I've had the benefit of speaking to Greg directly. I'll answer in the way i best understand currently but i'm still learning: It's not just marketing, it's a theory of how skill is developed that goes against the way BJJ / TMA has been taught in most places. Greg is primarily concerned with how training transfers into competition. For example, I shoot a double leg takedown but get sprawled on. Let's say I have 4 basic options from this situation, A. If i'm holding a leg and my head is on the inside, i can try to go behind B. If i'm holding a leg and my head is on the outside, i can try to step the trail leg up and re-shoot C. If i don't have a leg and their weight is forward, I can sit out D. If i don't have a leg and their weight is back, I can back out The question you have to ask yourself is, do you think it's more important to be excellent at the individual techniques, or excellent at selecting the optional technique in reaction to what your opponent is doing? The latter is what the ecological approach is trying to optimise, the academic name for it is 'Perception Action Coupling'. By subscribing to this theory of knowledge, i am betting that being technically average at A, B, C, D but quick at selecting the optimal one, the training will produce suprior results than being more technically proficient, but slower to select, or spamming the one i feel i'm best at, irrespective of what my opponent does. Generally i've found that some people just love uchikomi / shrimping / dead drilling and we're never going to change their minds. We're not really trying to, we're letting results speak for themself on the competition mat. However, it's logically inconsistent to argue that the ecological approach is 'something we've always done' and still do dead drilling. If you believe in the theory of knowledge that the ecological approach advocates, you wouldn't dead drill because it doesn't achieve Perception Action Coupling. Ecological training is a combination of 'differential learning' and the 'constraints led approach', resistance is essential always. You also wouldn't do anything in the warm up, that didn't enable the training itself. Ecological is not just positioning sparring or sparring, although those are a good start. Taking half guard sparring as an example, you've constrained the position itself which is good, but ecological training would generally go further and vary where exactly in half guard you are starting. The goal is to teach you to make and maintain connections for the purpose of managing distance and space, not to do specific techniques. You could make it easier for the passer by getting them to start chest to chest with 2 underhooks (i.e. giving them a strong connection) or harder by having no decent connection. Varying that is part of differential learning. People get their back up about this stuff when they want to claim they are training ecologically, when they aren't. Most traditional training is like that scene from dodgeball where the coach throws wrenches at them and says 'if you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball'. Whilst funny, it's not true. There's just this massive assumption that the skill done in isolation and often without resistance, will just transfer over and the ecological approach rejects this. Some people have certainly been teaching closer to what Greg does than others, Chris Paines is one of them for sure and i'm just saying that because i've been in the classes, that's not my exclusive list of people who were further along the curve than others. Greg will shut it down pretty quick if people say they are training ecologically and they aren't. I can't replicate everything Gregs gym does either, so people can make objectively true criticisms about my training too. But fundamentally i subscribe to that theory of knowledge and everything i do, does reflect that. Greg also took the time to have a phone call with a black belt I know that didn't believe that Greg 'doesn't teach technique'. That black belt was very satisifed with that call and very impressed with Gregs technical knowledge.

Thank you for this detailed response. I've begun implementing CLA and differential learning into the class I coach at the academy I train at, and during defensive Tactics training at my agency this week. I'm obviously brand new to this approach, but I was very impressed with what I saw and experienced, in addition to the positive feedback from students. There was a much different energy in the room. I guess my only criticism of Mr. Souders so far is that his attitude seems to suck, with a prevalent vibe of superiority. I honestly couldn't care less if I coach 100% 'ecological' to his standard or not, as long as my students are benefitting. It's not like there's 0% retention and transfer if you don't abide 100% to his method. Hybrid systems will still provide results. Otherwise, no one else would ever progress in BJJ.

I honestly couldn't care less if I coach 100% 'ecological' to his standard or not, as long as my students are benefitting. It's not like there's 0% retention and transfer if you don't abide 100% to his method. Hybrid systems will still provide results. Otherwise, no one else would ever progress in BJJ.

