Yoga for jiu jitsu

Okay, I decided to try out Yoga for one class a week on Saturday (starting 7th of March) , right before my regular sparring session in BJJ. Read and heard from other guys that Yoga helps condition your body for bjj.

The articles I have found on the subject say that many of the top BJJ fighters do practice Yoga including as great a fighters as Rickson Gracie and Wallid Ismail. Just this fact says a lot. On the other hand I have not seen Yoga to be studied as an integral part of jiu jitsu. It does help improve but some other arts like Judo are more commonly practiced at BJJ academies than Yoga. So I don't think everyone does it, but quite a few pay close attention to this area.

I have found this interesting article on the subject: Yoga for Jiu Jitsu

My opinion of the idea so far that it does help but in the same way as doing weight training helps cross-country running. It is good but may not be the most effective activity out there especially given that all training sessions include quite a bit of streching.

I think on relevance from what I have seen ginastica natural sounds like a more relevant activity but unavailable for me and probably many other jiu jitsu players. In order of relevance perhaps becoming a great bjj player would mean you need to practice a lot of bjj, judo, ginastica natural and only lastly yoga. Weight training I consider somewhere between ginastica natural and yoga because at the end of the day I think with weight training you spend a lot of your time improving muscle strength where you don't need as much of it. Relevant finger and arm strength you can develop via gi sparring easily without the need to do long workouts at the gym as helpful as they are.