Good day to you, fellow readers! Today, I want to bring up to you the topic about healthy lifestyle! Since, you might have already browsed around our website and find an abundance of articles regarding healthy food and beverages, let me shakes things up a little bit and give you a breath of fresh air! I got to present you the benefits of one of our beloved martial arts (or if you would rather to call it sports, then go ahead.), The Brazilian Jiujutsu.
Jiujutsu has been around for a long period of time. The history of Jiu jitsu is pretty old, it started back in 1467 in Sengoku Era of The Muromochi Period in Japan. It begins as a form of close combat martial art, which combines a various different techniques practiced in situations where weapons were seen as ineffective. Throughout many eras, jiujutsu has remained strong as a renowned martial arts, thus influencing many other form of martial arts, such as aikido, bartitsu, kajukenbo,krav maga, kappa, pangamot, kenpo, judo which leads to the forming of other form of jiujutsu in Brazil, called The Brazilian Jiujutsu.
Brazilian jiujutsu is a modern combat sports or martial arts that focus on grappling and ground fighting as a form of self defense. In the early 1990s , Royce Gracie won the first, second and fourth Ultimate Fighting Championship, promoting Brazilian Jiujutsu to be one of the most popular type of self-defense martial arts around the world until now. This has caused Brazilian Jiujutsu to be regarded as one of the strongest type of self-defense martial arts. Not only prominent in strength show offs, Brazilian Jiujutsu also offers an abundance amount of benefits.
Here is the list of Health Benefits of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu
- Cut a huge amount of your fat.
You have high body fat problem? Ever dreaming on lowering those unwanted fat and lessen your chance of getting high cholesterol. Try doing jiujutsu. Like any other good exercise, jiujutsu will make you lose some of your body fat. Since it is pretty rigorous, if you already have a pretty high cholesterol level and have some high blood pressure problem you shall not start it with rough session of jiujutsu but rather start it slowly.
- Losing weight (for starters or casual practitioner).
Though it did not necessarily make you lose weight forever. When you lose a good amount of fat you will lose some weight as well-at the start. Throughout the process as you (if you decide to) delve further into more rigorous training you will definitely gain muscle, thus can make you actually weigh more (based on the fact that muscle weigh more than fat). But do keep In mind what you need to achieve is your own ideal weight according to your physique so as you are getting more athletic it is very safe to say you are healthier even though you weigh more than before. You can consult to a physician for a good and accurate BMI for your physique.
- Building muscle and good metabolism.
Jiujutsu offers a full body workout, which will result in developing muscle all around your body. After you reach the stage where you get all of these lean muscles, they will start morphing into more developed muscles which will be more metabolically active and burn more calories. This will improve your overall metabolism and prevent you from getting obese as your body will process your food faster and more efficiently. Studies also shown that having a good skeletal muscle will increase your life span!
- Building body strength and get energetic.
As you gain muscle and develop it along with increased metabolic rate, this equals to having your overall body strength up and above, which will be very advantageous not only opening up your body into doing more difficult and heavy tasks but it also give each part of your body more strength. A good muscle that an hold more work capacity will help strengthen and support the bones preventing you from obtaining weak bones prematurely. More body strength does also mean that you will be more energetic throughout the day, no more those feelings of lacking in energy.
- A good exercise for low blood pressure.
When you are doing Jiujutsu you will muster all of your strength and muscle capability to work. When you are facing an opponent, adrenaline will also come to play. This hormone has been known to pump up your blood pressure. A regular and routine practice will leads to better condition for those who suffer a low blood pressure.
- Helping your cardiovascular system.
Jiujutsu is also a good cardio routine for people who suffer heart-related problem or for people who try to prevent having one. Practicing jiujutsu regularly can maintain a good blood flows that is good for the heart, which also help from anything clogging inside the blood vessels. While doing jiujutsu does develop your skeletal muscle, it also helps you to develop your heart muscles. Practicing jiujutsu has been proven to strengthen the heart (in accordance to strong heart muscles). Strong heart means good and healthy heart.
- Improving your brainpower.
Abundance of move combinations involved in jiujutsu does require your brain to work. You certainly need to try and memorize ever single details of each move every time you come to the session. It makes you practice the part of your brain which responsible for memory holding. This practice might give you a better memory and prevent you getting senile early!