One of my biggest arguments for games based training is also simply just total play time. In a 'classic' class, there can maybe be 15 minutes warmup, 30-45 minutes of talking technique and often one-sided drilling/repetition with little resistance. At the end maybe half an hour of 6 minute rounds with at least a minute break in between. Worst case scenario, that can give people a total of 25 minutes play time with full two-way resistance per class. I run my classes with games from first to last minute. Games for warmup, games for technique, games for sparring. That is 90 minutes of both players constantly working against each other in different scenarios. Since the intensity is relatively medium, the breaks are minimal; just to get some water and do feedback loops with each other. So one factor that plays a huge difference is simply how many minutes each participant get of resistance training per class. And we're talking sometimes a factor of 3x with this approach. This alone will make people a lot better a lot faster (I see the results clearly)

How do you get noobs to control their intensity to allow their partners to actually drill a technique correctly in a game environment? I've been showing the tech, let them drill, then the counter, let them drill, then try to get them to drill with gradually increasing resistance. Sort of working.

How do you get noobs to control their intensity to allow their partners to actually drill a technique correctly in a game environment? I've been showing the tech, let them drill, then the counter, let them drill, then try to get them to drill with gradually increasing resistance. Sort of working.

What technique are you trying to make them practice? Then I can give an example of how I would run games for it. I do games from start to end of each class and there's never need for adjusting intensity if they're designed right.

Toreando pass for example. I teach a fundamentals class so more than half the class is white belts.

Instead of trying to make them use a specific technique, like a toreando pass, I would probably try to make some games that lets them focus on what the group of techniques is trying to acccomplish. For instance play different guard games where top player is attempting to place his chest on top of the thighs, on the chest or on the back of the opponent. The specific 'technique' they end up using for that is not really relevant. And even more important, it's extremely individual what works best. Some people might prefer one style of passing over another, so for those that doesn't fit toreando style passing, we're basically wasting our time with them that day. Fundamentally, I want to give people the opportunity to explore different solutions to given problems instead of trying to make them use a single solution that I choose / prefer myself. But anyway, if you really wanted to practice that specific pass for everyone in class, you could say that they start with a grip on the pants that are not allowed to be broken at any time. Top player will attempt to place some port of their body in between the knees and chest of the bottom player, by clearing the legs using the grips in any way they prefer. Bottom player can for instance only use their arms to block the pass first round. Second round they can use their feet to block but still can not break the grip. What the following rounds would look like is hard to say, as I always kind of figure that out as I watch people play the games and see if there are some bad/good habits to address by adjusting the rules.

It almost sounds like positional sparring, but even more constrained. Interesting for sure. Not sure it makes sense for real noobs though. Also not sure how the lesser athlete would benefit without getting to drill as much ... does it not happen that one guy is consistently losing the game just because they are worse?

It almost sounds like positional sparring, but even more constrained. Interesting for sure. Not sure it makes sense for real noobs though. Also not sure how the lesser athlete would benefit without getting to drill as much ... does it not happen that one guy is consistently losing the game just because they are worse?

For a one hour fundamental class with close to 30 people it'll be tricky as changing partners often leads to time wasting but sounds like it is essential here.

The real time wasting is everyone sitting and listening to some detailed technique that they might never even be able to execute in sparring.

Not sure why this would be the case. I always use a whistle and on my signal, everybody raise their hand and immediate grabs anyone else with a hand up. Takes only 10 seconds or so to switch partners (for those rounds without feedback loop).

So you don't even demo what the game should look like? Also, no way I'm using a whistle in class lol

I like the hands-up idea. Probably going to steal that. Also, I used the same approach with the feedback break between games and found that initially students were a bit unsure/hesitant about speaking up. But once we broke the ice, every round after that people shared some awesome stuff. Loved the buy-in it created.

Curious why you wouldn't use a whistle? It's a pretty solid, proven coaching tool 🙂

I yell loud enough so no need, plus I don't want to be called referee. Thanks Christian for the detailed responses.

Here is a new video from Greg about learning armbar: https://www.youtube.com/w[...]2kfNdH6oo4

I went to a week-long Methods of Instruction class geared toward LE, and in it there was a lot of teaching/learning theory for optimal retention and transfer. During the class I was referred to Greg Souders and his 'ecological' approach to coaching and training BJJ. I've listened to a few podcasts and watched some of his content on Insta and YouTube, but am still trying to figure out how to structure a class or integrate it into my teaching and training. Ironically, it seems easier to grasp in the context of law enforcement than BJJ. Anyone have any thoughts, experience, suggestions on this?

'I guess my only criticism of Mr. Souders so far is that his attitude seems to suck, with a prevalent vibe of superiority.'