Yoga to Improve Your Martial Arts

By Cornelius Harrington

Whatever style of martial art you practice, whether it is Brazilian jiu jitsu, karate, judo, or boxing, you should be aware of how important flexibility, balance and developing core strength are. If you want to gain the advantage over your competitors, you should give serious consideration to introducing yoga to your daily workout.

So how can a non-contact activity such as yoga improve the competitive, full contact nature of martial arts? Well yoga can improve your martial arts in many ways. Yoga has stood the test of time and has been around for thousands of years. Ancient yogi believed that for a man to be in harmony with himself and his environment, he needs to integrate his mind, body and spirit. To learn yoga you must gain control over your breathing, which is a fundamental concept that needs to be taught and developed. The acquired skill to control your breathing, then leads onto being able to control your mind through meditation.

Martial arts have similar principles to that of yoga. The martial artist must learn to use his mind to remain calm when placed in stressful situations. They should incorporate technique over brute strength and to not let a lack of size become an obstacle. The martial arts practitioner will train for years, developing his body and to learn to compete with others in a healthy way, helping to improve their spirit and to develop good character. Just like yoga, martial arts is about developing the body and the mind in unison.

The practice of yoga is a great way to develop core strength and balance, learning to breathe when placed in unusual positions. Imagine you are a practitioner of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and someone is trying to pass your guard by smashing you, so you are in an awkward position, finding it difficult to breathe. To some this may be enough for them to tap out, however, by practising yoga, you will be able remain calm, think, breathe and with the added flexibility you will have gained, manoeuvre into a more neutral position. If you are sparring in boxing or karate, you will be able to control your breathing, stay calm and focussed, allowing you to rely on technique and giving you to time to think about your next move.

Still not sure if yoga is for you? Yoga is being practised by some of the most elite martial artists out there, BJ Penn and Diego Sanchez both are UFC fighters. Rickson Gracie from the world renowned Gracie family is a yoga practitioner and there are many more, so why not start to incorporate yoga into your training regime and start to see improvements in your martial arts.

Learn yoga techniques to improve your martial arts and gain the edge over your competitors. ----------------------------------------------- For more on improving your Martial Arts, see www.bestmartialartsource.com.

An Overview of the Martial Arts

By Dean K Michaels

When someone makes the decision to learn how to defend themselves or protect themselves and become a better person, what pops into the mind is martial arts. Different fighting styles is taught and learned all over the world.

The ancient arts have been learned for quite some time now throughout history but it was when Bruce Lee rose to fame they became really well known. Bruce Lee invented and practiced the technique of Jeet Kune Do which involves great counter defenses as well as fast striking. When people saw how fast Bruce Lee could move and how great he was at the art they started to want to learn for themselves, and find out how martial arts could help them.

Put into specific styles, these arts is broken down into certain groups. The style will depend on which country you are studying in and exactly what you want to do. A lot of countries offer the style of fighting art they invented, developed and refined. Brazilian Jui-Jitsu is offered in Brazil. Karate is offered in Japan. China has Shaolin. France has Savate, Thailand offers Muay Thai. Each style has different techniques and moves.

A lot of people think these styles are only for self defense but that is not always so. Martial arts competitions and tournaments are a regular practice in many countries, and techniques such as sparring, floor routines and at times the quite famous block and brick routines will be seen. Throughout the world competitions are held that give fighters the opportunity to show how much they have learned about the art.

At the top of the list these fighting arts teach someone how to protect themselves from a would be attacker, it helps people develop discipline and self control. When someone begins to learn a fighting style, they will soon develop a more positive state of mind. No matter which style of martial art is learned a more disciplined and controlled state of mind will be enforced through repetitive learning processes.

For those who are quick to anger and in need of learning levels of self control, fighting arts can be of great benefit. Self control will be learned as well as how to apply self defense if a dangerous situation arises. The art of self control is of utmost importance and when martial arts is taught to the wrong person with the wrong intent it can be a very disastrous situation.

Over the last ten years a lot of mainstream competitions have come into focus, such as the most popular of them all "UFC" Ultimate Fighting Competition, plus others such as "King of the Cage" and "Extreme Fighting". The UFC has caused a lot of interest to come about in the sport and has progressed a lot over the years. Stylists from all over the world are brought together to try out there knowledge and skills and see who is the best.

A lot of wrong ideas have risen due to the UFC, although these fighting styles are great to learn and it may go well in the UFC, it doesn't mean it will necessarily protect you out on the streets. With a sport like karate there is hardly any grappling at all and the focus is on teaching blocking and striking. If you get in close karate is not much good, but from a distance it can be lethal.

At the end of the day if you choose to do martial arts for the right reasons it's a great thing to learn. Martial arts can teach you about yourself and skill you in the art of self defense if you give it a try, that's why its important to pick the best style that will fit your particular needs and what you wish to achieve, as each style has different techniques.

Dean K Michaels is a 20 year + Boxing and Martial Arts Fanatic and writes for the companyhttp://www.ultimateboxingbags.com. For the best prices and fast service check out: http://www.ultimateboxingbags.com. The Author grants full reprint rights to this article. You may reprint and electronically distribute this article as long as its contents remain unchanged and the Author's byline remains in place. --------------------------------------------------- For more on Martial Arts, see www.bestmartialartsource.com.