drop down. One more inhale and exhale stop with your shoulder close to the ground, maybe put your head in the ground. You should be feeling this about everywhere. Hands in the ground, left arm touches your right ankle or leg, somewhere on the leg.
I like creeping my arm forward here for a right side stretch as well as everything else. Your right hand can be almost anywhere. Get comfortable in a very typical jiu jitsu position. If we get comfortable in a position like this we will also be comfortable moving through this position while we are sparring.
If you are not comfortable here static you will not be comfortable even if you are just here for half a second. Nice. All fours again but kick your right leg back now. Inhale lift your leg up, bend the knee, exhale knee to elbow or knee to nose.
Repeat, inhale try to touch your toes in the back of your neck, impossible but try. Exhale touch elbow or nose. Two more inhale. Exhale.
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Cross your right knee behind your left knee.
If you are a man you have to adjust a little bit extra. Lean back, hips back but don't lift the left knee, try to keep the left knee in the ground as much as possible. And find this exact spot where you feel the most stiffness. One more breath.
Turn your fingers out and move into up dog but with your knees touching the ground and then roll your hips from side to side like so. I feel a big stretch in my waist and my other hips and my other legs, IT band etc when I do this. And you don't have to do it properly, you can do it sloppy and still get a really nice effect. From all fours step your right foot on the outside of the right hand.
Either push your right knee away or catch the left foot or ankle, lizard foot grab. Your chest should be bending backwards not forward so don't lean forward and collapse. Tense up your back and breathe as deep as possible. I have gotten some complaints over the years of my breathing being too loud.
And my reply to that is, if you are bothered about my breath you are not focusing enough on your breath. If I had a really uneven ugly breath I would understand it would be annoying. But I pride myself in having a nice steady smooth breath that I hope encourages most of you to do the same. Stepping back to all fours let's repeat the sequence on side numero dos.
Left foot forward, hips forward, hips back. Preferably inhale when you go forward, exhale as you fold. You can think upward facing dog inhale, you can think downward facing dog on exhale. So we are basically doing a vinyasa without the actual up and down dog.
But the pattern is there. Kick your left leg out towards the left. Left arm up, twist, inhale. No, sorry.
First arms out to the side, go from side to side. I got ahead of myself there. Okay, arms down, left arm up, inhale. Exhale, left shoulder or left ear towards the ground.
Three more, repeat, inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
Inhale. Exhale. Stop for a moment. Switching sides, right arm grabs somewhere on the left leg.
Walk your hand over your head if you want, otherwise place it anywhere. If your hips or lower back are bothered by this position, imagine when someone as heavy as you or heavier are also putting force through your hips trying to pass your guard. Not a situation you would like to find yourself in very often, don't you agree? Get comfortable in this position so that you don't get injured when you inevitably end up in it.
All force, left leg back, inhale, touch the back of the neck with the toes. Exhale, touch the elbow or the nose. Inhale. Exhale.
So we're basically doing advanced cat and cow. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale.
Exhale. One more round, inhale. Exhale. Inhale.
Knee behind the knee. Move the feet and whatever it is that you have to move. Sit back into a deep stretch. Hallelujah.
Two more breaths. And upward facing cheating dog. Fingers out, hips down, knees down. Roll from side to side.
But this round we also add on a little belly twist. So move the foot behind you as far as you can. Switching sides. Normally we would do this one laying down on our belly with the arms stretched out.
This is a nice variation where we all feel like a stiff moldy sack of potatoes. There is not a single person practicing to this video that thinks that this is an easy, enjoyable exercise. So that's not the point. Some poses are supposed to feel good.
Most poses are supposed to feel good when you're done with them. One more on each side. Left foot forward. Either push your knee away, open your chest and stretch your hips.
If you can grab your back foot, do so. If you cannot grab your back foot, that should be a warning sign that you're getting too stiff for your own good. I am trying to make you feel bad so that you do something about it. If you are a human being and you cannot touch your foot, prioritize becoming a human being that can touch your own foot in this position.
It is harsh, but I believe firmly that this political correctness, not hurting anybody's feelings world, this society is a really stupid one. It does nobody any good of trying to make everybody feel good all the time. It's really shitty if you can't grab your back foot and you really have to do something about it. Even if you have a million excuses or explanations or legitimate reasons, prioritize being able to grab your foot in this pose.
It will help your jiu-jitsu, it will help your mind, it will help your body. Slash rant ended. Release, sit down on your butt, stretch the legs out in front of you, arms up, inhale, arms forward, exhale. Repeat, arms up, back bend, exhale, forward fold.
Inhale, arms up, exhale, arms forward. Two more, inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Take a breath.
Lay down on the ground. Spider guard, happy baby pose. Go from side to side, lift your hips. When someone is passing your guard, what they really want to do is immobilize your hips by pressing weight down through your hips, down into the ground.
So if your sacrum is in the ground, flat, you need a tremendous amount of flexibility in order to defend your guard. The more you can use your core to lift your hips, the harder it will be for your opponent to immobilize your hips. So learning to be like a beetle like this and having little connection with the floor is really advantageous. But of course we want to counter that by also being able to lay really, really flat.
Feet together, pull your head up towards your feet, take three breaths. And let's finish in a relaxed position, exactly the same spot as we started the class, but feeling subjectively slightly different. Inhale, exhale.
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