Sun Salutations & Standing Poses: 21-Min Class for BJJ

Inhale 90 degrees. Exhale bend the knees and hug your head down. Arms up, inhale, look up. Inhale hands down, thumbs out.

One more round exactly the same. Inhale look up. Exhale chest dives forward and down, bend your knees. Inhale hands to chin.

Exhale step back to plank. Lower all the way down to the ground, elbows hug in. Look forward and squeeze your elbows in and shoulders back. Inhale cobra.

Exhale all fours back to the dog. Let's rock forward to plank three times. So on your toes inhale, exhale plank. Inhale on your toes, exhale plank.

Try really rolling through your spine. One more inhale, exhale plank. Keep bending your knees, move back to the dog. Push your butt up and back so your shoulders should not be on top of your wrists.

Your shoulders should be right in between the wrists and the butt. So a straight line through your spine. If this hurts your shoulders, turn the fingers out so that your thumbs points forward. One more breath here.

Slowly start walking forward again. We're doing sun salutation A and we're gonna do one more round. Inhale halfway up. Exhale pull your head down between your legs.

Inhale arms up, look up. Exhale hands down. Interlace your fingers behind your back and push your arms back. So if interlacing is hard just hook the thumbs but try to get your arms straight.

If it takes a while to do it just take that time to stretch the front of your body. Inhale arms up, spread your fingers. Exhale touch the ground, head down. Inhale halfway up.

Hands down, step back to plank. Take an inhale to prepare and then move your head forward and down when you exhale and land with your whole body in the ground at the same time. Inhale cobra elbows hug in. Exhale all fours down dog.

Let's place our knees down and lift the left arm and place the left foot in the ground so we're in a two dimensional side plank. Hold all ten fingers and push your hips forward so you can't see your foot anymore and then lift your hips as much as you can. So the arm can stretch overhead or behind you but the right shoulder is pulling back so hug your right shoulder in and open as much as you can and take three deep breaths here. If your neck is tensing then move the neck.

Switching sides left hand down right arm up bottom knee under your hips pull the left shoulder back and push the hips forward and up. Right arm can go wherever you want but don't push the palm to the ceiling. Turn so that your palm faces down. One more breath.

Back to center back to the dog. Push your heels back and down as much as you can maybe even lift your toes here to stretch your hamstrings. Bend your knees look forward. Try jumping all the way forward tuck your knees towards your chest and land between the hands.

Inhale 90 degrees exhale pull your head down. Inhale all the way up and exhale hands down. Alright one half more inhale arms up lean with the chest forward first as far down as you can go bend your knees inhale forward plank exhale inhale in plank move towards your tippy toes and then lower all the way down as a straight line lift your chest but engage your arms inhale exhale down dog and stretch your right leg up and take three breaths Stretch your right leg high push your left heel down and lift your left toes really stretch your right leg up and if your right leg is cramping that means you're very weak in those exact muscles you're tight and weak there so you should be able to stand here for a few breaths and if you're cramping just release the cramp and come back. I don't accept any excuses here just lift your leg without biting your teeth together.

Bend the knee and roll the knee forward as far as you can go so get the knee through the belly to the chest and maybe even towards your chin place the foot down help the foot forward and place your right foot right between the hands lower down the back foot and come up to warrior two. So in warrior two your hips are opening to the left your right knee is moving straight forward so actually put your hand on your thigh and move the knee so it points straight forward if your back knee is bending then you need to kind of turn the foot in a little bit so your hips are not completely open so start by getting the knees right they're moving away from each other but they're also stable and working together with the ankles now grab your chest and lift it stretch your arms up thumbs point up five breaths here go as deep as you can but your upper body should be like the first pose not like this so head over shoulders shoulders over hips. Lift all ten toes and take two more breaths. Stretch both legs arms up inhale exhale hands down plank.

