Shoulder Mobility 60-Min: Full Class for BJJ

Hello and welcome to a 60 minute class, all-round nice full body class but a little bit extra shoulder theme. Sit down on your mat, hands placed palm down under your butt or lower back depending on how long your arms are and then really squeeze the arms together as you lay down so that you're laying down on top of your hands wrists and arms and then relax. We jokingly call this one the poor man's bolster because we have the same effect on the spine as a bolster nice passive chest opener but the shoulders are turned in behind us. Allow your breath to be natural and in yoga that's the big N word is natural because we think is natural is usually the opposite of what we mean by natural so your natural breath might be super stressed and tense so the work is basically to change the definition of your natural breath to a breath that is serving you which means it's more good than it's bad for you the breath is kind of the keyhole where you can peek in onto yourself the way into your inner world is through the breath at least we like to imagine it is.

Use it maybe as a metaphor to attach your thinking to imagine that you have an inner world that you can't see but there is a door and a keyhole and by breathing only while breathing relaxed and comfortably and attentive you get to have a look inside. Feet in the ground lift your butt arms in a cactus so 90 degrees in shoulders and elbows and breathe now grab your elbows overhead so arms overhead and then grab the elbows nobody has said that your arms will touch the ground but even if they're hovering in the air just hold on tight and breathe through the nose without opening your eyes without distracting yourself unnecessarily and then switch the grip so that your other arm is on top that probably feels a lot different and then interlace your fingers overhead and crack your knuckles overhead squeeze your shoulders and biceps in towards your head maybe stretch your legs and become super long nice and then give yourself a big old hug grab your shoulder blades around you like a big hug and then activate your core by pulling one knee in and then switching maybe even doing a sit-up here while hugging yourself warming up the toes and ankles if you want to multitask switch the cross of the arms try to grab in onto the blades to the wings of your shoulder blade nice and then grabbing behind your legs rocking and rolling up and down a few times releasing that stiff lower back of yours cars chairs and sports are usually detrimental to our lower back feeling good this is the antidote rolling on your spine rolling on your lower back negates so many of your issues all right find a seated position crossing your ankles sit on your butt not on your sitting bone so really sit on the flesh of your butt and then swim hands to knees and then chest up on the inhale and as you exhale round do a few of those on your own close your rise back bend as you inhale round as you exhale and let's keep doing that but adding the arms so as we take a big swimming stroke we inhale and as we exhale we push the water away with our hands going to the edge of the shoulders movement range of motion to the end one more and now back strokes big circles with the arms twisting back bending and side stretching all in one movement we love those full body big movements nice shake out your legs bicycle tap the knees and then switch crossing of the legs so that the is in front cactus arms 90 degrees in the elbows and then inhale engage your spine and lift and as you exhale elbow yourself in the belly around and then big wave inhale engage and exhale round a few more and Nice and then hands behind you walk them tight so that the thumbs are almost touching behind you walk the butt forward and then bend your elbows for a pretty intense shoulder stretch if you want even more you can turn the fingers let's see turn the fingers out a little bit and if you need less just adjust your hand so that you get just a stretch that is just good enough and now lift your hips reverse tabletop lift your chest same stretch but different and then sit down cross your shins again right arm grabs the left arm so cross your arms and grab the triceps with your with your arm and then wherever you can grab if you can grab the thumb or the outside of the hand or the other way doesn't matter as long as you can grab the hand with your right hand do that you can drop your head you can keep your head lifted you can lift elbows just figure it out and then right hand to right to left knee and the left hand behind you in the pocket so try to get a left hand in the right pocket I like grabbing like this I like grabbing my pants and feeding my pants like this to my left hand and then right hand on the knee for a seated twist a lot of backbend in the twist no slouching or forward and I like leaning back away from the direction I'm looking and then releasing grabbing the right arm with it grabbing the left arm with the right hand no left arm this is really hard do the opposite of what we just did yeah figure it out on your own I'm clearly not in the stage to tell you the difference between the left and right I have to do that on your own so Eagle Arms we call this one I have no idea why I call them Eagle Arms but let's call them Eagle Arms