Yoga for BJJ Warm-Up Basics: 13-Min Breakdown & Positioning Cues (Part 1)

Like you basically kick them in the ass to put some effort into it. You can do that physically and you can do that verbally. Really stretch your toes high and flex your feet, engage and warm up your ankles. You need to have strong language if you see floppy feet and bent knees.

You have to get them started immediately if you see laziness. Anything you want to add to that? So that's the first pose in part one. First pose and first challenges.

Keep the legs straight and start rolling the ankles. So they just did the point and flex and then you tell them to roll the ankles in full circles because it's easy to cheat and skip the part where you're weak. So you try to encourage people to make a full roll and then switch directions. Three reps is the baseline.

Some people do it fast and do four or five. But just what I say here is that this is just to prevent unnecessary injuries like a hurt toe or when we get foot lock just having stretched the ankles a little bit can be really helpful. So that they see that there is a point in doing this. Anything you want to add to the ankle rolls?

It's just also just beneficial to get some circulation in the legs. Circulation in the legs is what we don't have enough of in the ordinary life. So that's why we start off with that. Next exercise I say feet together bend your knees because we are doing a lot of butterfly stuff later.

So it's nice to start off with a detail that you will use later. So feet together bend your knees and then circle your knees in big circles. And then to explain why we're doing it I'm saying imagine someone is trying to push your feet down into the side and you're activating and pulling your knees in for guard and defense. So keep your lower back in the floor but lift your hips and engage your core.

The way I just framed what I said there is so that we don't see any of this. This is also really common. Just people are just randomly have passed certainly moving their knees around. It's not really beneficial.

So switching directions big circles and when I say big I show big with my arm to big circles really engage the core and wake up your spine and hips. Okay. I see someone cheating and you can actually. Right.

Just like we did in the first one you can walk around and if you see a laser person you say okay. So imagine someone is pulling your feet down and you're really pulling them back big circles wake up your lower back and your hips. It's very easy to cheat. It's very hard to cheat after someone just did that to you and everybody that saw me doing that is going to shape up as well and they're not going to try to cheat after something like that.

You can do it physically. You can do it verbally or you can do both if you see laziness. Next exercise feet wide feet dress a wide fit. Yeah just wide feet windshield wiper your knees to the right and then tap your left knee in the air 10 times.

So that's that's how I find the wide feet windshield wiper to the right and tap your knee 10 times then switch sides tap your right knee in the air 10 times. And then I give an extra cue like layer one is just what I want them to do and layer two is how to do it. So engage your right glute and push your hips up and sideways really get a nice stretch in the front of your hips. And then you have them do it right side left side right side left side so two on each side.

And then I can add the layer three why we're doing it internal rotation of the leg is something many people struggle with that we have unbalanced hips. We do a lot of guard and an external rotation. This internal rotation can come feel like a really nice compliment to what you usually do in Jiu Jitsu. And by saying that I just justified why we did something really weird that people don't feel comes naturally because it complements what they usually do.

Anything you want to add to that? Just what tends to happen is people don't put their feet wide enough. So I would say put your feet wider than your hips. So if you have a yoga mat you can say outside of your yoga mat or on the edges of yoga mat.

If you don't have a yoga mat just wider than your hips because this happens. Yeah. So Stina's version is better in mind. I say feet down wide feet and people can think that their feet are wide even though they're like this.

So saying it like feet wider than the hips then it will be obvious to them if they do a mistake and you can call them out instead of say that's not wide even wider even wider. It's better to just say repeat what you said feet outside of the hips. That's a more efficient way of communicating how wide you want the feet because you can't really tap the knee when your feet are together. This is pretty pointless compared to wide legs because the wider your legs are the harder it is to get the knee down.

And now even though Stina has super flexible hips this is a nice stretch for her groin and front of the hips. OK. Next exercise. Feet together.

Grab your feet. Butterfly on your back. So I'm using Jiu Jitsu language just so that people can catch it quickly. So why this and just since both the last one and the next one will be a lot of talking this one I leave a little bit more open to interpretation.

