Can beginners learn BJJ without drilling? (Ecological approach)
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- Опубліковано 20 тра 2024
- Drilling is the status quo in jiu jitsu, but is it possible to learn and even become good without actually drilling any techniques? I investigated a class at a gym that teaches beginners and experts alike with the Constraints-Led Approach, a coaching methodology that's growing in popularity based on the well-studied theory of ecological dynamics.
Join me as we dive deep on what it actually means to drill, whether beginners need to learn "fundamental techniques", if this puts them at risk for creating bad habits, and what this approach actually looks like in practice.
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This visit to Bodega Jiu Jitsu, co-owned by black belt instructor Kyvann Gonzalez, comes at the tail-end of a recent trip I took across the country to Maryland to train at Standard Jiu Jitsu under Greg Souders (the coach of recent -66kg ADCC West Coast Trials winner Deandre Corbe), all with the intent of trying to find the best way to learn jiu jitsu after quitting my gym and getting injured in competition.
Videos mentioned:
- • The Mounted Arm-Lock: ...
- • Greg Souders is the Mo...
- • I Went To The Jiu Jits...
- • How to teach BJJ witho...
Interview with Lex Friedman and John Danaher:
- • How much drilling does...
Recommended books on ecological dynamics:
- Constraints-Led Approach by Ian Renshaw et al
- How We Learn to Move by Rob Gray
- Learning to Optimize Movement by Rob Gray
ALL MY DISCOUNT CODES & LINKS👇
linktr.ee/joshbeambjj
Huge thanks to everyone involved in this video, in no particular order:
- Kyvann Gonzalez (co-owner Bodega Jiu Jitsu)
- Chas Makk (co-owner Bodega Jiu Jitsu)
- Greg Souders (owner Standard Jiu Jitsu)
- Denney Choi (owner Baem Jiu Jitsu)
- Kit Dale
- Chris Hendrix
- Greg Sirico
- Nate Cho
- Joshua Richards
- Tyler Spangler
- Craig Hutchison
- Austin Cook
- Danny Maira
- Nick Salles
- Noah Shaffner
- Al Lagura
- Randy Santamaria
- All the coaches and students who participated in filming
#bjj #jiujitsu #bjjmotivation #brazilianjiujitsu #ecologicalapproach - Спорт
What do you wanna see next about the ecological approach? Drop a comment below!
Thanks for watching, and thanks so much Kyvann and Bodega Jiu Jitsu, and everyone else who made this video possible!
I’d like to hear you compare Dale’s task games to eco dynamics. I used to strongly disagree with Dale’s ”don’t drill approach”. (I don’t see drilling as no resistance, but now I see a difference in drilling and eco games. For me the difference is in the goal and instruction. Both might look the same, but intention is different. In drilling you are trying to replicate a technique and in eco you have a task that you can do the best way you can.)
More on how to create drills/games to help your own training would be great :) thanks Josh
I’d love to see how lower belts can use this to teach themselves and teach others when they do not have access to a school that uses an ecodynamics / constraints led approach.
SlimeMold grappling club and others are run by white belts who’ve embraced CLA. SlimeMold Grappling has beginner students training one-another, without instructors and they have become capable students.
I’d like to see their classes and progress documented.
Building games around Leglocks I know you have a video with Greg where you get critiques on how to make your own. What I still don’t understand is how everyone is breaking everything down to such the most simplest way for skill development.
Black belt coach chiming in. If anything, I think eco/CLA is most beneficial to beginners. I’ve been incorporating a lot more of it the past 9 months, and beginners are way less frustrated, and white and blue belts and beginner to intermediate grapplers are progressing much faster. I do still think drilling has some benefits, but they are often overstated, and I think specific technical details are actually better for more advanced students. I don’t think drilling is super helpful for building competency among newer folks…and definitely not compared to live work with specific goals and constraints.
I know there's a large group of folks that is for 100% ECO but i relate to your perspective the most. Things can change but as we're both still just experimenting and exploring the methodology, whatever we can justify to start implementing more CLA in class will be a win.
In the future if we were to be full on purists, regardless, our students benefitted from adding more live resistance training and I think that's the main part more coaches need to hear. We don't have to do everything right or go 100% into ECO theory to be able to benefit from the practice of games focused training
I absolutely agree!
