 Welcome back to the school, like I said, it's Jaco here. And for today's live follow-on workout, I've got an absolute treat for you because we have got Coach Georgie taking you through some frog stand and crow stand progressions. I think she's zenning out somewhere. I remember she's also a yoga teacher. Coach Georgie, are you ready? Oh, hey Jaco, yes, I'm ready to go. I hope you guys are too because today we are gonna go through some fun frog stand variations and just a few, but hopefully you'll learn something new and most of all, have some fun with it. So you could do with just a bit of space, maybe the size of a yoga mat. If you have a yoga mat, then awesome, but if you don't, don't worry, don't need it. The other thing you might find comes in handy as a block, but if you haven't got a block, you can also use books as a substitute. So what we're gonna do is focus on getting the body open and warm and then we're gonna play with some different variations from there. If you get any videos or photos throughout this class, then definitely fire them our way at the end. So to begin with, let's come onto into the space and we will start by warming up the wrists and just waking up those joints a little bit. So fingertips towards the knees, press the heels of the hands down into the ground and then just make some little circles. So just move around going one way, then changing direction, just working into that wrist extension. We're also gonna work into the backs of the hands into the wrist flexion. So we take the back of one hand onto the ground, maybe both together and to start with the elbows will probably flare out quite wide. So we're going to extend our arms by turning the armpits of the elbows forwards and then just gently rocking back and forth. If this feels too intense on the wrist, you can take one hand away and just do one at a time or just simply put more weight into your legs so you don't have to push down too hard. So just a few rocks going back and forth and we'll go back into that wrist extension, fingertips towards the knees. You can bring the hands closer to your body if this feels too much or take them further away if you want a little bit more. So in our balancing, well obviously the base is our hands and we're gonna be controlling our body weight. The wrist can get quite a battering throughout all of these sort of balances and inversions that we do. Therefore I want you to think about looking after your wrist, so number one, we're getting them ready but when we're actually balancing, we're gonna start to grip the ground a little bit more and actually bend these finger knuckles to help control the body. This will also protect the wrist, especially when I go into some of the balances where I'm in a really deep extended position. So just think about clawing and gripping the mat and that is gonna help you a lot in terms of your balance through some of these poses. Okay, so just a little bit more and then from there, we will bring the hands in, just make some fists and then just turn and make circles into the wrists, changing direction, working through any tight areas, might get a few clicks. Keep squeezing the fists as you do, keeping some tension into the body and then to get some more heat into the wrists and forearms, we're going to open and close the hands. And we're just gonna do this as fast as we can for as long as you can and eventually we're gonna start to feel them slow down. So see how long you can go. I'm obviously pretty poor because mine are already going already. So this is just gonna get some heat into the forearms. That's it, slowing right down now. And then from there, come on to the hands again. This time we're gonna raise up and down. Again, just getting some heat into the wrists and the forearms and then release, give them a shake out. So once you've warmed the wrists up, we're gonna warm up the spine. Come on to all fours and we're going through cat and cow, which most of you are probably familiar with. So hands are under the shoulders, knees are under the hips. We're gonna start from the base of the spine. So I'm gonna start by tucking the bum under, then slowly curling up the spine until I get super high on my shoulder blades of spreading across the upper back. From there, from starting from the base of the spine again, I tilt the pelvis forwards and then work the belly down towards the ground, working all the way through the spine. Once I've got into that extension through to the top of the back, I'm gonna tuck the shoulder blades down into the back, look forwards and then open the chest. And then again, tuck the bum rounding out, pressing the mat away, spreading those shoulder blades. Gently tuck the chin, tilt the pelvis forwards. And extend the spine. When we're in this extension, I want you to think about squeezing the heel of your hand and the front of your knee together. So we create that tension. And then again, rounding out into your cat stretch. And release. So just have a little wiggle about moving side to side, working to the body, see how it feels. And from here, we are going into a downward dog. So hook your toes, send your bum towards your heels. Keep the fingers spread nice and wide and grip the ground and then let's lift the hips. Keep the legs bent to begin with. Just let the body open up gradually. So from here, starting from the fingertips, I've spread the fingers. Now I'm gonna wrap the shoulders like I did in my cat stretch. So draw them across the back. Imagine you're sort of squeezing your armpits together to help feel that tension in the shoulders. And the back is nice and flat. So if I feel like I'm really rounding through here and too much weights in the shoulders, just