Turtle, Side Stretch & Tabletop: 10-Min Setup

So one of the first things we wanna do is spread the knees enough to create some space in between the thighs so that we can lower down. The other thing, look at what she's doing there. She's rounding the spine and arching the spine. If you round the spine completely and don't arch, it's gonna be hard to get all the way down.

So instead of being completely rounded, you wanna try to release enough tension in the core and spine to kind of melt down in between your thighs. Your forehead or chest ideally should be in the ground, but for some, the shoulders, for my shoulders sometimes are sopping me there. So variations with the arms, you don't have to talk so much about that. Just leave it open as an option that you don't start with telling them exactly this is how the arms should be.

Focus more on the spine and hips and trying to get that rounding out of the spine. Of course, only if you see it around the class then you jump in. You don't have a template that you say every time you look at the room and you try to help people that are really struggling. Anything I missed on Turtle that you...

That's it? Okay. So from Turtle, we move into a side stretch and side stretches are really nice to, of course, stretching the ribs, intercostals, and the waist. People tend to have a lot of tension in the side bodies that they're unaware of and they're really mild to start a class with.

That's why we did it as the second pose. So come up with your hips and when you say that, people also automatically look up and you kind of need to show it. If someone never done it before, it's going to be hard because we found that one of the best ways to say this windshield wipe your feet over to the right and then lower back into more or less the same position. So we are in the same position, but now we're in a banana shape.

So we're side stretching. But then I also repeat myself and say, the left arm is forward and we're stretching the left side. And the reason we do this is to catch everybody who didn't pay attention the first time you said it. You kind of always say everything two times the first time properly and the second one just a quick five second summary of what we're doing so that anybody who is lost can catch up and do the pose.

You do it properly the first time so that the second time you can just say, come back to center. Let's do the second side or the same thing second side. Stretching, you see I'm repeating myself to help for those who didn't catch it. Stretching the right side, breathing into the ribs and the back.

Now that I did all this talking on the first side and the half of the second side, I can be quiet and she can actually experience the pose. So you try to be efficient and quick when you're explaining something so that people don't have to wait. And then you can be quiet and she can enjoy a breath. And whenever you say, instead of saying, just come up now, you say, you see how stretched she became.

You say, one more breath and then you kind of you soften it. Then we meet back into center, moving on into a tabletop, where the shoulders are over the hands and the hips are over the knees. I kind of preload where we're going and then I repeat myself explaining where the hands and legs are supposed to be. Because otherwise, you will get the classic neck cranks where people start looking at you and not knowing where we are.

So you try to hint where we're going and then as soon as we're going there, I tell them where everything is supposed to be so that they can relax. So this was turtle and the turtle side stretch, the turtle banana. Now we're in tabletop. I use tabletop to talk about like the framing and the strength of the arms that we want strong straight arms, spread the fingers because it's very common that people have the fingers together and turn inside.

So I want people to have the fingers forward, fingers spread and many people have really wide shoulders but narrow hands and that's really going to hurt the outside of the wrist when we start going up and down. So I explained that I want the hands under the shoulders and if people don't understand, you repeat it in some other way. If someone is really not getting it, then you have to go and move their hands. Very good.

That's it. You just move them and say good to save time. You can't really start explaining things to someone. So I want the hands to be under the shoulders, arms straight, fingers spread.

That was three things. That's more than enough. The first thing we do when we have got our students into a tabletop is the first thing everybody wants to do when they go here is move around a little bit and people have stiff spines from sitting, walking, whatever they did before from Jiu Jitsu as well. So we get them moving the spine immediately and since people have to, most people want to see you while you talk, that's why we don't start with a cat pose.

We always start by chest forward, look forward. Then you serve the purpose of them doing the pose as well as looking at you because that's what they want to do. So you always start with a back bend. You just say chest forward, arching your back, inhale.

Sorry, arch your back and then round the spine looking back between your legs so that people know where they're supposed to look, rounding the spine like a cat. As soon as they did the second part, there's two poses, the one and the two. Repeating that back to the first one, arching your back, look forward. Now on the second round, I talk about breath.

So I say inhale, chest forward, exhale, round the spine, squeeze the air out. Nice, engage the core. Again, inhale, arch the back. As you exhale, round the spine.

The reason I say as you exhale is so that people don't get used to the idea that they have to follow my cue like a whip. I want people to have some freedom and relax and relaxation about it. I don't want people to be tense like, am I doing it wrong? Is he gonna cut my head off if I do it wrong?

I want people to find their own rhythm and that's why I say as you exhale, round your spine. Usually, you only have time for three rounds. But if you did it a bit fast, then you maybe have time to do one more. So I can say one more at your own pace because people did three already by themselves.

They know what's coming so that they can have the freedom to just do it one more round without you talking. I would say two. Two, yeah. Yeah, well, you don't really have fun.

A few more rounds on your own. Oh, not one more round on your own, but a couple of more rounds or a few more rounds on your own. You don't have time to do that always, but it's a nice thing you can say if you know you have time. Then you can say a couple of more or a few rounds more on your own.

And that was Turtle, the Turtle Side Stretch and Tabletop. See you in the next video.