for lack of a better description of it and then release so that your right hand comes to the left pocket behind you and left hand the right knee twist and work around your issues so that you get a nice effect from the pose but don't create more tension let go of tension and then release come over to all fours tabletop push-ups with straight arms so serratus muscles drop and re-engage do this a few times and then stay really high around your spine and then staying high try to stay high while you're out while you drop the belly so arms stay super engaged shoulders stay engaged chest they engage while you're high so really high up all the time keep pushing it's kind of difficult yeah but that's the exercise and then try to collapse completely and do the back bend and rounding kind of an indirect lesson as to how things are connected it's very hard to round the spine while we are relaxing the serratus and the opposite is true when we're high up it's very hard to do the opposite so now try to combine them as you are pushing away you engage and lift and when you're dropping down you're relaxing the shoulder blades completely kind of sloppy back bend and then strong engagement in the forward fold yeah too long didn't read separating movements and like isolating can teach you a lot about how things are connected yeah okay let's go back to down dog move it a little bit maybe heels left and right bending knees and then dropping one elbow down and switching so you drop the other elbow do that a couple of times forehead to the ground yeah and then do that with both elbows at the same time but only halfway down so you bend the elbows relax the neck so you feel a lot of muscular engagement correct but you also feel that you can you can externally rotate your shoulders that I don't like using this language but that's what we're doing and then when you straighten the elbow elbows kind of flare out so both are valuable like squeezing the elbows together and letting the elbows flare out they kind of both happen naturally when we lower the elbows we could do one thing with some muscles and when we go into down dog we do other things so we're not trying to force the body to do the opposite of what it naturally does sometimes we have to kind of consciously help it if we're doing something wrong but most of the time the body will just figure things out let's do some rolling waves so start in turbo dog which is the elbows almost down hovering and then straighten them and roll forward knees down cow pose so back bend and then back with your butt lifting it to down dog let's do a few of those elbows hover straighten them and roll forward knees come down back bend lift your butt to down dog you see starting with hover and then rolling forward shoulders shoulders chest and then relaxing it on the way back one more round hover the elbows roll forward and then all the way back to down dog okay knees down left leg up left leg out to the side and in the ground right arm up I thought it but too soon and then right arm comes under threading under catching our left shin or foot or knee doesn't matter left arm comes into the pocket like when we were seated and then roll the left shoulder back so it's cut as if your elbow is pulling you deeper into a twist nice release make a couple of circles with the left shoulder hand next to face come back up to all four switching sides right leg out kicks out to the side half straddle left arm up and then thread the arm under catch wherever you can head to the ground right hand to the left pocket just stick it in there slide it in between your love handles and your glutinous thighs the shoulder is pulling you deeper into the twist the same muscles that are protracting our shoulder blade are also the muscles that helps you puff up the chest so by being conscious of where we place the shoulders we can improve our posture and our breath and that's kind of the spoiler alert for this class a couple big circles with the right shoulder and then pushing back up to all fours and why not adding a little forearm stretch here so fingers back fingers turning back leaning back stretching the forearms moving it back to a down dog taking our time to walk forward from dog to a forward fold these kind of progressive things don't overlook them because going from down dog and slowly morphing the down dog into a forward fold that is progressive warm-ups when you are new to stuff we either do it or we don't we're black and white we're zero 100 as we progress and become more adept adept adept we learn to use the nuance between stuff half lift inhale exhale fold straight arms straight legs straight spine in hang bend your arms bend your knees bend your spine exhale two more inhale exhale inhale exhale and then roll all the way up catch your elbows side stretch boom inhale center exhale stretch inhale center exhale stretch back up arms up inhale exhale fold half lift inhale step your right leg back knee down right hand to left knee big circles with the left shoulder you can stay high here if you want to lower down slightly do that but don't collapse down here that doesn't make sense so stay strong it's a twist and a movement on the left arm and if you lower down a little bit some juicy hip stuff in there too and then grab your head with your left hand back