bend your legs a bit more. And now what I'm gonna do is start by walking the feet. So maybe I extend one leg, switch side to side. I don't want you to worry at all about getting your heels down to the mat. So just focus on the sensation of the body, walk through the feet. So waking up the whole back of the body here and also strengthening the shoulders and the wrists. And then let's come up onto the tiptoes, lower the knees to the mat, back into that tabletop position. This time we'll take the hands up nice and wide onto the fingertips. If you need more and you've got two yoga blocks, you can raise the hands a bit higher. Stick the bum up in the air, take the chest down towards the mat and just stretching into the shoulders. Bring the body back up, press out into a cat stretch. Now let's hook the toes, lift the hips and go back into a downward dog. Wiggle about when you're downward dog. See what feels good, move around. Make it a bit more dynamic. And then what we're gonna do from here is take our right foot up high into a lunge position, just lower the back knee down and straight away we're gonna kneel up nice and tall. In this shape here, what I'm gonna focus on is opening this front hip. So, tuck your bum under, pin the rib cage down. We're gonna pull the front heel back towards us without it actually moving, so just feel that tension, you feel the hamstrings engage. And then while I'm tucking my bum, I'm pressing this hip forward so it's giving me a nice opening into the front of the thigh and into the hips. And then from there, we're gonna come all the way down. So you can use blocks or books for this bit. Maybe you need to elevate the hands just to get into the hips a bit more. Obviously, if you don't need that, you can take that away or perhaps come down even lower into more of a lizard deep lunge here. You can raise the back knee or keep it down. So if you're finding in this position, your elbow that's closest to your foot is raised up off the ground and you're almost forcing it down but then really rounding the back to try and get there. Just elevate the forearms, don't try and force that position. Well, a nice flat back. We're going into this flexion in the front hip, so a steep bend in this hip here, which is definitely gonna help with my setup for my frog stand variations. So once I'm here, if I am on the forearms, try and keep them sort of roughly in line with that front foot. Wiggle about into the hips, move about into them. We're gonna add a twist at the hand that is closest to your front foot is gonna raise up. Again, you can extend and lift that back leg if that feels good. Maybe we open that arm in further back and then bring that arm back down from here. Back onto the hands, step back to your downward dog, walk out through the feet, wiggle about if it feels good. And we'll go to the other side to take your left foot up. Doesn't matter if you've done opposite sides, it's all good. Come up nice and high into that lunge position and then we're pressing that hip open again. So tuck your bum, press your hip forward, keep the ribcage locked down. The front heel's pulling back as the other hip is pushing forwards. Breathe in and out of the nose and just feel that opening into the front of the thigh. And now let's come down onto the ground. So both hands are inside that front foot. You can keep the back knee down. Obviously, if you need your block again, place that inside the foot. Hands can elevate on it. All forearms can. Getting that elbow that's closest to the front foot down if you are going all the way down, maybe extending the back leg. This front knee is driving out and open a little bit without the foot rolling. So keep that foot grounded, wiggle about into the hips. And then let's add the twist. So you can still on the forearms or go on the hands. I'm gonna raise the arm up that's closest to that front foot. Breathe into there, maybe lower the back knee if it's feeling too much. Opening that top arm if that feels okay. Just opening the chest as we turn. And then coming back. And we'll step back to down the dock. Walk through the feet again. So from here, bring your thumbs to touch at the top of the mat or in the space. We're gonna hop or step the feet outside the hands. So we are now in a deep squat position. If while you're here, this is feeling too intense, you can come up onto the balls a little bit more or perhaps use cushions or a block under your bum just for a bit of support if you need that. And then while we're here, we're just checking in with the ankles, move side to side. And let's open into the hips. So for these hip openers, you can kneel down on one side and make it a little less intense if it's feeling too much, okay? So we're gonna take hold of one ankle. Don't worry about which one. Press the other knee open with the elbow. If that feels okay, you can give it a little bit more. See if you can press it with the hand, but if not, just do the elbow. And then we come into the center and add a twist. So we'll do a few on this side then switch. On this twist, keep the elbow up rather than the hand if this is too much. And then I can kneel down to make this a little bit less intense. So kneeling on one side, press, keeping this foot grounded, maybe press with the hand and then twist or open the arm. Bring it back in. Okay, so that's the other variation. Press the knee with the elbow, push with the hand and twist and open that chest. You feel this all the way through the side body and into the outer hip as well, it's a really nice twist. This is gonna help prep us for some of those poses while we're coming into a side frog today. So press, press and twist. And one more, push open, press with