I only know a little yoga, but I have been trying to incorporate its principles and practice into my daily life. It affects me deeply and has offered me a lens with which to understand the workings of life, just as Jiu Jitsu has. After over 15 years training Jiu Jitsu, mixed martial arts and doing a lot of condition training, I created a lot unbalance in my muscle skeleton system by repetitive exercise that end up creating joint problems and stiffness throughout my body. What I realized over the last few years is that most of us only think about becoming stronger with the goal of being more powerful. But what happens if we take the view that the power and the effectiveness of BJJ doesn’t come only from strength?
If you’re goal is to become a complete martial athlete, be it in Jiu-Jitsu or a Mixed Martial Arts you cannot afford to not practice yoga. If you think that yoga is only for hippies then you’d better think again, some of the best fighters and well known instructors in BJJ have adopted yoga as a daily routine for example; Rickson, Royler, Royce and Relson Gracie, Wallid Ismail, Murilo Bustamante, Nino Shembri, Vitor Belfort, Ricardo Liborio, Wallid Ismail, Diego Sanchez, Eddie Bravo and Stephen Kesting. For the MMA, grappling or Jiu jitsu athlete, yoga is one of the most complimentary exercises possible. No other exercise will help to improve such a high number of physical and mental elements of your Game.
The BJJ and Yoga relationship:
Mechanics – A lot of the mechanics of the yoga poses closely resemble the physical movements found in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
Psychological response – Yoga prepares you mentally for the rigors of BJJ sparring and for competition’s physically compromising positions. There are poses in yoga that are meant to arouse specific emotional responses, be it anger, fear, or frustration.
Breathing – Breathing is one of the most powerful skills you can learn from yoga as it teaches you how to control your breath to achieve the positions. BJJ is no different, if you can control your breathing well you will succeed a lot more especially with coming out of and surviving in a bad situation for example; getting stuck under a heavy guy in a side control or getting stacked in a guard pass.
Relaxation – One of the most effective ways to think of yoga is as sophisticated relaxation: it offers freedoms from unnecessary tension in body, mind, and breathing. This does not mean lying down doing nothing! This means using the *least* amount of effort necessary to achieve results. (Sound familiar, grapplers?) Even if that result is a very, very difficult pose/position.
Flexibility– Flexibility is another major plus that you take away from your yoga practices overtime. Flexibility will help your BJJ performance tremendously. The more flexibility you have, the more angles you can use and the more positions you can create in your BJJ game. Moreover you are less likely to get injured as BJJ submissions target mostly hyperextension of the joint, so the more flexible you are the further your range of movement will be, giving you more chance of escaping from submission attempts and or attacks
Conclusion
Today yoga and jiu jitsu are two of the most practiced arts in the western world. They have infiltrated the main stream of society and even become trendy in various circles. What does not seem to be realized yet is how they perfectly supplement each other, both in the nature of their philosophy and in physical practice. Thus the serious Jiu Jitsu practitioner who integrates yoga practices into their training will certainly develop strength, flexibility, endurance, concentration and ultimately self-confidence.
Namaste
Daniel Lima
FIGHT CLUB JIU JITSU
