Practice

Yoga and Jiu-Jitsu: How They Train the Same Thing

March 1, 2017

I came to yoga and Jiu-Jitsu years apart and thought of them as opposites: one slow and inward, the other fast, in contact with someone who wants to win. It took me a long time to see that they train the same thing from two directions.

Breath

Under pressure the first thing to go in Jiu-Jitsu is the breath. Hold it and you tire, tighten and decide badly. Yoga trains the opposite habit: slow, even breathing in a shape that is not comfortable. Bring that into a hard round and you can stay in a bad position long enough to find the way out of it.

Effort and ease

Both arts punish too much effort. A grappler who squeezes with everything gets tired and easy to predict. A yoga pose held with a clenched jaw is not much of a pose. In both, the aim is the smallest amount of effort that does the job.

Attention

Jiu-Jitsu is often called physical chess, and a wandering mind loses pieces. Yoga trains staying with what is actually happening rather than what you wish were happening. The mind that drifts during a long hold is the one that drifts during a round.

Range and longevity

Yoga gave me range of motion and a clearer sense of how I move, where I am stiff and where I compensate. I cannot promise it prevents injuries, and nobody honest can. What I can say is that I move better, recover better and have been able to keep training for decades.

Where they differ

Yoga is not a substitute for drilling, and Jiu-Jitsu is not a substitute for stillness. Yoga has no opponent, and that is the point. Jiu-Jitsu has one, and that is also the point. Each one shows you what the other hides.

I teach both. Classes and private lessons are at BJJ DOJO Berlin. The older traditions behind yoga, and where it starts, I write about on The Slow Initiation.

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