the arm and twist. And let's switch. So again, kneel down again if you need to. Push with the elbow, press with the hand if that's accessible and then twist to the elbow. And then obviously your twist can be with your elbow if the arm's too much. Opening the chest, couple more, push, push, twist. Last one, push and twist. Okay, so opening into the hips a little bit more we can rock forwards and back. So this isn't our frog stand balance but we're gonna actually put the weight into the backs of the arms on this one and this is just stretching only into the hips. So pressing the knees open with the backs of the arms, letting the weight sink into the arms a bit more, basically the opposite of what we're gonna do when we're in our frog stand. And then from there, just come back down, maybe sit onto your bum for a little bit, give the legs a shake out if it's feeling too much. So we're gonna go from here into our first frog stand variation and to begin with, we want to set the base up. So I'm gonna have my hand shoulder width onto the ground, spread my fingers and grip them up. And by spreading my fingers, that's creating a more stable base for me to control my body weight. From here, I want to lift my bum up nice and high. I'm going to collect my legs with my arms. So I need to bend the elbows here, collect them like a shelf. And now it's all about letting the shoulders tip forwards. I've got to let that weight transition forwards. So now you can see that my elbow is above my wrist. From there, this might be as far as you go for now. Maybe you can lift one foot, maybe the other, maybe both starts to come up. Find a position that you can move into nice and controlled. What we don't want to do is really try and throw ourselves into it fast. It's a lot harder for you to then, one, stop face flooding the floor. We don't want to do that. So if that is scaring you a bit, just get some cushions out in front of you, okay? Hands are shoulder width, lift the bum, collect the legs with the backs of the arms. Now my knees are really high here. You may find that you're more down there and that's fine as long as we're above the elbow. The higher we get the knees, the higher the hips are going to be, now I can start to pull my feet up towards my bum. I'm pressing down hard into the ground and my eyes are forwards. I'm not lifting my head up like this, but I'm looking just between my hands, okay? So have a little play with that one. I'm going to go through some variations for those of you that might need a little bit of help getting into that position. So if you are getting worried about face flooding the floor, good little tool you can play with is using a block under the head. So I'm going to set up, my head is on top of the block. I've got that base of my hand shoulder width. My head is on the block here, so it's resting down a little bit. I'm still pushing through the hands. And now I lift the feet and it's my goal now to try and lift my eyes up and look at the block. So I'm lifting my head up and off looking at the block and now I'm holding it. So if we can get to that point, we're now starting to really feel what that position is supposed to feel like and how to press into the ground with less fear about collapsing forwards. Soon as you can obviously take that block away. The other variation is if you're struggling with the height of the legs or getting the knees high enough in the arms and I'm going to place a block under my feet. Obviously if you can use two blocks, just make sure that they're not wobbling about. You want to feel nice stable under your feet, nice and stable under your feet. So the hands come down from here shoulder width. My knees, you can now see they're a lot higher already. So I'm going to lift my bum and now they're right up into the armpit. From there I can start to bring my feet up off the block. And that's your other option if you're struggling with the height of your hips or your knees. So while we're in our frog stand, we need to think about pressing into the ground and not letting our weight sink down into the arms. A lot of the time I find people complain about pain into the triceps or bruises. To be fair, when I started practicing these balances, I also got a lot of that. But part of that was also down to not understanding how to feel my weight on the backs of my arms. So when we're in that balance, I want you to think about rather than being down here, you want to press up here, imagining like I'm just going to float up into a handstand which I'm not going to do that right now. I'm not ready for that one yet. So I want you to imagine you are, okay? So you're going to lift your legs off the backs of your arms. And that is going to make those hips come up nice and high. And you'll really feel less weight sinking down. So if I let my legs collapse into my arms, that already now I can feel that discomfort into the triceps. Okay, so give that one a go, thinking about growing tall. So from here, I've got a couple of variations I want to play with. The first one is maybe you feel ready to go into your straight arm frog stand. So if I'm going to do that, this is going to be really demanding on the wrist. The extension of the wrist is going to feel pretty intense. So I need to really focus on that gripping and bending those fingers and of course in this position. I'll start in my normal frog stand and from there I'm going to push up. So I'm in my bent arm position, eyes are forward, grip the mat, press and round out those shoulders like I did for my cat stretch and press up to extended arms. Okay, so that is our straight arm variation which will feel like a really heavy push. Okay, so have a little play with that one as