bend now you can lower down and then come into down dog and roll through a vinyasa so roll forward my vinyasa today is just rolling into up dog and then doing a push-up on end back to down dog if you want you can roll forward and come down to the belly and do a floating Cobra first and then a Cobra and if you want you can do up dog but then back to down dog but not so much focus on that today okay so turbo dog again but this time morph the turbo dog into a dolphin pose so move the flesh of your forearms and so that you can more or less have the arms kind of parallel so it's a down dog with really short front legs like a dachshund with long back legs there's a down dog without any tension in the wrists but we have to work in a different way with our shoulders one more breath in dolphin pose don't ask me why it's called dolphin pose and then back to down dog right leg out behind you step the right foot forward left hand to right knee and circle the right arm between five and five hundred times I don't remember how many we did tune into your breath don't create more tension than you already have and then grab the back of the head back bend lift chest lower the hips and then step straight up to mountain pose arms up inhale and exhale full half lift inhale hands down left left leg back right arm up twisting plank twisting lunge and then right elbow slides down from the knee all the way to the ankle maybe even the floor and up again and up and I want to note I want you to notice where your left shoulder is here so while you're doing this keep doing it don't let your air rest on the shoulder engage and protract your shoulder blade I hate using protract but really pull the left shoulder down and keep it there while you're doing this so boom super intact strong and integrity in the left shoulder pull it back and down and then back to down dog dolphin pose no vinyasa first so roll through the vinyasa your vinyasa today any back bend and skip the push-up or do the push-up and then left leg out behind you roll the knee to face left arm up the right shoulder tends to go up your job is to stunk so pull the shoulder back split your arms imagine the heavy kettlebell in your left hand boom super strong and then shoo sinking into it and then everything in place boom and yoga is a musical thing and you have to make the soundtrack yourself with your breath and the sound effects inside your head it's kind of like those things really help that you feel the sound you hear the sound of the tension in your body and now stepping back to down dog I forgot the dolphins a roll through a vinyasa and let's do a second dolphin so elbows hover and then arms come down relax the head and do a short forward-legged down dog and then down dog walk forward half-lift inhale and exhale fold I forgot something really important we need straps get a towel get a belt get something long and skinny that you can use as a strap luckily I'm in a yoga studio so I have a yoga strap available okay these things are really good to say in the beginning of class sorry so leave the strap there and then stand up interlace the fingers behind your back so clasp your hands behind your back like this if you can't straighten them try to straighten them they don't have to be straight for a good effect but when you kind of get past the point of straight it gets easier to bend your knees and fold forward keeping them like this can make it really hard so that's what we need a strap if we can't do that so if you make that if you see that it's impossible to straighten turn the grip like this so that the thumbs are pointing out like this and then fold forward you can bend your knees here so we're kind of in a chair pose but we're lowering down and taking four breaths here and then release the arms come up inhale chair pose exhale hands down leave the strap half-lift inhale and then stack your knees on your elbows for crow pose take flight or not whatever works today and then stepping back through a vinyasa let's meet in down dog right leg out behind you inhale exhale knee to nose two more inhale exhale knee to nose final one inhale exhale knee to nose foot between the hands arms up crescent pose crescent pose left arm stays up right arm comes behind you grab your hands no way who say that's not happening grab the strap and grab the strap behind your back all right left arm up right arm back straighten both legs turn the back foot flat so you have better balance and then as you're breathing lean forward lean forward lean forward drop down drop down drop down and breathe yoga is breathing a really awkward process release drop everything down stepping back dog vinyasa meeting down dog same thing second side moving the strap to the other side might help left leg out inhale knee to nose exhale inhale exhale inhale exhale grab the strap on the way up right arm up left arm back grab the strap crescent pose don't grab the strap so tight that you're putting tension on your neck your head should be free of your right arm back heel down front leg straight ish strong good engagement good posture good breath and then increase the challenge as much as the challenge needs to be increased if we have a good side and bad side I definitely know which this is the contrast between the first and the second side is stark and