All About Natural Gymnastica: Movement training that blends Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Yoga, Breathwork, and Animal Locomotion.
Jul 22, 2021
If you practice Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, are looking for methods to work on your physical conditioning for this sport , or if you have simply followed Mixed Martial Arts for a long time, you have surely already heard of the documentary Choke, which follows the martial adventures of the legend of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and MMA: Rickson Gracie.
He's been seen working out on the beach with floor-based movement flows , moving fluidly like an animal, stretching like a yogi, doing strange breathing exercises where he makes undulations with his stomach... and promoting the importance of his movement practice for longevity and injury prevention .
This form of training is called Ginastica Natural or “natural gymnastics”.
This discipline, originating from Brazil, is inspired by many physical practices such as Hatha Yoga, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Animal Locomotion, Kundalini breathing. We work on our flexibility, our cardio, our organic strength, our coordination... in short, it is a fairly complete discipline which has been widely used among combat sports athletes such as UFC fighters, Gilbert Burns , Vitor Belfort , Anderson Silva , Junior Dos Santos , and even Kron Gracie .
Natural Gymnastics, founded by Alvaro Romano , is practiced in the form of fairly quick and intense workouts. This type of gymnastics can be done both indoors and outdoors and has the advantage of being accessible to everyone , regardless of your fitness level.
No, you don't need to be a professional fighter, or even a martial artist, to try Ginastica Natural.
Still little known in France (see the list of French instructors at the end of the article) and in Europe, this discipline has a lot to offer us, particularly with regard to the link between body and mind, and breathing work.
A quick overview of this gymnastics straight from Brazil. Let's go!
La Bio Ginastica by Orlando Cani: The hidden origin of Ginastica Natural
Contrary to what one might think, Ginastica Natural was not invented by Alvaro Romano.
At least not completely.
Alvaro Romano did register the “Ginastica Natural” trademark, but he discovered this discipline through Orlando Cani , who was his mentor for 13 years .
Orlando Cani was born in the state of Santa Catarina, in southern Brazil, in 1925. A graduate in physical education, he began martial arts at a very early age, including Jiu-Jitsu, Judo and Capoeira. Passionate about all kinds of sports, he discovered Kalarippayatt at the age of 29.
Kalarippayatt, or Kalarippayattu, is a martial art originating from South India. It is considered the ancestor of all martial arts.
Orlando Cani will devote himself entirely to this art which mainly reveals to him the importance of movement .
In fact, by mixing Kalarippayatt, dance, animal locomotion and Yoga, he seeks above all the movement of the body, the primitive movement, free, without restrictions, fluid, and thus develops a new discipline: Ginastica Natural (original).
He calls this practice Bio Ginastica , which could be translated as Organic Gymnastics.
This form of bodyweight training, a sort of dynamic Yoga/Dance, is very clearly similar to Alvaro Romano's “Ginastica Natural”, since the latter having patented the term “Ginastica Natural” , Orlando Cani was forced to change the name of his practice.
The Brazilian based his new discipline on animal movement: the tiger, the monkey, the snake, the eagle... The goal is to recreate a connection between man and his primal side . Thus he develops his unconscious and releases his impulses.
Thanks to this, he can allow for spontaneity and creativity to surprise his opponent. By feeling like an animal, sensations play an important role in the fight. The gaze plays a vital role, but so does breathing.
The goal of developing this primal instinct is to establish automatisms . This way, the fighter will no longer have to think about what to do and will be able to concentrate solely on the present moment.
Thinking during a fight causes stress, which reduces the fighter's physical abilities and energy. Through this natural gymnastics, the fighter regains control of his emotions , particularly by controlling his breathing.
Please note, primal movements should not be confused with the 7 Fundamental Human Movements (Fundamental Movement Patterns), which correspond to the essential movements of human beings.
For Orlando Cani there is no right or wrong position. For him, what matters is the Movement .
“For me, movement is life, it is action, it is energy.” ~ Orlando Cani, founder of Bio Ginastica.
Orlando Cania was also one of the inspirations of Ido Portal , founder of Movement Culture and who, like the duo Rickson Gracie – Alvaro Romano, trained Conor McGregor who allowed the Ido Portal Method to shine in the circle of mixed martial arts and in the eyes of the general public.
So much for the genesis of Ginastica Natural and the little-known origins of Ginastica Natural.
It is important for me to mention my teachers and influences and I think it is useful to pass on the names of these people and thus perpetuate their message and their values through the ages.
The name of Alvaro Romano has been mentioned several times, it is time to learn more about the founder of this discipline.
La Ginastica Natural by Alvaro Romano
It was Alvaro Romano who was behind the expansion of Ginastica Natural throughout the world.
