Pancake Pose Progression: 28-Min Flexibility Flow

I'm not pulling or straining here. Just working on maybe opening the hips up. Then a few little circles with the knees in, open out, lift the knees back up. Keep breathing.

And change direction. OK, bring your knees back towards your chest, open them out, feet up towards the ceiling, elbows inside your knees and grab the outside of your feet or grab your ankles here. Just whatever feels comfortable. If you grab the outside of your feet and you're up like this, just relax and grab the ankles.

And let the weight of your arms or your grip just lightly bring your knees down to the mat. Bring your feet down to the mat, knees bent, hands over your head, lifting hands away. Drive the hips up here, stretch out the front of the hips slightly. Good, let's drop them down and then bring yourself forwards to all fours.

Take a couple of breaths here. And then we'll do some cat and cows. So look up, tilt the hips away, drop the belly and chest. Then look down, drive your hips towards your forehead, lift the belly and chest.

And keep working that breathing as you move. And here really focus on what we're doing with the hips as we turn them out behind us and as we tuck them under. That will come into it shortly when we work on this pancake or straddle. That kind of hip tilt and what we're doing there.

Good, two or three circles around the wrists here, just warming them up. Change direction. Great, okay, so now just drop your front down to the mat. Bridge into the mat with your hips, okay, so tensing the glutes.

And then the bottoms of the feet, drive the bottoms of the feet down into the mat and tense your quads here. And then we'll just lift up off the mat. So we're nice and strong here. Then shrug back, lift the chest and lower, lift again and lower.

This time without the hands, so the hands come up with the chest. Lift up and lower. You don't go anywhere near as far again. And lower.

This time we'll just hold. So take a breath. Good, lower back down. Bring yourself back up to all fours.

At the moment the tops of your feet in the mat, okay, tuck your toes. I don't know why that was so hard to say to tuck your toes. Then lift your hips into down dog with the knees nice and bent. Try and get your back straight-ish here, just whatever's comfortable.

Now what we're doing in cat and cow, that hip tilt, okay, so think about when you're tucking your hips under and your head is towards your forehead here. This isn't what we want here, all right? Now almost do the opposite, so tilt your hips away and you'll feel that hip stretch. Okay, if you've lifted the head with the hips, that's fine.

Now just relax the head so your neck's not holding any tension. And breathe. Good, let's come forwards to plank. Step the right foot inside your hands here.

So maybe drive the chest up, step that foot in. Then we'll come into this lunge, take a breath. Then come forwards into a fold. Again, knees bent, rest your ribs on your quads here.

And now we'll do a half lift, so similar to what we're doing when we land on our fronts, but we'll bring our hands onto the top of our shins. Half lift here, so I'm using the muscles in the back here. Take a breath. The next exhale, just fold.

The next inhale, we'll come back up to that half lift. And fold. And again, really turning the hips out though, bringing that hamstring stretch on a little more. Fold.

And then, hands either side of your feet, step the right foot back into that lunge. Take a breath. Then down into plank. Good stuff.

Let's lower the front all the way down nice and slow. Flatten the feet out, lifting the kneecaps, bridging down into the mat. Lift the chest and lower. Lift the hands and chest.

And lower. One more. And down. Then come to the top of a press up here.

And then lift your hips back to down dog. Nice and straight back. Three breaths here. Settling into that.

Good. Forward to the plank. Let's go left foot forwards now. Left foot steps in, into that lunge.

And then into that fold. Knees bent or maybe bent a bit less. Half lift. And fold.

Half lift. And fold. This time let's try a half lift with our hands together on our chest. So lift.

You'll feel it more in the back here. Maybe hold. Get your neck in line with your spine. Then fold, hands down to the mat.

Let's do one more of them. And fold. And then step that left foot back into that lunge. See if you can get a little bit deeper.

Maybe straighten that back leg a little more. Back. Let's lower the front down. Flatten the feet out.

Lift the kneecaps. Lift with the hands. Hold here. And lower.

Good. Push up to all fours. Now open your knees out a bit. If you've got a yoga mat, open your knees out with the width of your yoga mat.