then release that's all okay vinyasa vinyasa meeting down dog bend your knees look forward take a couple of test jumps one and a two and on the third one land your toes behind your hands half lift inhale four fold exhale then your knees chair pose and then let's try this pocket thing with the left hand coming to the right pocket and the right elbow to the knee twisting chair one two three four five six seven eight nine ten enough second side right hand to the left pocket feeding the pants or whatever elbow to knee and arms overhead inhale exhale fold half lift inhale crow pose knees elbows together feet together lift five four three two one jump back or step back vinyasa start skipping vinyasa see if you have had enough save the energy for something more important down dog right knee right leg out behind you roll the knee to your face coming up into crescent with our strap same thing again left arm up right arm back and then leaning forward like we did only staying for a moment this time and then coming back up grab the strap with both hands wide hands like this from here leaning forward into warrior three and I recommend not going to full horizontal stay here balance and only increase the difficulty when the difficulty needs to be increased and then when you feel like you're collapsing don't place your left foot down place your hands down and do some handstands handstands are so easy after we did all that stuff so keep the legs engaged keep pressing the ground with your fingertips breathe stare at the ground don't look at your feet stare at the ground and jump up your shoulders are ready for handstands and if you suck at handstands then you have a great shoulder strengthening exercise if you kick up a thousand times your shoulders will get massive I have seen people who are bad at handstands and they have developed their shoulders so much just by trying to kick up and failing a hundred times alright stepping back to down dog take a couple of breaths same sequence second side left leg flies up left foot forward and grab the strap right arm up left arm back pyramid pose engage and fold and then coming up big grab with both hands overhead leaning into a balancing warrior three and then hands down handstands head forward lift the top leg don't lift both legs maybe bands and bend the bottom leg and try to tap the foot to your knee like this if you touch the foot knee sometimes you do it right and you can balance for a second fear is part of it so if you're afraid of hurting yourself even if you could do a handstand you're not gonna because when you find the balance it's kind of scary the first few times yeah let's meet in child's pose relax the arms back like this and take a few well-deserved mid-time break this is time to offer you to drink some water cool ourselves down if we're overheated so we did some softening stuff we did a few some salutations now it's time for some core so sit down on your butt and do the eagle again so one arm under the other grab in this weird way and then let's do bicycles like this twisting bicycles let's do 12 so six on each side more or less doesn't really matter we don't have to count counting reps I find is unnecessary breathe and do the movement correct and then feet down arms overhead engage your butt stretch the front relax your arms when we do sports we always do everything in one direction I never see golfers who hit 50% of the time holding with the left and then with the right and like doing a right swing instead of a left swing which is really bad of course for our anatomy always doing repetitive movement in one direction is not good so sports can learn a lot from yoga there but if you are like a performance sporker then you need to do yoga to compensate for your your the patterns that you're creating so that's why we're doing the other side too so we did one side now we're doing the other side so grab the arms the opposite way the unnatural way and let's do 12 more and then interlacing the fingers behind your head lift your butt lift your heels push push push push push push push and breathe rock and roll all right back through down dog and then sit down on your knees one minute workshop look at me don't do anything just observe because it's very hard for you to look listen and do at the same time for the next exercise this is what we're doing one leg comes out and then we stay high leaning forward like this stacking the shoulder of a wrist more or less and then keeping the shoulder like this side plank foot comes down without collapsing we stay high here look at the integrity of the shoulder it's not here it's here all the time yeah and then we're coming back look foot I'm not doing this I'm staying in the back bend lifting lifting lifting lifting until the hand comes down then I come back to three-legged dog second side look opening the hips leaning forward staying in the arch I'm not doing this I'm staying open touching down not doing this I'm doing this all the time self adjusting the shoulder in there and then okay let's do that and use that as a start for our standing sequence down dog say okay right leg bend and open leaning forward look at your left hand look at your left shoulder place the shoulder where it's supposed to be back down in the back and then touch down the right foot side plank