Seated Guard Mobility for BJJ: 22-Min Class

Three more on each side. Nice. And then rock and roll. And then put the legs in figure four as you roll up to seated.

So you're in seated figure four, and then opposite hand to the foot. So if it's the right foot, then the left hand, sit up and twist. Put it back in figure four, lift your hips high, switch to figure four, seated figure four, right hand to left foot, twist, rock back, lift your hips high, and keep going from side to side. Figure four, twist, figure four, lift your hips.

Figure four, twist, figure four, lift your hips. Two more on each side. Two more. Nice.

Now, right foot comes out, lay down on your back, right hand grabs the right foot, follow with the foot as far to the side as you can. If you can't grab the foot, grab the ankle, but try to keep your leg as straight as you can. And then pendulum the other leg as far to the left and right as you can. I like touching my ankle and then crossing my ankles, touching everything together.

But you just figure out how to move slowly so that you get a full exposure for the inner thighs, the other hips, the lower back. Just a really nice waking up of the both hips actually. And then switch sides. I call this one the metronome because it's like TikTok in a rhythm from side to side, swinging the leg like a pendulum.

So and then switch from side to sides. You're going one, switch, pendulum, switch, keep going. Okay. Bridge, lift your hips, take five breaths, squeeze your butt, squeeze your lower back, push your heels into the ground.

Now for the trickier variation, right hand grabs the left foot, left hand grabs the left foot, both hands are pulling the left knee down to the ground. The K guard or the key master or whatever this guard is called, the shin is vertical. Yes. From here the right leg pendulums, just like we did, comes all the way up and over crossing the legs.

And then the leg pendulums all the way around, comes through for the triangle, squeeze, leg comes out, pendulums all the way over, hug it down, releases pendulums all the way, threads through for the triangle, squeeze. Two more on this side. And then switch sides. Both hands grab the right foot, right shin is vertical, foot is active, never foot sickle like this.

And then pendulum around and over, hug and squeeze, pendulum all the way to triangle, pull the triangle in and squeeze. Nice. Then rock and roll. And lay down again.

Let's do the figure four Australian guard. So figure four, bottom leg is straight, grab the calf or ankle and then your arms are pulling the leg down. The real Australian guard, you also support your knee with one hand here and blocking with the elbow. Really funky, crocodile, dandy type of stuff.

Switching sides. And then rock back up. No hands in the legs, just rock up and down and try to balance on your butt without touching your feet to the ground. And now we're going to try to do a full 360, so a full turn.

Don't touch anything, roll at an angle, so small adjustments rolling up and down. Your core needs to be precise here in order to get the momentum right. And when you get to a full circle you go the other direction. No touching the legs, no touching the floor, just the hips and lower back or the hips and the back are doing all the work.

Keep going for another moment. Maybe switch directions again. Nice. And then lifting crab, lift your hips, squeeze your butt and lift higher.

And from here come down on your elbows, elbow crab, squeeze and lift. And from here come down on your elbows, elbow crab, squeeze and lift. Nice. And then lay down again, grabbing the right hand to the left foot, so left foot gets grabbed by the right hand.

Both hands are pulling this foot towards the ground, so your right elbow comes down to the ground. From here you pendulum the leg, the other leg, the right leg, as close as you can and then you switch and you grab that leg and pull it into that vertical K-Master guard position. And then you flip over to the side basing with the elbow here, so the elbow is blocking, the other elbow is blocking and then the other leg pendulums. You reach for it with the right hand, pull it in and switch and then pendulum over to the other side, elbow is blocking, pull the leg in and then eternally switch from side to side.

Pure guard retention drill. When you get really good at this you will have a real benefit when you're doing guard retention when someone is tripod passing and you want to pull that leg over to block their path. Axis denied, you shall not pass. Go a little bit faster, not much, just a little bit faster.

Nice. Interlace your fingers, flip your palms overhead, lift your hips and squeeze your butt, bridge pose, take seven breaths. Nice. And then sit up again, just like we did this rolling around in the 360, I call it the egg, we're going to do the same thing but only sideways now.

So look, I'm sitting up and then I'm laying down a little bit to the side and then I lift my hips and I just transferred a distance sideways, so I'm laying down sideways, lifting my hips and rolling back up to my butt. So the bigger movements you make, the easier it is until you leave the frame and then to the other side. And these core exercises where you're moving your upper body different from your lower body is extremely valuable when you're playing open guard. It's so necessary to both have a strong and precise core.

To crab, left hand in the ground, right hand reaches up, reach in the crab and then switch sides. Nice. Switch again. Switch again.

Nice. Come into crab, lower down into elbow crab. No, actually stay in high crab and then let's do some of these elbow to knee switches. So right knee to left elbow, left knee to right elbow, switch from side to side like this a couple of times.

And now stopping crab and do the same thing on your elbow. So from elbow crab, lift, tuck under yourself and come back. Lift, tuck under and come back. Keep going.

One minute. So as you can see, threading through both forward and backwards is super valuable. It's super valuable. And if we could do it with a heavy backpack on our back, that's good simulation of jiu-jitsu.

A backpack with a strong goat inside trying to kick themselves free. That's exactly how it is to train jiu-jitsu. Okay, last flip. And then lay down on the ground.

Take a moment. And then let's sit up actually and place the elbows as tight behind you as you can. Hands are cupping the hips. So you're chilling backwards like this, feet in the ground, lift up so that your elbows and feet are the only thing touching the ground.

And then you touch the head to the ground and come up again. Adjust the elbows, lift your hips, tilt backwards and tilt up again. Adjust, readjust and go a few times up and down like this. If you want to make it super challenging, one leg off the ground.

Now sit up and shake it out. My arms started tingling after a while there. Now this is difficult. This is difficult for almost everybody, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't do it.

This is the great mobility exercise, but we need that support of the hands in order to do it. Some of you will not be able to do it for a long time. You should still keep trying. Lift your hips and get your hands as close together as possible behind your butt.

And then in the start, use a lot of momentum to kick into upside down guard. Straddle legs, lift your hips, use a lot of momentum to kick into upside down guard. Straddle legs or feet to the ground, wherever you can get your legs. Watch your wrist so that you don't wrist lock yourself.

Slide your hands out a little bit and then touch down again. And then use a little bit less momentum, support yourself and then drop down again. Seven more times or seven attempts. Failed attempts, they count not as failures.

Failed attempts count as what's the word? What's that word in English? Learning. Failed attempts is learning if you want to.

Or you can just be a negative Nelly and complain. But I never heard anybody who turned complaining into a source of progress, results, success and good in the world. Complaining, even if quietly to yourself, is victim mentality. You are not a victim of inflexibility.

You just need to get off your ass and get through these shitty movements more often and then you have nothing to complain about. Yes? Ussah! Nice.

Lay down on your back. Relax. Take a long inhale. Hold the breath.

And long exhale. Rock and roll. Meeting seated. Ah.

Palm and fist together. Ussah! Thank you. Well done.

See you in the next video or see you on the mat.