As a beginner I think drills, to exemplify what the goal looks like, and to teach common terminology are definitely helpful. But something like what Danaher does where resistance is progressed and the scenario is constrained along with free form task focused rounds like in the video would be a great way for anyone to learn.
Josh is becoming my favorite Video essay channel right now! Keep crushing it brother!
You rock bro, thanks! Glad you’re liking them
Interview soon?
I teach beginners this way and have done for some time. It not only works, it allows you to teach the “dangerous” elements of Jiu Jitsu safely.
Another great video Josh! Love it
Big takeaways for other coaches interested:
- if it doesn’t all make sense, it doesn’t need to. It doesn’t have to be 100% eco, if it means dabbling in games, so be it. I think a lot of coaches don’t want to mess it up, so they don’t want to try. That was me. Start thinking about the skills necessary to do certain things and build and run the game. Read the students, iterate the game, redeploy
- josh highlighted something that’s an immediate change, the sheer volume of live sparring (with constraints) shoots up multiple times per class. The resistance training volume increase is the biggest improvement to what I was doing before
- not only that, the time students get in specific scenarios sky rocket. How many times have we taught, say, back take and controls, to then see positional sparring to devolve into something completely different than our intention of that sparring. By constraining even further and giving clear task focus, you can give your students the opportunity to be in desired positions much much longer
- don’t worry about all the terms, just think of games as replacement to drilling for now. Get everyone on board with the skill we’re working on, put them there, tell them what they need to focus on, then turn on the timer
Regardless if you want to completely understand what ECO is, I’d say look into the basics of designing games. Be ok with making mistakes knowing you’ll get to correct the games. And also, we’ll get a lot of rounds per class so have a few games ready, add rounds, modify a constraint or add a variable. Move some levers around and give it a shot.
I’ve received a lot of good feedback from my students as a result
Very well put and resonated with me a lot! At first I was afraid that I would design bad games or that they don't make any sense but now I've just embraced it, while simultaneously trying to educate myself by reading books, listening podcasts and watching videos, and I'm not afraid to fail, stop the clock, correct the task focus or game parameters and let the work continue from there if (and usually when) I spot some mistake I made in practice design. Usually it is something to do with "gamifying the game" which does make the game less representative. I follow Greg's reinforcement, that he has given in some of his podcasts, that anything that is done with live resistance is better than traditional way of sensei showing techniques and static drilling them with complying uke.
@@mulkosilma Yes, my exact feeling too. Researching did help a ton but going in there and making it happen accelerated my ability to do what I wanted to do. I definitely think the more we read and research the better, but actually designing and implementing games was the biggest driver here.
I agree with students gamifying the games. Clear communication and game design helps but pointing to the intention of the game is big too. The biggest thing is that it's a lot of time not about winning but exploring and building the skill. Which is another major shift from what we were doing before. It relieves a lot of pressure for the students allowing them to be creative in pursuit of completing the task.
It's been fun
I think the constraints-led approach is actually even better for beginners, because you allow the newbie creativity while helping them focus only on the most important information, i.e. a specific goal from the position they're in. Doesn't really matter exactly how they accomplish the goal, it actually helps for them to have a simple narrow goal (the invariants) which doesn't make them have to do a specific movement solution and try to remember the top 25 details to a backtake.
💯
As a beginner, I’m picking up skills pretty fast and learning rapidly. The only time I really struggle is when someone tries to drill a specific "technique" into me. It just gets overwhelming, stressful and my brain practically hits a brick wall. But when I work with task-based constraints, everything changes. My brain kicks into high gear and my confidence skyrockets. It baffles me that there's any criticism of this method. I’ve even heard from a Prof, "You shouldn’t rush to get belts!" It’s not about chasing belts for me. It’s about learning efficiently and really grasping the skills, and it happens to come quicker in this method. Some folks just don’t seem to grasp that.
100% agree. I'm still in beginner land too as a blue belt, and I experience the same thing you're talking about when I work with task-based games like this. Gives me the freedom to explore the space and find the things that work for me.
Thanks for watching!
