There’s a reason black belt Joe Rogan waxes poetic about yoga to basically every guest on his JRE podcast and that’s because it works, especially when developing the range of motion necessary to safely execute advanced techniques like berimbolos or advanced guard positions. We’d all love to step on the mat and magically be able to invert like The Miyao Brothers without effort, but the reality is it takes time, practice, and mindfulness to build the body which best serves us as martial artists.
Fortunately, yoga is specifically about mindfully building up the body. And, as demonstrated in this video from Kino Yoga, it’s rich with practical movement sequences that pertain directly to your jiu-jistu game. Yogi Kino MacGregor breaks down how noobs and long-term practitioners alike can work to backward roll with confidence that they won’t injure their neck. This sequence isn’t just the foundation of safe inversion moves–brought up to speed in live rolling, backward rolls and shoulder stands are the difference between getting flattened into submission and surviving aggressive top pressure attacks. This is also a great pre-and-post training flow to try if your neck and shoulders are chronically tight from heavy training or sleeping like a weirdo.