well. The transition don't want to have a little bit of fun with is transitioning from our frog stand into a handstand. So what I like about this is with my hand shoulder width, as I tip my head down gently to the ground, I'm going to be set up in that nice tripod position, hopefully naturally. So I've gone from my frog stand and now I'm going to start to bend the elbows, gently tuck the chin nice and slowly onto my head, place a cushion or something soft under your head if you're worried about that. And now I'm in that nice tripod position where my heels of my hands are down, I can still grip the ground. This might be as far as you go and that's fine. Otherwise we'll see if we can lift the hips and the knees come off, maybe then extend the legs. The legs are extended, we squeeze the bone, we press hard through the hands, I don't want all of that weight into my head. And now I'm going to draw the knees back in, find the tops of the arms, lift the eyes, push through the heel of the hands and then transition back down to the ground. So how I play with that one, go once more, hands shoulder width, find your frog, tuck the chin, lift the hips, keep breathing and then we come back in, press and now I'm going to push up high again. So I come back into that frog stand and back down. That's if you're trying to then find that frog stand on the way out as well. So a lot of the time when you come out of your headstand into your frog stand, like the first one I did, my hips were super low, the second one I pushed and that lifted me back up again so I could find that balance. So that's a fun variation you can have a little play with. So the next ones we are going to move on to are our side frogs. If the ones that we've done so far are enough and you want to continue the rest of this class doing those then by all means focus on them. This next one requires quite a lot of rotation of the trunk of the body. So we're going to start by sitting either in a squat with the heels up or kneel down on one side. Okay, so I'm going to add a rotation and take my elbow outside my knee or my thigh. The other hand can just hang back here. We can bring your hands together like this. And from there, I'm adding in that nice twist into the trunk of the body, which is going to help prep me really nicely to come down into this side frog. As I'm twisting one, I'm working hard to balance. I'm going to try and pin the knees together so this back knee doesn't start to pop forward. There, press the knees together. Press the hands together if you've got them together like this and look back. Keep breathing and then from there, let's jump around to the other side. So again, you can lower one shin down to the ground, hug the outer thigh, start to rotate open the chest. Maybe the hands come together and you push them together. This will really help the chest open and lean back. That back knee wants to creep forward so I'm going to squeeze them together. If this is too much here, just hold on to the outer thigh and then release. So our side crow. We have a basic side crow and then we can, side frog, I'm going to do that a lot. And we have some leg extension variations that we can have a play with. So take it as far as you like. We start into this squat. We add our twist. I'm going to take both hands to the ground into that same frog stand set up so my fingers are spread. And now the elbows are collecting the outer thigh or the hip and lifting. I can now lift the feet up. I'm pushing through the hands and I've created a shelf. So there's that side. Breathe into it. There's another way of going into that which you might, you may or may not prefer. So from a crouching position here or there's a cross leg variation where I sit with one leg over the top of the other, add my twist, bring the hands down to the ground and collect this hip. So we've got to rock the weight across. Okay, and this is going to really help me then go into a leg extension as well but you might just go here, that's fine. Okay, so we'll do the same on other side. Feet together while you start in that kneeling position. Add a twist, bring the hands down shoulder width. We're going to collect the lower body, lift the hips. Bringing the feet up, pushing down with the hands and back down. You'll probably find you'll have one side that feels more comfortable than the other. I always feel less comfortable on that side. So just try your best to always balance it out both sides. Generally speaking, if you start on your worst side first each time, it's probably the best way to go. I've done it backward, but just make sure. Okay, this next one is with some leg variations where I'm going to open the legs up. As we're pushing and we extend the legs, we're not only active in the upper body, we need to engage the leg muscles. Don't let the legs hang because if you just kind of let the legs go floppy, it will just pull you straight back down to the ground. So I've added my twist, collected my hip, my lower body. And now I'm going to extend the bottom leg and lift the top leg. But my legs active, they're not hanging down like this. That's making me feel really heavy. Oh, I'm eating my hair. And then from there, come back in. So you see the difference between if I'm just letting my legs hang. I'm less stable and my upper body's actually having to work harder. So engage the leg muscles. Onto the other side. We twist, collect the lower body, extend the bottom leg, lift the top leg, engage those leg muscles, push down hard and back in. So notice how the shoulders feel as well. If my shoulders are tipping down, I'm going to end up with my face pretty much on the ground like this. So you've got to press and lift that head up. And