@@joshbeambjj Keep them coming please!!
An artificial roadblock and limitation. It has nothing to do with the belts. Coaches should strive to make people better as rapidly as possible. Belt promotions are often arbitrary anyhow.
@@KodiakCombat Couldn't agree more.
I never understood the race to being promoted
Great work putting together this video. Very well done!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Really great production quality, I'll be sharing this with everyone who's been looking at me crazy for talking about 'not drilling.'
Appreciate that! Thanks for watching.
Great video on the subject Josh. Thanks
I absolutely love this series you’ve been exploring. I’m trying this method of training myself and it’s so so helpful listening to other people who are more attune with the eco approach. Keep up the great work!
Glad you enjoy it! Thank you!
I guess the term games is easier to say than situational sparring with parameters. This kind of stuff works wonders with kids. Sometimes kids get lost in details but this allows them to use their imagination and the outcome is great.
Another thing I like about the term is that I remind my students to explore and be creative. The only thing to follow is the task focus and goal conditions. So I say, "it's a game so explore and have fun with it." This helps break the idea that it's all about winning. Especially since a number of the games we'll work is designed specifically to fail over and over. I go into saying we're building skills, we're not focused on winning which is a departure from my concept of "positional sparring"
I've been exclusively using this for just over a year now. I will not go back to the traditional method. The growth in my students who apply themselves, is incredible. The guys who come up the ranks through traditional approach are still struggling to let go of their cool moves and their gentleman's agreements. (the "code of conduct" about set counters to these moves.
A fantastic video, I will be showing this to my members.
Excellent! Thanks for watching.
Once again, awesome content.
Thanks again!
Your videos are gold, dude. This is going to be my new go to vid for introducing people to eco training. Maybe I can convince my coach 🙏
Love it! Thanks for watching.
The best bjj UA-cam channel! 🙌🏼
this is good stuff. thanks for sharing
Great work Josh! Keep em coming Bro :)
Thanks man! Glad to hear you enjoyed it 🙏
Black belt here. This is a great video and a very interesting approach. Im going to integrate it into our program. At the very least it is fun and entertaining and probably a safer option to get new students "rolling" without a free roll and the dangers that come with 2 new students in a free roll. One thing I dont quite understand in the video is why is it an all or nothing approach? I will integrate this as I said but getting together with friends/students and discussing details and drilling together is an excellent way to learn and it is valuable esp to new students to teach mechanics of how and why certain techniques work. But as an augment to a program that includes instruction and drilling, this approach seems very valuable and fun!
Great video!
Dude such a good video man. Sharing this with all the coaches I know haha
Great to hear, thanks for watching!
This was an awesome video, thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
@@joshbeambjj You are making us all look good by making high quality well thought out content in this space.
excellent production gents
Thanks for watching!
Excellent video Josh! Keep up the good work.
I like the focus on pedagogy in BJJ. From my experience it seems that most coaches don't invest a lot of time in developing a good pedagogy strategy and end up getting lazy by utilising "drilling". Although drilling has it's value in certain scenarios (learning something completely new or brainstorming ideas) it is definitely overused compared to non-linear, constrain-led and game based approach caching.
I be getting better just watching these videos.
In my opinion standing on these 2 methods of learning is important. Linear and nonlinear pedagogy can't be separated, just have their own time and place to do it ☯️.
For me Nonlinear Pedagogy is very good method in the class with no specific goals or like "recreational" BJJ classes to keep us stay sharp in techniques but still healthy enter and out the mat. While Linear Pedagogy is important in achieving goals like Competition.
Can you elaborate on the use of linear pedagogy for competition?
Doing the LORDS WORK! Keep it up!
Will do! Thanks for watching!
nice work!
Thanks!
Fantastic video Josh! I've been diving head long into this approach for over a month now partly because of your videos.
I had felt that positional sparring was the most beneficial portion of BJJ for a few years now and is the main thing I credit as getting myself from blue to brown. I've tried positional sparring with newer students and had seen some results but was always frustrated by how little of the daily techniques ended up showing up in the sparring.
I believe it was said in a previous video but I believe the main difference between newer and more advanced students should be how much you constrain the games, with newer being more constrained and advanced being less constrained.
