The Everyday Jiu Jitsu Podcast Ep 25: Situational Sparring With Constraints Feat. Greg Souders
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- Опубліковано 26 вер 2023
- This week I catch up with Jiu Jitsu savant and ecological approach advocate Greg Souders of Standard Jiu Jitsu. We discuss corrections from a previous episode, eco vs techniques (of course), conspiracy theories, and so much more. Personally, I learned a ton from this conversation with one of the most followed coaches in the game today. I hope you like 3-hours episodes; enjoy the show!
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Chapters:
00:26 Intro
1:25 Greg addresses the previous episode
3:28 Redefining contextual interference: repetition without repetition
8:18 Analyzing armbars with the ecological approach
28:13 Techniques?
46:14 Situational sparring with constraints
53:22 Repeating mistakes
59:39 Solo drills
1:22:08 Questions from listeners
1:24:02 False positives
1:25:47 Greg’s Corner advice
1:28:54 What can improve decision-making in competition
1:32:13 Metastability
1:33:40 Self-organization
1:35:20 Transitioning no gi to gi
1:41:01 John Danaher
1:53:20 Differential learning
2:10:48 Greg corrects Matt
2:20:25 Comp class
2:30:56 Gi is boring
2:32:54 Politics
2:37:06 Conspiracy theories
2:39:36 Now I am the master
2:54:06 Free speech
3:06:04 Outro - Спорт
Why nobody ask Greg about invariants? I think this one of the most interesting concept in eco. How many invariant are in jiu jitsu and what they are? Maybe once this topic is fully understand the idea of creating tasks and games will be more clear
YES 🙌
For real, this is what I want to know!
Agreed. Why is everyone agreeing with him on a level but not trying to further understand how to implement this into the training. I listened to a couple of podcasts now and they are all the same. I would like to have a discussion how to implement and how to build games, what are the invariants? etc
I'm a simple man. I see Greg Souders and I click.
Likewise lol
Agreed 😂
If you “teach” strictly with techniques to white-blue belts, what ends up happening is the student activates that part of their brain where now they are hell-bent to memorize details to the sequence. They’ll do this when they drill. And then when it comes to rolling or competing, their performance just becomes a high-intensity recital of those moves. If the sequence breaks down, then they move to reciting another sequence they memorized. It’s just a recital.
I believe what Greg’s approach is doing is empowering the student to become a problem solver. The student is allowed to come into their own using their own critical thinking skills and uniqueness. They’re given a puzzle + limited number of tasks within a controlled environment (via games and constraints) that are way more manageable than trying to memorize a 15-step sequence that you would see in traditional instruction.
I don’t think it means you leave the student alone to figure it all out on their own and never show them a known solution to a problem (aka “techniques”).
But it’s like when you give someone a riddle or a puzzle to solve, they’re way more driven to solve it vs when you just straight up give them the answer. They’ll likely remember the “lesson” more if they had a crack at the problem first.
The games give them an opportunity to fail fast and fail often.
this is what I've been doing. I've been really interested in this topic for a while now. I think even the progression of moving Jiujitsu classes to where they feel more like a 'practice' than a class is a great step in the right direction. I try to make sure that people in my classes have some dedicated time to work live with some constraints thrown in, and specific goals laid out. I can't say I've let go of teaching technique entirely, but the feedback has been good (if nothing else) people enjoy being able to train live more for more of the actual class, and people are getting better faster. There are still students that desperately want to be shown specific techniques, or movement solutions; I still spend a little time on that, but I make sure to state every single class than any details I show are good options that can work, but that anything that gets the job done is good. And I try to focus on encouraging with language about exploring/discovering/etc.
I think any coach would benefit from bringing more eco-style practice methods into whatever they currently do. It's just not in my nature to turn someone away if they're asking me some specific things I like to do to separate the hands on an armbar, for example, even if that should never take precedence over them getting to just work from the position with good directions on where to focus their attention and intention.
Edit: It might well be more effective for skill acquisition to just do eco and stay away from technique entirely, but I'm not in a position to do that at the moment, and I don't think it's a huge crime to still show some explicit movements. I'm a huge fan of Greg and I love what he's doing for the sport.
Yea my instructor does this with us. Shows us moves or concept of a certain position. Then gives us a mini game going around 60 percent and tells us to “play around with it”
I’m at about the 45 min mark, listening to Matt try to ask Greg why a mix of instruction and self organization isn’t better than pure self organization, and I can’t help but come to the comments to try to explain differently what I understand Greg is saying. Maybe this will help, maybe it won’t.
But here’s the thing:
If ecological dynamics is real, then what happens during the “showing of the technique” isn’t what we think it is.
What we THINK is happening is that we are demonstrating something, and our students will go try to replicate what they saw.
But what ecology is saying is that, in demonstrating techniques, what is REALLY happening is that we are showing people where to put their attention, and what to try to accomplish when they get there.
The problem is, when you are teaching by demonstration, you are doing two things:
1 - you’re giving the students a lot to parse thru, in order to figure out what they should be focusing on and doing when they get there. Compare Matt’s earlier example of telling a student to break the grip by falling back on an angle instead of straight back… because he was focused on describing all of the body mechanics involved, it was a very long explanation compared to Greg’s: from this position, keep your partner down and separate the hands. Matt gave way more things for the student to pay attention to, and this, it is much harder for them to actually put attention and intention on all those things.
But in both cases, what is actually happening isn’t that the student is learning “lean this way” or “lean that way”. They’re learning, “in this situation, this type of movement creates this type of effect.”
