Spine Rotation: 10-Min Sides & Twist Recovery (10-for-10 #9)

Just see how the hips are, bring the feet back down, left to right one more time. Good and then bring yourself up to all fours and we'll do some rotations from here. So my hands are under my shoulders, my knees are under my hips. All I'm going to do is start off with my right hand that's going to creep under my left armpit and get in my right shoulder in the middle of the mat under me here and then I'm trying to look under my left armpit, then come back up, switch sides.

So left hand creeps under the right armpit, left shoulder comes down, look under the right armpit and switch just a few times. See how that feels getting that movement in before we spend some time there. So next time the right hand's under the left, just rest there, looking under that left armpit, just trying to twist a little bit into that. And if you feel like you can get more, you can maybe start creeping your right hand away even more or just chill here, especially if it's your first time.

Just breathe in. So that's it, now we're going to do the other side. Good, come up and switch sides. So left hand creeping away under the right, looking under the right and just take some breaths.

Okay, bring yourself up, come back up, come up, and then sitting back just across your shins, kind of sitting in a cross-legged position. Now knees up, okay, so I'll start with my left heel. My left heel's going to come towards my hips, then my right heel is going to step over my left knee. Alright, if you're super tight here, just bring it in, that's fine.

Now all I'm thinking to do is just bring my left hand around the right knee, my right hand's going to go behind me and I'm just turning to look behind me. And the more we twist out, so I'm not like this, my back shoulder, I'm hiding as well. The more we twist out and the more we turn the chest, the more of a twist we'll feel here. And just see if you can open the chest and you can twist into that a little more.

Good, one more breath here. And out. Good, then the switch. So undo that.

Now the right heel is going towards the hips, left heel over the right knee, and then your right hand comes around, grab that, left hand goes behind you, hiding that shoulder behind you as well, opening the chest to the left. And take some breaths here. So I'm twisting into this, I can feel a nice twist, I can also feel this in my outer hips on the left side which feels really good. So if you can feel that too, just try and breathe, find that tension, exhale, maybe lose some of that tension.

Okay, let's undo that. And now laying on your back, bring our knees into our chest again. This time the right foot comes down to the mat and then the outside of the left ankle onto the right knee. And now it's almost like triangle but with your ankle on top of the knee instead of under.

Now bring your right foot up and depending on how stretched out you are here, you can reach for your hamstrings or reach for the top of your shin. Just let your outer hip open out a little bit for a couple of breaths. So you should feel this on the bent knee on that side, kind of the outer hip. Then if we let go of that with our hands, I want you to think to the left foot, so the bent knee again, I'm turning that so my left foot drops towards the mat and I can turn to my right side to begin with.

And then the left hand goes up towards the ceiling and we think about keeping that foot on the mat, opening our left hand out and looking towards that. So I'm turning that towards you. Then I'm just going to breathe in this nice twist here. Take some super slow breaths on that left knee, so the knee that's pointing up.

Just let that start to relax and drop down towards the mat. And it's really important here that we don't pull too much into this twist or push. I just want you to relax here and just see where everything gets to. And the more relaxed we are, the more we relax the breath, the deeper we're going to be able to get into the pose and the more comfortable we're going to be when we get there.

Instead of straining, pulling, maybe hurting something and potentially not being able to train or work on this again. So it's a slow process, but it feels so much better getting there this way than harming yourself. Then just turn onto the right side and then push with your left hand so that you come onto your back and then we'll switch. So left heel down, outside of the right ankle on the left knee.

Bring that in and then just reach through and pull that lightly in so you can feel a stretch on the outer hip to begin with. And then very slowly release that grip. Turn onto your left side to the right foot, touches the mat. Good.

Right hand up to the ceiling and then open your right hand out to the side. Keep looking over to the right as well and that top knee is just starting to drop down towards the mat. And again, just like you just did, breathe in here and relaxing into that. And the fact that you're working on getting here, you're slowly working on that rotation a little more.

Maybe after a few more times, maybe next time someone's pressuring you and side control that's twisting you up, you might be a little more comfortable in that uncomfortable position. You might panic less and you might just think, I've been here, I've put myself here. I've literally chilled out here. I'm fine.

And sometimes that's the battle. We do silly things when we're under pressure. We do stupid things in scrambles just out of panic. So the more we test ourselves, the more we put ourselves in these positions, the better we're going to be when we get there.

Good. Let's slowly turn onto the left side again. Push ourselves onto our backs and then those windshield wipes, knees from left to right a few times. See how everything's opened out here.

Just check in and then very slowly bring yourself up to a seated position and see how everything is. Hopefully you enjoyed this one. I hope you did. Make sure you guys keep doing these classes.

Come back for more. Don't just complete them once and think you're done. Use that first time as a test or the fifth or sixth or seventh time as a test and just keep going. Keep chipping away at them and you're going to improve.

Okay. Thanks for watching guys and I'll see you in the next video.