So I say just wiggle your hips around. Check out your hips today. Increasing encouraging self awareness. I want them to lay on their back move around a little bit.

Check in with their body. It's surprising how many people don't ever do that. So I'm I try to be quiet on this one. Just encouraging people to you know get into the groove.

Anything else with that. Next one. I will say next. Next up is a spider lasso drill.

So whenever I say so people pay attention. So keep your left foot where it is. Stretch your right leg as far out to the side as you can. If you fall over sideways that's fine.

Switching sides. Bend the right knee. Stretch the left leg. And now pull the right foot into your chest lasso and then switch again.

Spider your right leg lasso your left leg. And the Jiu Jitsu trainer will be happy that you're teaching people the difference between a spider and the lasso. So the spider is usually straight and the lasso is always over. You have them do right left three times.

So three times right three times left. Helping people with their guard flexibility. And then I say some people if you're a big guy or if you're really inflexible. It will be very difficult to hold on to your feet while you're rolling up to your butt.

So I say try to hold on to your feet the best you can. But create some momentum. Start rocking up and down eventually sitting on your butt. That's how I would frame it.

I wouldn't say grab your feet and roll up to your butt because that will exclude a lot of people. So I rather say try. Yeah this is this is what it will look like for a lot of people. So I say do your best to rock up and down.

Hold on to your feet for as long as you can. And then find your balance on your butt. Find your balance on your butt. Same thing we just did now seated.

Stretch the right leg out to the right. And then back to butterfly. Roll back to upside down. Find your balance again.

Stretch your left leg. Balance. Hold your balance. And then roll back.

Find your balance again on your butt. Both legs. Stretch them out. And this is a make it or break it moment for a lot of people.

Because some people for Stina this is easy. For some people this will be impossible. So here. Bending the knees is true.

Yeah right. Bending the knees is something that you in basically every pose that has to do with hamstring flexibility. You probably have to jump in and say that bending the knees is fine. You can say straighten your legs as much as you can today.

Or you can frame it any way you want. But you could. One thing I do is I always start showing with bent knees. Straighten them as much as you can.

If you can straighten them more that's also fine. So you try to make the people that are inflexible which is most people feel welcome in your class. But this is a make it or break it moment with joy. If people are going to enjoy the class.

Because if someone starts smiling they're falling and they're struggling. Laugh with them. Because then you're creating a friendly atmosphere. So this is not the point where you should be serious.

And like hey ooh. This is like when people are doing something stupid like balancing on their butt and falling. That's something that should be encouraging humor and comedy. And you know a nice chaka sensation.

That Jiu Jitsu is. Everybody comes to Jiu Jitsu because they like the atmosphere. So this is the point where you should try to make people smile. So if people are laughing laugh with them and make a joke about it.

Whatever that might be. After they did their seated straddle. You have them roll back. You say roll back one last time.

Let's meet in a squat. So come all the way up into a squat. And take three breaths. Stretching your.

I always say like stretching your ankles knees and hips. Laugh. And then we finish the whole section by saying everybody stand up with wide feet. And that's it for the for the first part of video one.

Anything I missed? No maybe just the last roll up. Like they can try without the hands. So they roll back and release the feet.

But if they're stuck. See. You can help with just a tiny bit with the hands. Yeah.

So that's that's that's something you always have to pay attention to. You look at the room when they're at crucial moments. Rolling up from the back to squat is a crucial moment. So if you see someone stuck there it might be because they have like extremely long legs.

Or the ankles are not made to do it. Or they're just plain inflexible. So that's also a moment where you can jump in and make some people feel better about themselves. And you can also say that maybe not today.

But if you do this enough you will be able to come up off the floor eventually. And that will be really beneficial when you are doing certain types of sweeps from seated guard. Or you can you can always justify something difficult in yoga that will improve their jiu-jitsu. So one that what Stine said there is that you can use your hand.

Only just use it as little as possible for you to improve your your transitions. Whatever something like this. All right. That was the first section.

The one on the back.