James that's not exactly how it works - the thing is brain will "invent" those concepts if you want it or not.

Anyway, another factor is that there is some interesting performance anxiety research out there that while verbalized concepts and descriptions can enhance learning, skills learned this way (as opposed to just "doing") deteriorate more under (perceived or real) pressure.

There are people who have trained jiu-jitsu for 6 months to a year and are still way to easy to sweep. They don't understand the basic concepts of balance.
Posture, Posts and Weight distribution. I can easily get a grip control their posture, then control their posts on one side and just kick out their weight on the same side and sweep them.

On the other hand their are people who have never done jiu jitsu before I showed them just the basics of balance and sweeps and within 2 days they are harder for me to sweep than some people who have trained jiu jitsu for 1 to 2 years.

The brain just doesn't magically teach you concepts. You have to try to figure them out and seek them. After 2+ years yea sure they should finally figure it out. But 2 years or 2 days? I think 2 days is better.

It is still very common for me to roll with people who have even trained over 2 years and they are still thinking of techniques when doing sweeps and when trying to defend being swept. They are thinking They need to grab this grip and this arm and do this to this leg or put their head wherever without ever thinking "why?" they are doing any of those things or "when" or how? And as soon as I get them to stop thinking step 1 2 and 3 and more of Posture, post, weight distribution they magically get better and stop moving in what is slow motion basically. When in their brain they are thinking they need to grab this and that and then do this in that they are processing the information slower, their is a delay in their reaction time, as soon as they start thinking, posture, post, weight, they are able to do the exact same things faster and also improvise and create options.

It's important that someone understand not just "what" they are doing the actual technique. But also why, when and how.
Once you understand why...then you can figure out how...then you can figure out when. Just giving someone the technique doesn't teach them all that. Sure they can experiment for years and try to figure all that out and still not really knowing the why...that just handicaps them and stunts their ability to learn and adapt and get better at jiu-jitsu faster. If you want to get better at jiu-jitsu faster you have to learn to ask questions. And the first questions is always why? Not what? And you can teach the what over and over all you want. But if they don't understand why...they are going to have a hard time understanding the how and the when which is all part of the strategy.

Please tell me more.

Well, we know that if you just train A LOT (if you do spar/play), given you are somewhat talented, you are going to end up pretty darn good still over the years. Boosted if you add the little thing of different intensities of sparring. Not very sophisticated.

E.g. Marcelo and Faria (and many others) achieved their main results from gyms and in time when/where average methodology was still totally sub-par given the knowledge about sport pedagogy/learning available at that time in more mainstream sports.

So you can get good with just techniques + play.

Anyway. To your question Francesco:

The original research was done with golf putting and later there were some other sports study designs.

When learning new skill by just doing (knowing the end result which in golf is hit the ball so it goes into the hole) OR being explicitly taught with language e.g. what limbs should do what, after certain time the performance level ended up the same.

However when pressure was put on the performers (in studies it's usually being filmed &/ told their being rated by experts &/ competing for additional reward e.g. more money for participation) then the performance of the group that was explicitly taught, their performance deteriorates MORE compared to the group that learned only by doing. The hypotheses is that if you have learned to think and observe, you get the tendency to overthink under pressure.

Now THIS is interesting.

James we need a common map here or we are going nowhere. Also if we don't use proper terms, a post like this one becomes just... words.

None of the things you refer to here, are concepts, more like skills and heuristics if not techniques.

But Francesco, somebody could argue, who do you think you are to define what a concept is, a black belt doesn't give you that right. True! So I stick to common dictionary definition, which makes neither balance or posts or posture, concepts. The more we understand what something is, the better we can figure out how to train it.

Lots of definitions and ways to describe what a concept is.

"an idea or mental picture of a group or class of objects formed by combining all their aspects" is most likely the best one.

The example of balance and combining posture, posts, weight distribution is just an example of what a concept is.

That is all. There are lots of examples. Was just providing a single simple example.

concepts > techniques

HOWEVER you cannot teach absolute beginners much conceptual stuff...

its like pure condensed bjj enlightenment
the fragile whitebelt mind cannot handle it

you gotta give them small chunks and keep it simple
once they are advanced you can start to bombard them with knowledge