After leaving Orlando Cani, he continued to develop Ginastica Natural on his own. He added his knowledge of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu , in which he is a black belt under Rickson Gracie, as well as flexibility and breathing exercises.
Yes, Alvaro Romano is a solid Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner, which allows him to convince renowned athletes to use his training method. He is a mover who says what he lives and lives what he says.
So, if you do BJJ, MMA, Grappling and the Ginastica Natural adventure tempts you, you can go for it with confidence. It wasn't created by someone who has never set foot on a tatami mat.
He filed a patent and developed a whole training program using only body weight . According to him, this sport allows you to improve all physical qualities: strength, endurance, mobility, balance, flexibility, coordination.
“As a physical education professional, my vision was to develop a training program that went beyond simple fitness activities. I created a workout designed to improve health, quality of life, and longevity . It's called Ginástica Natural, and it's designed for anyone seeking harmony between body and mind, based on my concepts and philosophy of life. Ginastica Natural is a revolutionary training system that I've been using as part of my daily training for decades. Nowadays, it's clear how much it has contributed to my physical, mental, and spiritual evolution , improving both my health and quality of life.” ~ Alvaro Romano, founder of Ginastica Natural.
Obviously this complete method will have a significant influence on your body's performance in terms of weight loss, improved cardio (in the context of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu), but also on recovery after exercise, body awareness , mobility, flexibility and general well-being.
You can also understand that it is not just a practice focused on the physical only.
In the manner of Hatha Yoga , of which Alvaro Romano is a great practitioner, the objective is to improve your performance as an athlete, with sports training as the main objective, and then to begin to develop your own bodywork, to improve your relationship with your body in movement.
This is why Ginastica Natural is an excellent vector of spiritual elevation because it focuses on the element that allows the body-mind connection: Breathing .
Far from the approach of traditional martial arts halls, all about ego, strength, hard sparring... (I'm teasing, of course, not everyone is like that ^^) , Ginastica Natural presents a beautiful Yin and Yang alliance.
It can be physically challenging like combat but at the same time gentle and restorative with breathing and anchoring in the present moment.
Much like Mike Fitch's Animal Flow , it's all about allowing everyone to step outside the modern fitness paradigm, away from weight rooms and the search for quick, short-term aesthetic results, and instead reconnect with their body and physicality.
The concept and foundation of Alvaro Romano's techniques and methodology were developed through his practical experience and research with his sports, oriental techniques , bodyweight strength training exercises, his training and contact with nature, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu movements.
Alvaro presents his discipline as a true revolution in the world of sport and has made it a very lucrative business. He promotes it across 27 countries through seminars, workshops, and training courses of all kinds, which you can find on his official website, Ginastica Natural.
Now that we've learned a little more about the practice and its creator, here's how a Ginastica Natural class takes place.
The progress of a Ginastica Natural session
A Ginastica Natural session lasts on average 1 hour.
Like almost all physical activities, it begins with a warm-up, particularly with animal movements .
Next comes a muscle strengthening phase, followed by cardio and stretching. A session always ends with a relaxation phase.
The latter is particularly important, as it is what connects the body and mind. Here we see the influence of Yoga and the importance of bringing people back down after an intense physical practice.
Classes are held individually or collectively, with or without music. The advantage of this practice is that it is truly accessible to all and does not require any equipment or special knowledge.
Depending on your physical condition and your goals, your instructor will be able to vary the course and intensity of the session.
This training method is therefore ideal for developing physical qualities such as organic strength (push force off the ground), core strength, cardio for all practitioners, but is it really a useful complement for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioners?
The benefits of Ginastica Natural for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
While Ginastica Natural is inspired by Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ), it can also, in turn, have many benefits for fighters.
In fact, in Brazil and the United States, a large number of BJJ practitioners engage in natural gymnastics, with the aim of strengthening their fighting postures and improving their ground game.
Optimal physical conditioning
I often start from the following basic assumption: the best conditioning for a sport is that sport performed at a lower intensity .
So to move more fluidly on the ground, improve your transitions, be able to develop the cardio of your sport, that is to say have the capacity to respond to the demands of your sport , with the stress, the pressure of the opponent, the movements of your sport...
The best thing is to have a physical preparation as close as possible to this sport.
Of course, this doesn't mean you should stop your powerlifting, plyometric, or hardcore gym conditioning with external weights. No. There are clearly limitations to bodyweight training in strength development, muscle mass gain, or isometric work.
However, it is imperative to have a practice that can make your body more efficient: consume less energy during movement . In this sense, Ginastica Natural can be a supplement of choice.