Great to hear, thanks for watching! Yeah you can just adapt the constraints and change up the games depending on the room.
Nick and Danny are the best
Good video mate. I ve implementing CLA in my school since we opened in January. Def the class are much funnier and they work harder. I can see my student learn quicker how to play the whole game of BJJ. But I still think if someone puts a lot effort to learn bjj that person is gonna be good doing IP or CLA class. On this video you mention Noah, he is been training over 3y, he is super dedicated, even if he was training at ATOS, AOJ, MGA, he would be super good, bec he puts time and effort to learn.
Thanks for watching! Yeah it's always gonna come down to the individual athlete, I think. There's so much to be said for athletes who are just dedicated and work hard. They'll figure out a way.
I think a good example of this is with wrestling practice, you will spend countless hours working from specific positions with full resistance along with a full rounds.
My gym has slowly gone from a technique based style to ecological and I much prefer it. I got my blue belt in a different gym and we drilled all the time. Armbars from guard, triangles, all sorts of "guard passes" 20 times each side. Never thought it really helped me.
Switched gyms and they started to incorporate this. It's so much better and you never get cold after your warm up. You are literally working and thinking all the time.
I do think there can still be a time for drilling complex movement patterns but most of the training should be games imo.
I believe in ecological approach. In my experience, exploration with a specific goal has lead me to discover movements that allow me to obtain that goal.
In Judo and wrestling for kids, you always have « games » like this. However, as they grow up, they need drilling (or uchi Komi) a lot to sharpen there techniques and there systematic approach. A combination of game, core curriculum techniques, speed, agility and strength drills, situation sparrings and so on are always good
You sure about that?
I've been curious about judo (I just started a few months ago), and I've heard this mentioned a few times to me about kids playing games in judo. Can you give an example of a game the kids might play?
Yes, I’m a French judo and bjj professor. I don’t know how they call it worldwide, but games like « le puit » to teach how to move and footsweeping..
How are momentum-based techniques learned using CLA? Specifically, techniques like the Bolo and truck. I'm also curious about judo with the timing, momentum, specific grips, and kuzushi. How would one self-organize safely? The grips aren't invariants, but they can't be just anywhere, right?
CLA isn't a way to try to learn specific techniques. You present certain constraints and problems to students, and behaviors emerge (which could very well resemble a bolo, or a truck, or whatever).
I did not know that drilling means ”no resistance” that opponent has to be a grappling dummy.
Drilling means a lot of things to many people across sports. In wrestling drilling and live resistance was normal. In bjj, drilling means no resistance repeating of moves so I think it just implied but to your point, the biggest thing is repeating moves with no resistance is what is on the chopping block here. Many folks hold that in high esteem but that’s the purpose of this video. Showing how this method can work for students across skill/exp ranges
@@denneychoi We did none resistance drilling as a white belt but also situational sparring with small tasks. Like trying to get a triangle from close guard and it was called drilling. So not all bjj drilling is ”dead reps”. BUT I think the meat is in the intention of the task. Trying to copy a technique vs doing your own stuff.
@@LeinonenHannu I think this is a great example of how the word drilling can interpreted differently across regions as well. Drilling is pretty flimsy as a term. Dead reps also isn't a term I've heard in my years of training jiujitsu but I do feel it's a better description
Shout out to Jersey!
Looking for advice. When someone is having trouble completing the task in a game, do you show them techniques in the traditional sense and let them rep it a few times before employing it in the games?
No, the point here is that the athlete self-organizes to find the optimal movement solution for the task, and doesn’t try to replicate specific movement solutions. If someone is having trouble accomplishing a task, then one method you can try is to limit the variability in the task.
What are some gyms in the socal area that are using this ecological approach?
Not sure, but I know Kit Dale uses a similar approach which he has a course for called “Task-Based Games”, and he teaches a class at Renzo Gracie Los Angeles I think.
Great video brother! My one question for these coaches would be why not both? Why not drill certain scenarios and then go into the games of the ecological approach? Looks like everyone is either strongly for or against this, seems like there is positives to both sides
Thanks man! I think the general idea of going in a sequence of drilling to games is that as students, we begin trying to replicate ("spam") the techniques we were just practicing, instead of recognizing which affordances we actually have during the situations. It kinda defeats the purpose.