so I'm nice and active in those shoulders, not sinking them down. You may also prefer a slightly different grip with your hands. So I tend to do this one more, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's better. So I'm going to rotate. This front arm comes outside the thigh. The other arm comes out to the side here. Now I'm going to tip and lift the body up. I can play with other leg variations. So give both of those grips a go too. I know some people prefer one to the other. So see which one works best for your body. Okay, keep going just for another minute or so with those leg variations. I'll quickly recap you with the one kneeling down. So one leg has come over the top of the other thigh. And then from here, this setup is going to take me into the leg extensions kind of straight away. So I twist, come onto the side. And now all I've got to do from there is extend both legs. And I'm already in that setup again. Okay, so hopefully maybe one of those variations works well for you. And let's move on to another one. So obviously stick with that. If you don't want to go any further, I might be moving a bit too quick through these. So sitting down, this next one is called eight angle pose in yoga. I'm still using that same kind of frogs down setup with the shoulders. However, this is a bit more demanding onto the hips and the hamstrings. So if this one feels too much, please don't force it. One leg is out. I'm gonna try and get this knee as high on the shoulder as I can or above the elbow. So I'm gonna bring the arm inside that knee, lift this leg up, bring it as high over that side as possible. Don't worry if it's not like right over the top of your shoulder. Just go to where you can. Place the hand down straight away. So I've put the leg over, hand goes down. I'm gonna grip the ground. Now this top leg squeezes around this arm. My other hand comes down. And now I'm gonna cross the feet. Still squeezing that leg around the arm. I'm now gonna rock my body forwards and extend the legs out. So you have to let the body rock forward almost like you're having a headbutting football. Extend the legs out, squeeze the legs around the arm and press hard. If you wanna go further, we can press the arms up straight, maybe then come back in. Maybe I'll just show enough now. Give that one a go. And then we'll come to the other side. Give legs out, one leg in. Take the arm inside that bent knee. Get this leg as high over the shoulder as you can. As soon as you are there, place the hand down, bring the other hand down, cross the ankles. From there, we're gonna rock. Extend the legs out, press hard. I'm not sinking the chest down like this. My bum doesn't wanna be on the mat, so lift the hips and press hard. Maybe extend, back in, and there you go. That is your eight angle pose. So have a little play with that one. Hopefully you're still with me. So there is one more I'd like to go over. If you've had enough at this point, then you are welcome to just stick with the ones we've done. This last one is flying pigeon. So it's going to be quite demanding on the rotation, external rotation into my hip. So I want you to just be really mindful and listen to your body. You should have absolutely no discomfort or niggling going on in the knee. So just listen in. If you do feel that, then please stop. So for this one, what I'm gonna do is take one leg on top of the other thigh and I'm flexing this foot. The bottom leg is gonna bend and I can just stay here. This might be as far as you go. You're gonna know pretty quickly if you've got anything going on or the hip or the knee doesn't like it. So this will feel really nice into the outer hip and glute. You can stay here, practice and work your balance. Maybe bring the hands together. But this is gonna be my entry point into my flying pigeon. So this foot, my foot that's waving at you, is gonna be doing quite a lot in terms of the pressure I wanna feel in the back of my arm. So I wanna resist my foot against my arm and resist my arm against my foot. And I'll explain that a bit more now. So I've got the foot on top of my thigh. I'm going to bring my body down. My foot is hooking around the back of this tricep. So the hands come down into my frog stand, set up the foot, hooks. I'm gonna press into this shin and into this foot, into the back of the arms. And now I can lift the top leg up. But I'm actively pressing away. So what I don't wanna do is be all relaxed into this shin and let it hang into the arms. If I do that, I'll show you. So if I'm not resisting the arm and leg against each other and I balance, when I extend this leg, it's gonna be more down here. So I wanna press, wee, and lift high, okay? You may also find, like I was then, your foot sliding down back of your arm. Maybe I put too much moisturizer on, I don't know. But you really wanna hook the foot and grip as best you can. So again, if you're wearing socks or anything like that, it's probably not gonna help. So that is your flying pigeon. I listened to your body and hopefully you've had some fun with some of these balances. And hopefully you're as out of breath as I am. Stubbornly to breathe now. Great, so thanks so much for joining me today, guys. I hope that you've enjoyed those frog stand variations. If you have taken any photos or videos throughout the class today, then we would love to see them. So as always, tag away, send them away. If you've got any questions, give us a shout. We'd love to help. And apart from that, hope you'll keep them well and managing through this time in isolation, hopefully taking lots of advantage of all the online content. So apart from that, guys, look after yourselves, take care and class dismissed.