Or just a bit wider than your hips if you're on jujitsu mats. Sit the hips back here. Take a couple of breaths. Just feeling whatever stretch you've got here.

And loosen any tension as you exhale. Okay, let's come back up. Keeping your hips above your knees. Let's go into puffies.

So walk your hands forwards here. Now tilt your hips away. So I'm not tucking them under. I'm tilting them away.

And then drop your chest. Opening out the chest here and the front. Let's lift the chest slightly. Step the hands over to the left.

Keep the hips in line where they are though. Stretch out the right side here. If your hips start to follow, bring them back. Okay.

Stretching out the right side. Almost trying to make space between the ribs. Maybe walk that right hand a bit further. Maybe lean that right hip away a bit more.

Lovely. Let's come up. Walk over to the right now. Get those hips back in line.

Walk the left hand further. Breathe in here. Back into the middle. Sit the hips back onto the heels.

Lovely. Let's come back up to all fours here. Take a breath and then step back to plank. This time we'll go with the left foot forwards between the hands.

And now I'm going to pivot my right heel, so the back heel down. And I'm turning my hands are going to come onto the inside. And now I'm making my feet parallel here. And then the same way when we're thinking about cat and cows, I'm not doing this when I'm here.

I'm tilting my hips behind me. Okay. If you're really tight here and you're struggling to keep your hands on the mat, get a little bend in the knees. That's fine.

Okay. Bend the knees and see if you can tilt the hips away. You'll soon see the difference because one stretches my lower back, the other stretching my hamstrings. So right now we're bringing on that hamstring stretch, whether your knees are bent or straight.

Then I'm going to just drop my head down and fold here and take two breaths in whatever stretch you're in. Now check in. Where's your weight? Okay.

Most of us, we can have our hips back here and our weight is mainly in our heels. I want you to just bring your weight forward slightly, almost like you're getting your hips in line with your feet more. And you'll feel your weight come onto the balls of your feet a bit. That's fine.

That's good. Just balance where you are. Now think about those half lifts. So let's do a half lift here.

So lift, get the back nice and straight and fold. Let's go up again. Lift and fold. And again, if your knees are bent, that's fine.

Lift and fold. Good. Let's do one more and fold. Awesome.

Okay. Hands on the ankles or the shins now. Again, this is going to depend on where we're at. You can bring them to the top of the shins.

That's fine. And we'll do some half lifts again. So lift, take a breath here, get the neck in line with the spine. So I'm not like this.

Good. Then we'll fold. Then we'll lift. Then we'll fold.

Let's do two more. If you're comfortable, bring your hands together. Lift and fold. And lift and fold.

Awesome. Okay. Hands down now. And then we'll just bring the feet in a little closer here.

And I want you to think about bending your knee, so the left knee away from you and walking your hands over to the left. Okay. You're going to work on some of this kung fu stretching here. If you're happy, you can lift the right toes.

Now let's straighten the left foot. Come up, walk over to the right, bending the right knee away from you. Sitting that weight down, either into your hands or the foot, and lift the left foot. Back up.

Walk over to the left and lower. At the moment, I've got a lot of weight in my hands. Okay. Over to the right.

Just whilst we're warming up to this. And I'm lifting my heels. But as we progress into this, I'm going to start sitting down onto that foot more and sitting back onto that heel. So my foot is taking more of the weight.

And when I lift up, my leg is taking more of the weight as well. So it's more of a lunge now in the legs than it is a press with the hands. Good. Now let's come back up.

So I'm going to walk a bit wider with my feet here, and I'm going to turn my toes away from each other a bit more. Now when I come into this, I'm really trying to sit back onto that heel and get a bit heavier on my legs and a bit lighter on my hands. But you might still be here working on this. That's fine.

We're just working on the hamstrings a bit and getting a bit heavier into this. Going from side to side. And next time, we are over to the left. Let's sit down.

And really bring your hands forwards and try and sit back onto that left heel. Take two breaths here. Start to drop the head as well. Almost like we're reaching forwards on the mat here, trying to fold.