@@joshbeambjj I can see that, but then how about the reverse. Practicing the games and then drilling common techniques
@jaylenescoto in reverse yeah you wouldn’t then encounter than specific downside of drilling before doing the games, but this still begs the question of whether static drilling is useful at all (and I’m becoming more and more convinced that it’s not). My current view is that it’s a way more efficient use of training time to just use these constraints-based games.
Short answer: yes.
If you’re gonna drill, go slow and methodical because that’s the most likely pace you’ll be at anyway when you’re sparring against a real opponent. It’s a battle for dominate pins and ever submission attempt is a slow war.
17:12 define your terms. What is a bad behavior? Teaching your body? Is this a muscle memory thing? Every single rep will be different. You build a pyramid. No sub, get nine optimal habits and three sub optimal. Add arm extensions but no finish. The three sub optimal habits get punished and fade and the optimal habits get reinforced. It is like a filter. Each layer gets a finer screen to catch garbage. But if you did the super fine screen first the flow would stop completely
To the “bad habits” piece, I wonder if it would be helpful labeling (when appropriate) who the primary focus student is vs the secondary or “helper” student is. That way, secondary player knows that the game or exercise is not for them-and they can take the instruction with a grain of salt.
It takes long enough to build good habits, so I’m not worried about bad behavior emerging and sticking. Also, as the students play these games and understand the game and the objectives in each sub position, their “mat/game IQ” increases, and possibly overrides any “bad” emergent behaviors over time.
Good point. I mean even though for the "helper" student, there are still skills being learned and areas being explored. Maybe the clarity just needs to come from pointing out who's trying to learn what, or something like that (which is basically what you're getting at, I think).
I remember back in the day. When Kit Dale was coming on to the scene, he would talk about the bad habits you program into yourself when acting as the uki in an environment where you "let" your partner perform a movement artificially. You are drilling into yourself the incorrect thing to do over and over while your partner does the correct thing. Then we flip-flop the scenario. Super inefficient and ineffective. This may be a good counterargument to those who say we are creating bad habits by implementing cla.
At 10th Planet Fredericksburg, we incorporate eco drilling into our training, and it seems like beginners are grasping jiu-jitsu concepts faster compared to another gym where we don't use eco drilling. Despite spending more time on the mat, those at the other gym are progressing slower.
Interesting! Are there any specific concepts that come to mind that you see them picking up on more quickly? Or just in general?
And thanks for watching!
So does Caio Terra not teach jiu jitsu good enough?
What makes you ask that?
Maybe I’m limited by Judo and Sambo being only taught though drilling and I’ve been doing that my whole life but now that I’m a coach I want to find a way to test this in my sport of Sambo but I’m stumped. Only thing I can think of for getting hip throws to emerge would be to set the tasks of control your opponent and attach them to your back while getting one side of your hips past your opponents hips in the direction you are turning.
You’re mostly on the right track. Think of each skill that’s needed and design a constraints focused drill or game that builds each skill. At the end, start throwing away constrains and the added variables will look more and more like a “normal spar.”
The biggest thing about building these games is it doesn’t have to be “perfect.” You design and run the game. You read the students and iterate as you go along. You don’t need to be ready to start experimenting.
Greg says, “just experiment and get dirty” and that’s something I’ve held onto as I implement this at my school
You could possibly say get control of your opponent and try to get your hips lower than your opponents and load their weight onto your hip. The win condition be achieving loading their opponents weight on their hip which would put them in a position to do the hip throw. Then you could do another game where you start in the position the last game ended in and give them the task of trying to throw their opponent. I still don't quite grasp the approach yet so I could be applying it incorrectly but just an idea I hope it helps
Why do you want hip throws to emerge in the first place? Does it have some special value in sambo performance environment or is it just another way of getting opponent to the ground?
you might find this paper on Non-Linear-Pedagogies for Judo to be useful jyx.jyu.fi/bitstream/handle/123456789/69018/1/URN%3ANBN%3Afi%3Ajyu-202005183272.pdf
@@mulkosilma they are probably the highest percentage scoring techniques. Many wrestling techniques score 1 or two points but something like a O-goshi is more likely to throw for 4pts.