You are in a safer environment than sparring , where you don't have the fear of getting hurt, the stress of "fighting", and you perform movements similar to what you have to do when you roll with your partner, with an intensity that you can increase without danger.
According to Florian Colbe , a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Natural Gym instructor in France, “this discipline strengthens deep muscles and prevents injuries. It also allows for active recovery and flexibility.”
The idea of being able to move your body in a gentler way but still build up training volume in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu movements makes Ginastica Natural an excellent tool for active recovery .
The Power of Breathing
For Orlando Cani, the gymnastics he invented will above all allow the fighter to regain a certain concentration and breathe correctly .
According to him, the weakness of man comes mainly from the fact that he holds his breath .
“Animals breathe constantly; humans are the only animals that hold their breath; it is an unconscious process. Therefore, we must master the breathing process so as not to lose concentration and energy.” ~ Orlando Cani, founder of Bio Ginastica.
Through this process, the BJJ (or MMA) fighter will also develop their body awareness . Body awareness allows them to concentrate in order to recover almost instantly, especially in the event of a mistake during the fight.
The return of that old adage “train smarter, not harder” .
Far from the Wim-Hof Breathwork that is gaining popularity, Alvaro's system is heavily based on the age-old breathing practices of Hatha Yoga .
Knowing how to breathe under pressure is a crucial skill for any grappler. Natural Gymnastics is the only conditioning methodology that also helps you develop this skill.
When you breathe mindlessly, you're simply expanding your chest and using the upper parts of your lungs. Leaving the lower parts of your lungs out causes your lung capacity to decrease. This can be reversed, but it will take time.
In Ginastica Natural, you learn to breathe from the diaphragm upwards, using your full lung capacity. Better yet, you learn to breathe calmly while performing complex full-body movements .
This is the definition of what happens in BJJ: evolving in a chaotic flow of movement after movement with an extremely short time to make decisions.
Regular breathing practice helps tremendously with anxiety. This can be very helpful before a competition, or simply before riding. Breathing also aids recovery by increasing oxygen levels .
This is the secret of these practices that mix a little Yin, feminine energy. It allows the development of intangible qualities such as coordination, spatial references, ease, fluidity, lightness of movement.
This makes you more adaptable and therefore better able to recognize when you're moving out of a stable position and about to get injured. You have a more efficient internal notification system.
So if you get scared when you hear the words breathing, body awareness, and you think it's for whoo-whoo hippies, I'll give you a short list of the most famous practitioners of Ginastica Natural : assassins on the tatami mats.
-
Rickson Gracie , son of the famous Hélio Gracie, one of the founders of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Rickson Gracie is a Jiu-Jitsu legend and a famous MMA fighter.
It was Orlando Cani himself who taught him this gymnastics between 1986 and 1988.
He also considers him his best student. - Like him, Vitor Belfort , Anderson Silva , Xande Ribeiro and other BJJ and MMA champions have taken up natural gymnastics to complement their skills and strengthen their fighting techniques.
-
Gilbert Durinho Burns , three-time BJJ world champion, also practices this gymnastics.
For him, Ginastica has been very important “both in jiu-jitsu and in the transition to MMA” .
This has notably allowed him to improve his breathing and endurance. A practice that has revolutionized and strongly impacted his recovery as well as his flexibility.
For many of these BJJ legends, the most important element to work on was breathing .
Let's take a closer look at the importance of breathing in Ginastica Natural and how you too can reap the same benefits for your body, health, performance, and longevity.
The importance of breathing in the practice of natural gymnastics
Breathing is essential in ALL sports, daily physical activities, stress and emotional management. It's amazing that it's still not in our school curriculum.
Even in your free mobility routine, I repeat: “ Maintain calm, nasal breathing!”
When you evaluate your “cardio,” your ability to last several rounds of Jiu-Jitsu, this is the first question you need to ask yourself: Am I breathing correctly? Am I not doing micro-apnea? What makes me stop breathing? In what scenarios does this happen?
Before getting lost in the multitude of breathing techniques that exist and in order to choose the most appropriate one for the practice of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, let's remove some doubts about this practice:
- Yes, it is possible to learn to breathe, depending on the phases and movements you perform.
- Yes, it requires conscious effort, dedicated breathing sessions.
- Yes, it is possible to improve your performance very quickly with these workouts.
- Yes, the best athletes in this sport dedicate part of their training to this.
There are no secrets, if you are already aware that you have a problem with your breathing, you must (re)learn how to breathe .
The most useful thing for ground combat, which is also promoted by Ginastica Natural, is what is called abdominal breathing .