with a back bend we call it the flip dog it's a dog that flipped backwards from here reach down look down keep stay open don't pull the knee to your armpit that's when your balance gets f'd hand down and when the hand touches you go three-legged dog and roll the knee forward to your hands between the hands right hand right elbow to right knee and then shake out that left arm give it a break when you do it right you get tired yeah so you're not trying to cheat you're trying to get really tired by doing it right okay side angle pose for a moment and then big circle do a big circle with the left arm and place the left hand in the right pocket again so slide it over your butt and maybe feed the pants or shorts to your hands so that the pinky you can do it both ways but I like to do it with the pinky so that the pinky is like pointing that way so we're in a bound side angle pose kind of keep the holding on to the pants and then reverse the warrior hold there for a couple of moments and then straighten both legs right hand comes down between the legs and then we turn to a straddle and if the ground is far away move the feet apart so that your hand can connect with the ground and then that same shoulder stuff with the left shoulder now we do it with the right shoulders turn the shoulder back and twist release the grip left arm up walk both hands down and back towards the left leg so we're on the back of our mat and then bend both knees keep walking the hands until our legs are completely crossed and our knees are stacked so we're stacking the knees over each other I always prefer having a block to sit on here but you can just sit down with your well well this one is called the English tea lady yeah we cross our legs like a proper posh British lady drinking tea and that's it sit here there's a hundred things we could do from here but we're doing so much already so this is more than enough and then walking all the way back into standing splits and then switching the legs in the air like this jump up switch legs when you bend the knees you become heavier when you lean backwards you become heavier lean forward straighten the legs scissor the legs with the breath it is easy you just have to do it right stop doing it wrong and it will be easy I'm trying to be funny but I'm not and then vinyasa and down low jump to your hands lay down on your back interlace your fingers overhead relax your arms relax your legs drop everything and take half a moment here and then rock and roll maybe without holding onto your legs rolling up into boat pose balancing on your butt and then rolling up into a squat and shooting back through a vinyasa boom down dog second side left leg comes out flip dog look towards your right hand slowly lean and stack the shoulder over your wrist keep the open arch touch the foot down but lift your hips both right leg is straight both legs are engaged super long to your left side and from here don't pull the knee in stay open lower the left hand and when it touches adjust step forward into side angle pose release your right arm right arm slides on the lower back into the pocket and then the reverse warrior left arm comes up bend bending the left knee and then straight legs left hand down if you can't reach the floor spread your legs more look at your left hand first stack the shoulder over wrist twist release your right arm up and then walking your hands back towards your right leg passing the leg into a cross-legged straddle whatever and then stacking the knees sitting down unraveling wrapping around all the way to standing spits right leg up and a few handstands switching the legs in the air boom boom boom boom boom don't put any pride into this sucking at it makes you stronger enjoy sucking at it if you suck at it everybody sucks in the start the first few thousand is very hard but you can enjoy it even if it's hard right vinyasa if you want I'm skipping it just sitting down on my knees okay using a hip stretch and the shoulder stretch at the same time right knee forward into this classic hip stretch with all the pigeon pose but now I'm grabbing my back I'm grabbing the inside of my left foot or ankle with my left hand and then I'm posturing up so I'm kind of using the leg to stretch my shoulder and if I'm squaring up it's more of a shoulder stretch this is the beginners slash intermediate version the tougher version would be trying to push the foot like this I'm too stiff today but you can push the foot further down if you're really really really warm and then you get a hip and shoulder stretch even more intense but for today this is fine it's also fine to sit down and support yourself with the right hand and then crossing the arms under you laying down resting I'm gonna try to avoid to breathe into the mic because that sounds a bit overly sexual when I'm moaning into the mic relax over your shoulders release let go give up surrender tap out switching sides if it's hard to get out of the post that's a good sign that's a sign that you went deep switching sides if you were able to deeply relax it takes time to get out of the post so it doesn't feel good you want to stay there yeah that's good right and then crossing the arms the opposite way yeah good stuff sit down in your butt lay down in the ground nice and long inhale and say you