Good. Let's come back up. Over to the right. Drop down.

And then hands forwards. Drop the head and breathe. Let's come back up. Good.

And then just bring your hands here. Again, if your knees are bent, that is fine. We all start somewhere. And if your knees are bent and you're feeling tight, just chill here.

And we can walk over like this. It doesn't always have to be that perfect display. We're all working on something. We're all working with something as well.

You might be tight in some areas and more flexible in others. Just work with it. Good. So just take a little fold and relax here for two.

And back up. Let's walk over to the left again. This time we're sitting down onto that left foot. My hands are going to walk behind me.

So start bringing my right hand on the mat behind me, then my left hand. And I'm just going to sit my hips on the mat here. I'm going to bring my left foot on the inside. Now I'm turning towards that right foot and I'm folding here.

It doesn't have to be an amazing, beautiful fold or anything. It's just enough to feel stretching the hamstrings and the lower back. You can even bend your right knee and fold. Just whatever feels good for you.

Good. Let's come back up now. Same thing when we're doing cat and cows. Think about what we're doing with our hips here.

So first of all, I want you to tuck your hips under like you're trying to drive your back out behind you. Feel the difference there. Now we can fold down and you can pretty much feel that in your back. Again, if you've got that knee bent, that's fine.

You can pretty much feel that in your back. Let's take two breaths like this. This isn't the usual way you're told to stretch. But in jiu-jitsu, sometimes we get stacked in these uncomfortable positions.

We need to notice where we're tight and where we need to work. Let's come out of this and now we'll do the opposite. Instead of this, I want this. A good cue for this is, again if the knee's bent, I'll look like this.

A good cue for this is act like you're trying to not sit on your bum, but you're trying to sit on the end of your hamstrings. That's like rocking you forward and your hips are out behind you. Now we'll fold wherever you get to. That's fine.

Then you can let everything else come down. We started with that stretch, so it's going to feel a little more intense in the hamstrings here, which is really good. Nice. Now wherever you're at, just ease off like 20%.

Now with the right heel, curl the right heel down into the mat so you're activating your hamstring in this lengthened position. We'll just take two or three breaths here. Just engage in that hamstring. Good.

Relax that. One more time. Just fold. Lovely.

Then we'll come up. Bring that left foot in front of you again. Hands behind you. Rock yourself onto that left foot.

Make sure the knees aren't pointing in, they're pointing away. Walk forwards. Let's come up and over to the other side. Sitting down here.

Hands behind you. Sit your hips down however you're comfortable. If your knee's bent, that's fine too. Bring the right foot in front.

Then again, notice the difference if the knee's bent. It's fine. Almost like we're doing the cat-cows. Sitting here and fold.

Just feel that in the lower back. We're not going for a crazy fold forwards. Just enough to feel it. Again, if the leg's straight, that's fine.

You can feel that stretching out the back. Don't push too much. Just notice. Then we'll come up and turn the hips out behind you.

Again, like we're trying to go from sitting on our bum or our hips to poking them out behind us and sitting on the top of the leg, that end of the hamstring. Then from here, we'll take a fold forwards, feeling that more in the hamstrings. You can let everything else come down, but we started off with that hamstring stretch to begin with. We're folding into that.

Good. Let's ease off 20%. Now, dropping the heel down into the mat to activate the hamstrings here. If the knee's bent, it'll look like this.

Good. Ease off that engagement and then fold. Nice. Let's come up.

It's really nice to work on other areas before you get to this straddle or pancake, just as prep. Sometimes we just get into the pose and we're like, I'm tight. We've broken it down. We've worked on a little bit of that kung fu stretching.

We've worked on the hamstrings too, so hopefully we're going to get deeper into the pancake or straddle pose. Now, we'll just stretch out the lower back again, just from side to side. This always feels good. I'm cross-legged.

My left hand is going in line with my hips and my right hand is going to come up and over to the side. I'm thinking about keeping my hips on the mat, so I'm not leaning over with my right hip lifting. I'm shrugging my right shoulder away from me. Again, if you're up here and you can feel it tight, that's fine.