This involves breathing with your belly , not just your lungs. Abdominal breathing uses the diaphragm, the main respiratory muscle. It is located just below the lungs and allows them to fill and empty properly .
It is a little-known and little-worked muscle, which nevertheless has many advantages.
Most of us practice thoracic breathing , using our lungs. This is a sign of tension and stress . By using the diaphragm, your body will be more relaxed, your anxiety will calm down even during a fight, significantly lowering your blood pressure.
You can see some examples of more advanced diaphragm manipulation when using Kundalini breathing techniques like “Breath off Fire.”
This technique is the one used by Rickson Gracie and his son Kron Gracie and the one I teach in the RICKSON GRACIE METHOD training to learn the training techniques of this legend.
It's not a necessity, but this type of diaphragm work demonstrates increased control over your body and mind . It's a great tool to use to strengthen, control, manage, and better engage your core—essential in a sport where you often have an opponent sitting on top of you with all their weight.
This is in a few words the interest of breathing for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu but also for all physical activities.
We talk about Jiu-Jitsu, combat, martial arts, but can we use Ginastica Natural if we don't do all that ? This is what we will see in the next section.
Can you practice Ginastica Natural even if you don't do Jiu-Jitsu?
If you don't do Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Grappling, or MMA, you can of course practice Natural Gymnastics.
It is certainly inspired by the ground movements of this martial art, and also allows BJJ fighters to strengthen their techniques.
But Ginastica is a sport in its own right, practiced in particular by surfers to strengthen their knees.
Yes, Movements, Jiu-Jitsu, Surfing… Does all that sound like a dream to you too? haha
In a way, Ginastica Natural is very similar to Yoga sessions, carried out in a more active, dynamic and even more fluid way.
If you don't practice BJJ, Ginastica will allow you to complement your sporting activity and recover more quickly . And if you don't yet practice physical activity then this is the opportunity!
Much more varied in the number of movements, the complexity of the sequences that you can create by combining these different figures on the ground, the diversity of the training thanks to a variable intensity, the accessibility for all levels of practitioners and the importance given to pushing movements, rotational sheathing, breathing,
Make Ginastica Natural a great starting point for adding movement into your workout week.
Orlando Cani trains athletes from all disciplines, as well as actors. He determines the needs of his student and tailors his training accordingly: primal instinct, psychomotor system, explosiveness, extension, concentration, etc.
Natural gymnastics can really be adapted to everyone!
Want to get started? Find a certified Ginastica Natural instructor near you using the short list below.
Where to practice Natural Ginastica in France?
In France, more than twenty teachers are now certified, proof that the discipline is beginning to develop in France!
To take classes, you can contact the teachers directly . Some travel upon request and give lessons individually, but more often than not, these are group sessions.
Here is a small, non-exhaustive list of people who can help you start your adventure in Brazilian natural gymnastics.
- Florian Colbe
A certified coach, Florian offers individual and group lessons at MKTeam Paris . He also teaches online classes. He is a black belt in BJJ , which he teaches as well as Grappling.
Florian's website
MKTeam website
- Emmanuel Cabanes
A certified level 4 coach, Emmanuel teaches group classes in Chancelade, Dordogne . He provides free video lessons on his website. He is a black belt in BJJ and a yoga teacher.
Emmanuel's website
- Life Academy Bordeaux
Certified level 4 coach, Marion Ribet, former gymnast, gives classes at the Life Academy in Bordeaux .
Life Academy Bordeaux website
- Functional Coach Biarritz
Certified coach Virginie Do Nascimento Nunes offers online courses on her website.
Virginia's website
- Justine Clément
A certified coach, Justine Clément is a physiotherapist. She offers group classes in Morges , as well as private lessons and seminars.
Justine's website
- Emma Yoga
A certified Level 3 coach, Emma Champion offers group classes in Natural Ginastica as well as Yoga classes.
Emma's website
This list is not exhaustive but it will be a good starting point, I think.
You can also train online on the Ginastica Natural website.
Conclusion from your movement coach
We continue the series of articles to discover the different methods of movement training with this new presentation of this art of movement from Brazil.
I hope you enjoyed this article.
If you have any questions , comments , or feedback on what you have just read, or if you know someone who teaches Natural Ginastica,
Please feel free to comment at the end of this article in the dedicated section.
The goal, as always, is to enable more and more people to educate themselves on what is possible to do with the body, to try to escape the toxic paradigms that distance us from our ability to regain control over our health and longevity,
And finally, become more and more physically independent .
Thank you again for your time and your interest in this wonderful adventure of movement and physical autonomy.
See you soon in the comments 😉
Nomad Slim
Founder of MOUVERS
