Raphael Cadena teaches you mobility exercises to sharpen your spider guard. Photo: Reproduction

Professor Raphael Cadena, our GMI in Florida, answered GRACIEMAG’s request and prepared a series of mobility exercises for you to sharpen your spider guard. Representative of the RMNU HQ school and trained by Professor Leandro Azara, from A2 Jiu-Jitsu, in Teresópolis, Raphael is an experienced competitor and has prepared for you the best tips for you to leave your guard impassable to opponents.

Check out the exercises bellow.

Kron Gracie vs. Marcelo Garcia at the 2011 ADCC

[First published in 2014. To help us keep putting out great content in English, support us here.]

Kron Gracie paid a visit to GRACIEMAG’s HQ in Rio de Janeiro at the beginning of 2014.

He talked to our news team for hours and reflected on his career up to that point.

Here are some of the highlights of that talk.

“Everything I learned on the mat was from my dad, Rickson, until I was 18. After that I braved my own path and developed my own style.”

“At 12 I realized I wanted Jiu-Jitsu for my life so I decided I was going to channel my energy into it. Around 15, I noticed I had a knack for it so I began to dedicate myself, making sacrifices.”

“At 23 I started investing even more energy in my training, I improved my respiratory capacity and I gave myself physically more, but the crux was something else: I stopped making excuses.”

“After that match against Marcelinho at the 2011 ADCC, I started believing that I could not only beat a champion like him, but my Jiu-Jitsu could also submit even someone as tough as he is.”

“I won everything at brown belt because I had more mat time and competition experience than my rivals. At black belt, it’s a different story altogether.”

“The root of my Jiu-Jitsu is essentially based on where I place my weight; how I spread it; and how I use levers. I try not to root my Jiu-Jitsu on grips on cloth, because if you don’t have the gi, the grips lose importance.””

After the talk, Kron stepped on the mat area in the office and taught 3 breathing exercises he uses to improve his respiratory capacity. It took Kron years to master these techniques and he trusts them fully. He explained: “Notice that all animals breath properly, except for humans. With these techniques. I can better oxygenate every part of my body.”

Exercise 1 – Lying down

Lie on the ground and put one hand on the chest and the other on the belly. As you breathe, the chest hand should be completely immobile, or as much as possible. Your back also should not inflate. What moves is the hand on top of your belly, thanks to the use of the diaphragm, the muscle responsible for abdominal breathing.

Exercise 2  – Sitting down

You can exercise your diaphragm sitting down as well. Lift one arm and lower it slowly until it reaches the mat, while you exhale all the air from your body. As you raise the arm, inhale, gradually increasing the amount of time spent on exhaling and inhaling.

Exercise 3 – Warm up

Kron practices his breathing exercises while warming up as well. Repeat this and other natural moves using during a Jiu-Jitsu match while inhaling and exhaling by using the abdominal muscle.

Alvaro Romano and his son Raphael have some valuable Ginástica Natural exercises to teach you. GRACIEMAG archive photo.

Alvaro Romano is one of GRACIEMAG’s most seasoned columnists, often proffering essential pointers for Jiu-Jitsu practitioners who want to exercise themselves to good health and quality of life.

To that end, GRACIEMAG.com today is featuring him and his son Raphael presenting a challenge and a series of simple and effective exercises for testing your performance.

Alvaro combined three exercises to work different parts of our bodies:

* The first exercise, for the upper body, is a spider pushup.

* The second, for the legs and hips, is the frog exercise.

* The third is an excellent abdominal exercise for working your body’s core.

The exercises should be performed in a continuous and dynamic fashion, with 10 repetitions for the first two, and 30 for the third.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fSMxDhD0Ok

Have you got what it takes to do two circuits of these, with a 20-second break between them?

Push your seat away from the computer, clock the total time, and do your best not to frighten your coworkers. Afterwards, challenge someone to break your record.

According to a study carried out on a 40,000-person sample group by the Norway’s University of Bergen in conjunction with King’s College of London, people who use their leisure time to practice physical activities are less likely to develop symptoms of depression.

The interesting part of the research was the conclusion that just physical activity isn’t enough. The result wasn’t the same when those studied practiced exercise during the work day or within the work environment.

The conclusion the researchers came to was that social interaction and new friends are vital in consolidating exercise into your routine, more pleasurable and healthy. Now can you think of a better place for socializing than at any of the good Jiu-Jitsu academies out there? Train, make friends, and have mental well-being. Spread the word on this research; join the campaign by drawing friends and family members to Jiu-Jitsu.

The idea he came up with to reach his target was this: teach a 30-hour Jiu-Jitsu class in order to break the current record for “longest aerobic marathon/exercise class,” which was set at 29 hours and one minute.

The class ended yesterday, at 30 hours and one minute, as his teacher Braulio Estima reported over twitter. Ebe thus managed to combine his two passions: teaching Jiu-Jitsu and MMA with charity.

“Over these 28 years of teaching class I could see how martial arts build self-confidence, especially in teenagers and kids. That’s why I picked Keech Hospice to receive the money donated to this event,” said the Gracie Barra brown belt.

“A number of teammates supported me, and people even flew in from the USA, all to break this record, count as witnesses and to guarantee Jiu-Jitsu’s place in the Guinness World Record Book,” said Ebe, who even has a 2010 match against Rafael Mendes under his belt, during the inter-nation contest traditionally held at the European Open.

For further news on the class and world record, check www.bjjworldrecord.com or right here at GRACIEMAG.com soon.

If you’re reading GRACIEMAG.com, it’s likely Jiu-Jitsu is one of your favorite exercises. But it’s not the only one out there, as you can see in the following video, shot with Alvaro Romano in Rio de Janeiro.