That's really good. You've got something to work on. Slowly ease off that over to the other side, so right hand in line, left hand up and over. Get them back up and over.

Over again. Brilliant. Okay, so now sitting on the mat, let's bring our feet out to a kind of right angle here. So my legs are in a right angle.

If your knees are bent, again, that is fine. Just start with whatever you're comfortable with. We're not going to try and get as deep into it as we can yet. I'm just going to think, similar to what we were doing when we were on our feet a minute ago, I'm going to think like I'm folding forwards and back up.

And we're just dragging the hands forwards across the mat, back up a few times. And I'm not trying to get to my absolute end range yet. I'm just seeing what works for me and what movement I've got here. Okay.

And back. Now let's think about the hips, what we were saying. So I don't want you like this, doing this. Try and think we're sitting on the tops of the legs again, hips out behind me, knees bent or legs straight, whatever works for you.

And now we're thinking let's move forwards and back. So I'm really trying to work on that hip hinge here. All right. And you're going to feel that in your hamstrings, forwards and back.

And this is really good because we're building a bit of strength here as we're moving. I'm not just working into a passive stretch. I'm moving forwards and back out of this. And this is really good because I'm working strength within this by working forwards and back here.

We're not just going straight into this passive stretch. Okay. So it's always nice to come forwards again, not to the end range and back again. If your hands are on the mat, that's good.

All right. And now let's go over to the left. So we're leaning over to the left knee and up then over to the right knee and back up. Take a breath, sit up here, maybe reset the hips.

Okay. Good. See where your feet are as well as pointing our feet up towards the ceiling and then start to creep the hands forwards as we hinge. Okay.

Wherever you get to, just take a couple of breaths there. We're going to do this a couple of times, see if we can get things a bit deeper. And try and walk your hands forwards and lengthen the spine here. Let's come back up.

Okay. Take a breath. Good. Now let's fold forwards again and try and drive your sternum down to the mat.

And I'm not doing this again. I'm driving my sternum down here and my hips are behind me. And take a breath wherever you get to here. Back up.

See how everything feels here. Fold over to the left, up, over to the right and up. And then just bring your hands behind you. Okay.

Knees up and in. And then just do some windshield wipes from side to side a couple of times. Okay. We've been folding a lot.

So it's always nice to work the hips a bit too. Good. Stop when you're over to the right side. Then up, over, stop on the left.

Good. Let's bring our feet back into that position. Knees bent, always an option. We set the hips to lift, hips out behind you, toes up towards the ceiling.

Let's go again. So we'll go forwards and back a few. So hands forwards and back up and forwards and back up. Good.

One more forwards and back up. And this time, again, we'll take a few breaths just settling into the pose. It might be deeper or shallower than last time. It's just important to get whatever you're comfortable.

All right. I can still talk to you even though my face is in the mat. It might sound a bit weird, but I can still talk to you. Just breathe wherever you get to.

Good. Let's come back up now. One more fold over to the left. Come back up.

One more fold over to the right. Back up. Okay. Bring your feet together and lay on your back here.

What feels really nice after we've done a lot of folding is just driving the hips up here and lifting the front of the hips. You can feel a nice stretch in the front of the hips where we've been folding here. Just open them out. Good.

Drop the hips down. Knees left and right. Just winch your wipers on your back. Good.

That was my back that just clicked, but I'm okay. Don't worry. Lift the hips again. Good.

And drop them back down. Okay. So as I said, this is going to help so many areas of your jiu-jitsu working on this. And it doesn't matter if you can't do full pancake or straddle or whatever.

What matters is that you're working on that lower back and hamstring flexibility for jiu-jitsu or whatever your sport is. And you're finding some comfort in those positions and more range in other positions as well. Okay. I really hope it helped.

Let me know in the comments how you guys got on, how you're getting on, where you're at with it. It's always good to know where our members are at and how they're doing. Let me know if you've got any questions and I'll see you in the next one.