Inhale in plank exhale lower halfway down elbows hug in cobra pose inhale exhale down dog take three breaths in down dog push your butt back push your thighs back lift your toes lift your left leg up as high as you can go open the hips and stretch the right heel down if you're cramping take a break and then get straight back to it straighten both legs take three breaths in down dog and lift your left leg up as high as you can go straighten both legs push your chest back this you will get used to this very quickly so if this feels like pain just do this pose before jiu-jitsu every time you go to jiu-jitsu practice do one minute on each side and it will soon be your favorite pose roll the knee forward to the belly to the chest and really lift the knee away from the floor and place your foot down maybe even help it forward flatten your back foot up and stand up into warrior two pose place your left hand on the thigh and push the knee over the ankle so it moves more towards the left than to the right if your back knee is bent turn the foot and really straighten the pink side of the foot down lift your chest thumbs up warrior two five breaths as deep as you can and hug the feet towards each other straighten your arms lift your back arm slightly so it's not hanging down one more breath and then lift your head up straighten both legs arms up inhale exhale hands down step back to plank inhale plank exhale lower down slowly inhale cobra exhale down dog take three breaths and down dog lift the toes and turn your heels away from each other and push your head back so your nose get closer to the toes one more breath bend your knees look forward inhale exhale tiny jump forward inhale 90 degrees exhale fold forward and squat down so turn your toes out knees turn out hands to chest and elbows to knees squatting position try to straighten your spine and then lift your knees up and then lift your knees up straighten your spine completely two more breaths in a squat now sit down on your butt feet together knees apart and don't pull your heels in this is the first mistake that people do they pull the heels in so that you're leaning back like this don't do this place your feet forward and turn your toes apart so that you get like penguin i call it penguin feet because penguins usually have the feet like this move your knees up and down and then grab your ankles and pull your belly forward so you're trying to roll your hips straight as if you were standing up all right stay here and if you have strong biceps and you can pull yourself forward without losing the the hips forward so hips forward belly forward chest forward five breaths nice get back up tuck your toes and then bring your toes and sit on your toes this is called hell pose for most of us if you have if you wear shoes all day and if you're not barefoot regularly this is probably gonna hurt like crazy but this is good for you so unless you have broken toes do this pose every day if you have broken broken toes on one foot do it on one foot like this all right lean back and we're just gonna do five breaths in the video but as as often as you can try to get into this pose and stretch your soles because if you have tightness under the feet it's gonna transplant all the way up through the body so the lower down the more important it is to be flexible one more breath sit down on your butt hug your thighs so that your belly and thighs are glued together like this grab your opposite elbows keep hugging the biceps into the hamstrings and now slowly slowly inch by inch move your heels forward until they can't move forward anymore so if your belly is disconnecting from the thighs stop and go back you want to keep this connection and drop your head and take five breaths nice get back up one more pose lay down on your back feet parallel so no Charlie no knees out squeeze everything together imagine you have a volleyball between your knees that you want to squeeze flat lift your hips so that you get a tiny back bend here robot arms today so elbows in under your back so your arms and your head are in the back but not the shoulder blades are in the ground but not the shoulder blades spread your fingers push your elbows down and lift the hips completely by using your hamstrings and your butt not your lower back so push your hips up five breaths push more and vertebrae by vertebrae roll down grab your ankles wide knees stretch your inner thighs now try catching a foot try catching a heel if you can't catch the grab as close to the ankle as possible but move your feet up so that you get a stretch both in the hamstrings and the inner thighs and if you can grab your heels pull your knees down and your butt down and your head down so you're almost trying to lay down flat here this is good guard work but it's also super healthy for our inner thighs because the inner thighs and the hamstrings problematic area for most jiu-jitsu players they are super glued together they are really intervene and it's almost impossible to stretch the hamstrings without stretching the inner thighs so if you address both of them you will kind of triple the effect so this is one of the poses where you can stretch both the hamstrings by stretching the legs out and by widening the knees you get the inner thighs five breaths you can see this as a kind of best practice for a guard player nice feet together knees out shoulders under spread your fingers take a minute here try relaxing your whole body and your mind will follow deep inhale sigh out hug your knees to chest and rock back up to a seated position so what we're doing in this program is white belt yoga and that you know as a jiu-jitsu player you know white belt does not equal easy it means focusing on the fundamentals the basics and master them and if you're a white belt that masters the basics you are already a black belt so if you keep breathing if you keep trying to do the pose right everything will transform so this was the second day of our five-day program see you again tomorrow Wednesday thank you guys for joining me