Practical Ways Yoga Can Impact Your BJJ

Besides BJJ, the study of yoga is one of the most comprehensive, all-over body exercise styles that can improve muscle tone, cardio fitness, and flexibility while also impacting stress levels and improving focus.  When looking for a cross-training program to improve your overall fitness and supplement your jiu jitsu training, one would be hard pressed to find a better activity than yoga.  For a general overview of all of the various health benefits that yoga can provide, check out this article from BJJ Fanatics here.

Now let's take a serious look at all of the practical things that yoga can impact related to your BJJ besides these great general health benefits.

Yoga will improve your guard

No matter what guard you favor, the improved flexibility that your hips will experience as a resulted of concentrated yoga study will do wonders.  Even with the smallest percentage of improved range of motion in your hips, you will instantly have better high guard in closed guard.  You will be more likely to recover guard if your opponent attempts to pass with the increased flexibility.  Even if you never find yourself an inverted guard practitioner, the improved leg and hip moment you will have will make positions like X Guard, butterfly guard, and spider guard all the more powerful to just name a few.

Yoga will improve your guard passing

A large component of yoga training is static position control and balance training.  Many techniques require one to balance on one leg and transition between several techniques while maintaining a strong center of gravity.  The continued practice of this kind of movement will do wonders for your ability to pass without being swept.

Yoga will improve your transitions

Transitions are made up of a series of reactions to your opponent's reactions.  Much like a yoga flow, which moves from position to position with relatively little pausing, our transitions must flow with as little thought as possible to stay ahead of our opponent.  The repetition of movement, static pausing, then to another movement will increase our ability to seamlessly move from position to position during our BJJ training.

Yoga will improve your escapes

The increased core strength and ability to control our body movements will make it more difficult for your opponents to keep you contained and controlled.  Yoga will improve your shrimping, your bridging and your ability to rapidly change course and seize opportunities to escape.

Yoga will improve your submissions

The increased control of your body that the study of yoga will develop is going to give you the ability to better control your opponent, securing the necessary dominant positions that will be the fertile ground from which you will attack your submissions.  As a side effect, yoga helps improve your breathing which will pay dividends on the mat as you calmly lock in your submissions and put the finishing touches on the opponent with barely an increase in heart rate.

The video below is a great introduction to Sebastian Brosche, BJJ and judo black belt who also happens to be a yoga expert.

 With all of these great benefits, why wouldn't you want to give yoga a try.  You will improve the practical aspects of jiu jitsu that you need most, while also improving your overall health and fitness.  If you're ready to begin implementing this ancient art to give yourself an edge on the mats, it's time to Check out Sebastian's Yoga for BJJ DVD at BJJ Fanatics here!