- Make your body more flexible.
Practicing jiujutsu does require you to be nimble. Throughout the process of learning jiujutsu (correctly) , you will find your body become more flexible. Flexibility of the body might prevent you from getting easily injured or sprained.
- Improving mobility.
Since Jiujutsu requires a lot of movement, moreover a fast full body movement. You will gain fast reflexes and good coordination. This fast movement and decision-making will train your brain to be more critical and in sync with the motoric system.
- Improving and maintaining your blood sugar level.
If you have diabetes or high blood sugar level, practicing this martial arts might help you cut some sugar levels on your blood. Since Jiujutsu requires a lot of energy and of a rigorous nature this will make your body allocate your blood sugar and burn it off simultaneously to energy, which will lower your blood sugar level. If you do it regularly it will help you maintain a good blood sugar level.
- A great stress reliever.
Stress does not sit well with health. It may leads to a lot of health problems. It is normal to have problem in your life. But having an excessive amount of stress can lead to long term depression. When you come to the jiujutsu class you can forget put all those things aside and blows some steam off by sparring with your fellow teammates and opponents.
- Learn how to do stress management.
Still related to stress, when you learn jiujutsu you will learn how to manage things under tension when facing an opponent. You need to make fast decision and not to run away from the problem since you will be betting your butt getting tossed on the floor if you don’t take the challenge and strive forward. By failing, you will also learn how to accept your failure, not perceiving it as your doomsday. You will then be able to separate thing that is worthy to be taken as advice and which thing are just plain destructive. This perks might save you from a lot of heartache in real life and reducing the risk of getting excessive stress. Remember, over the roof stress level may lead to developing cancerous disease later in life!
So it is very important to have stress management ability in life.
- Make you sleep easier.
After a full work out session of jiujutsu, it would leave you feel pretty exhausted and worn out. It is no wonder. But this kind of state will grant you a good quality of sleep and will make you fall asleep more easily. This might benefit people who have suffered sleeping problems from a long time. Rather than having a dependency on synthetic and chemicals such as drug that can harm your liver and kidney in a long run better opt for this more natural choice of exercising to get your quality sleep!
- Keeping your body fit and healthy.
This applied indefinitely. Many health benefits has been explained above. But an overall active body and metabolism equals to healthy and functioning body system. Leading to a fit and healthy body.
Other Benefits.
There are also a lot of psychological and other benefits you might have learned from practicing Brazilian Jiujutsu.
- As a form of self-defense.
- Learning patience
- Building friendship
- Teach you how to make fast decision
- Building self esteem
- Building courage
- Problem solving
- Travelling opportunity
- Learning humility.
- Learn to be competitive
- Make you learn to face your fear
- Learn how to deal with failure
- Teach you about hard work
- Teach you how about being persistent and striving forward
- Learn to be more appreciative to people.
Precaution for Women and Casual Practitioner (and People with Medical Condition).
For women, what may engaged them the most are probably your possibility to get in shape, having self defense, losing those pounds and fats, and having a toned abs, isn’t it? But for women, casual practitioner, and or people who have some medical condition there are some precautions that needed to be noted.
- For women, do try to start very easy and try to find and all-female class. Even as they started off men physique differ from women especially in beginner class you did not want to get injuries if you accidentally get matched with man of a strong physique in your first time.
- Avoid engaging in an all-out battle for first timer. This also to avoid unwanted injuries.
- Try to match with a person who has a similar physique and in the same rank as yours in the beginning.
- Avoid any unnecessary bickering and offensive word fights, do not try to provoke any kind of tension and hostility amongst practitioner. It will prevent you from unnecessary injuries.
- Do consult about your practice routine with one of the teacher or master and tell them your problem or concern so they would know what is best for you and prevent you from doing ill practice.
- Do not forget to get your daily protein intake. (It will serve as an agent for your cells regeneration and repair.)
- If you are about to get pregnant or is pregnant do consult both your doctor and master to arrange the best plan for you.
- If you have any medical conditions please consult to your doctor and trainer first whether practicing jiujutsu is right for you!
All in all, if you decide to go practice jiujutsu, I wish the best of luck for all of you! Keep doing your best, practice, and keep healthy!