There's a good article about yoga for grappling over on Grapplearts.com: http://www.grapplearts.com/Yoga-for-Grappling.htm
Nice article! You often find some grappling classes include Yoga like stretches into their warm up exercise such as the cat stretch and the bridging pose in the picture.
There are a couple of guys in my BJJ club that also attend yoga classes there. They seem to think it makes a difference. Although I do have to admit it is rather amusing to see these 6 foot plus guys who weigh over two hundred pounds doing yoga with a room ful of petite little women.
There was a great artical in Grappling or Blackbelt a couple of months ago about Yoga and MA. IMO it well worth the effort to incorperate it into your workouts.
We do all these and more as warmups for most of our normal MA classes. Plus rolling back and forth touching feet to floor behind the head and doing eggbeaters with the feet if we are grappling. A full bridge as shown in Geoff Thompsons Combat Conditioning is also very good to work with, as is an inverted one. Once u get used to dropping onto your head and pivotting on it, the possibilities open up for some interesting stuff like spinning chokes etc!
Without streching you cannot train for long. Stretch, run, strengthen your trunk/core and forearms. I go to a lunchtime yoga instructor in an office building near me. Beats putting a fork in my face. Has helped me tremendously as I am old and injured and wish to continue training. Mrs. Owt, not a distraction for me. I just turned 35, I'm invisible to the petit young women.
I have trouble trying to fit a weight lifting session into my training schedule, let alone Yoga! Such great grapplers as Rickson Gracie are very flexible; very strong, and very fast on the ground. Yoga would definatly help prevent such injuries as torn muscles which can put people out of action for weeks at a time!
I've thought about trying out yoga before, but I don't know of any good places to try it and I don't have the time. Now that I'm in wrestling and keep hurting my back, shoulders, etc I'm starting to consider it more. I'm fairly flexible, but more flexibility would help a lot.
If anyone wants to give yoga a go try Sivananda yoga first. It’s the more traditional style of yoga and not as vigorous. However once you get comfortable with yoga I’d suggest moving on to Vinyasa yoga. Here is a good site for Vinyasa Yoga. http://www.yogacards.com/Vinyasa.html And here is a yoga finder site. http://www.yogafinder.com/ Happy Yoga