This just looks like drilling to me. The "ducks and drags game" is just drilling ducks and drags against resistance.
How do you define drilling?
Drills can be a mot of stuff . A lot of people bashing drilling juat do it to grift
On the bad habits thing, I think there is room for designing in a way that can limit “bad habits” but it’s generally unavoidable when targeting specific skills.
My coaches and I believe that if the ROI on building a certain skill is in net, greater than the risk of “building” a bad habit, then the practice is good. Avoiding practices that have these hiccups, generally isn’t practical.
My example is hill sprints for boxing. We wouldn’t point to how, learning sprinting form or how sprinting up a hill isnt conducive or transferable to the ring thus we shouldn’t do this. It’s inherent that training other ways unlocks greater ROI on certain aspects that do definitely transfer over. Like in this case overall athletic capacity. So within jiujitsu context, working back defense and hook preventions without the variable of submissions is a worthy game as the skills being focused has a bigger net positive than if the variables are introduced. We can also train same game with added variable of subs so it’s not like it’s one or the other.
Interesting way to think about it!
I built so many bad habits learning to walk as a toddler because my parents were horrible at teaching me how to walk. They should have had me walking perfectly from the get go. Stupid parents. /s
My son's gym doesn't drill for kids
NO
just like you cant learn, it on your own
in theory you can learn bjj by yourself from a book
in theory you can do bjj with out wresteling
You’re describing the concept of “knowledge about” vs. “knowledge of”. You can learn all the knowledge about jiu jitsu from videos and books that you want, but that doesn’t mean you have knowledge of how to actually do it. That’s one of the main areas the constraints-led approach is meant to address - developing actual skill.
This is such a dumb buzz word. Rename positional sparring to games and wow a whole new system. Everyone has been doing this for decades. People have already spent hours and days in these positions refining techniques. Let's just ignore all of that so each white belt can figure it out on their own. Great way to advance a sport.
how do you define positional sparring?
@@joshbeambjj can be any position restricted to any level. This is extremely common. Gordon and Danaher talk about this alot. Every gym I've ever been to has different "games" depending on what the coach feels like teaching. I personally teach technique and then integrate it into "games". Taking it to an extreme where you are never supposed to teach technique specifics is just silly.
@imloggedin what are your intended outcomes from the positional rounds? (As in, how do players win?)
@@joshbeambjj totally depends on the technique being taught. This is totally normal. I don't get why to even ask this. It's not like every school follows the same curriculum for positional sparring. Even 8+ years ago coaches were doing various rule based positional sparring.
Dead-drilling is at the far left of the learning spectrum Vs. rolling, which is at the other end of the spectrum. It’s far-transfer Vs. Near transfer.
Positional sparring is much closer to rolling, which makes it much better if skill acquisition is what you are looking for.
A Constraints Led Approach is between drilling against a minimally resisting opponent and situational sparring.
The reason it is so effective is because you get to spend more time working on exactly what you’re wanting to accomplish, or like body building, the motor learning equivalent of time under tension.
This will take new students from zero to 60 much faster than “traditional coaching” does and as you get much more advanced, you’ll spend much less time learning with a CLA game and much more time in situational sparring.
You’ll revert from situational sparring back to a CLA when you’re struggling to overcome an obstacle you can’t quite figure out in the sparring session.
So while it is quite similar to situational sparring, it’s more constrained.
I think someone above observed that it is like situational sparring, it within parameters. That’s a good observation.
One final note: if you personally trained this way your entire life and you called it situational sparring, that’s not what the vast majority of coaches would call “typical” situational sparring, so the new language can be helpful distinguishing the difference. It’s also helpful to understand the science of motor learning. If you’re interested Josh Peacock of the combat learning podcast is a great place to start.
Eco sucks guys keep training the old way so we can beat you in comps. 🎉🎉
why does eco suck?
@@joshbeambjj I was being sarcastic Joshbeam
What are fundamental techniques? It is a useless term. The fundamentals of a kimura are very similar to a heel hook.
Drilling makes you worse sometimes