This is why, as I’m sure everyone would agree, you can’t just give instruction and then voila the student can do the thing live. It’s not the instruction that is doing the work of teaching … it’s the experiencing of the situation that actually creates the learning. The instruction can help with that IF it is focused on invariants that will always be true, and especially if those invariants are describing what you’re doing to the opponent’s body (and not what you’re doing with yours).
So by “mixing the two” you are actually giving your students un-useful information, which seems like it helps not because the information itself is useful, but because it drew their attention to an invariant.
Then the second reason is related to this: when we instruct, we by definition take away from time that could be doing live work.
So the problems are, Matt, that what you think is happening when you give that more instructional approach … isn’t actually working for the reasons you think it is. It’s working in spite of it - you’re making it more complicated for them, rather than simpler, to know where to focus their attention and intention.
It’s counterintuitive, I know … but if the body works the way that these scientists say it does, the instruction itself was never what worked. Only the person experiencing the effects that their perception of the environment (which was honed by the direction of “focus here and try to do this”, to a greater degree or a lesser one)
Describing the “technique” works not because it’s efficient. It works even though it’s inefficient.
Ha!I should have just waited an hour - Greg says exactly this!
Woah
I'm not at this part of the episode yet, but I dig this explanation a lot!
I love you, whoever you are. Thank you for listening. Truly. @MNIBreanne
Honesty is something rare on these days. If the perception is correct, those who have it get hated. The only thing I know is that I'm flying out to Maryland next year for a visit. Thank you for one more podcast with Greg.
At this point it's just better if Greg productizes his knowledge. We have world class coaches who teach the traditional way, but we don't grasp exactly how Greg implements this ecological approach for Jiu-Jitsu. Despite all of these podcasts etc. it's clear no one fully understands the approach.
Agreed, even a instructional for beginners would be great tbh
Greg, "Gravity is a real thing. Scientist have proved this."
Matt, "But did they test it with jiu-jitsu?"
But where’s the proof
Dude i'm punching the air listening you ask greg "but there's no studies done in jiu jitsu" like jiu jitsu is something special.
Sounds like a guy from my gym that said he was immune to covid because this sport was so tough that it makes your immune system stronger
This was really enjoyable to watch
Great job guys, super inspiring !
Man, I was totally on the ecological hype train 3 months ago, but I've run into so many instances in which explicit instruction/details/concepts/"invariants", what have you, have lead to huge level ups in my game I just can't get on board with Souders' refusal to admit that anything other than constraints led approach with live resistance can lead to skill acquisition. 1:11:13 is a great example of how explicit instruction lead to improvement (I can think of many similar examples that have improved my game), but instead of conceding that maybe there is more than one way to learn Souders' just over-intellectualizes and obfuscates in his answer and says that actually what happened is ecological (or at least I think he did, but who can actually really follow him talking around in circles).
Does the standard BJJ class format need a complete overhaul and would most practitioners benefit from making specific sparring or games the majority of their training? Absolutely, but Souders' inflexibility comes across as this rigid philosophy that says you can only learn jiu jitsu on the mats with a fully resisting opponent.
I think Kabir Bath on the Elbows Tight podcast did a much better job advocating for the ecological approach with a more down to earth, digestible message.
He does not say that anything other than constraints led approach can lead or not lead to skill acquisition, he says its more efficient and it makes the learner directly practice learning itself which is problem solving, good problem solvers make the best grapplers, move spammers will only get so far. Good luck.
there are definitely some cases over the years where I was explicitly shown something that I don't know if I ever would have intuited on my own. I'm a black belt, but I picked up jiujitsu incredibly slowly up until purple belt. That took the better part of 10 years for me to get from white to purple. There have been little details that have totally changed my game for the better. And there have been other times where I've learned much better when I was given goals and allowed to just work the problem. I don't think there's a huge problem with having a bit of both. I understand that the science may say that eco is objectively better, but anything is better than the traditional class format of 'let's do calisthenics, then follow these 10 steps for this armbar, and do it exactly like this a ton of times before we roll tonight." More specific training, games, and more live work in general is better than dead drilling all class. But I don't think it's a crime to do a little bit of technique. The high levels of other major sports still have some technical instruction. Basketball, baseball, etc. But I just wanna say that I love Greg and I think he's doing fantastic things for the sport right now! I'm a very big fan.
@@DrewDarce I largely agree and my main gripe is that he repeatedly refuses to acknowledge that little details can improve your game when any cognizant grappler can think of plenty of instances where they did. His “the science is settled” approach is very off putting and probably hindering the larger scale adoption of the ecological approach outside of a small, zealous minority composed of his lemmings.
Thank you for mentioning my conversation with Kabir!
@@DrewDarce ok but were all the things you were shown are they now and have they been vital and essential parts of your game leading to more success on the mats? And do tou use them exactly as shown, you see where im going here?
I love this interviewer.
Yes sir round 2!
from start to finish, quite a ride ;-) and very interesting
Kudos to you for keeping it together and move on with the conversation even when it seems confrontational at time. Keep it up.
For the example you give about breaking the grip at the arm-bar. I think it can fall into invariant. And it seems to be ok to give information about invariant.
From what I collect through watching video of Greg. Invariant can fall to 2 categories (there might be more, I don't know):
- Human Anatomy
- Game progession based on the known human anatomy
I thinking it's ok to show when your arm, knee.. start to break or when you start to get choked, might a lot of trial and error to find that out.
Same thing for weakening a grip. Giving the knowledge might not help them in the live situation, but do give them idea on how to solve a particular problem.
We don't want to waste time rediscover training method, why would we want to waste time rediscover human anatomy.
Greg always provides material to read but unfortunately people don’t want to put the work and read. Most of the things he talks about in the podcast are on the book “Learning to optimize Movement” by Robert Gray!
Yup! Maybe people are intimidated by the idea of having to read a book laying out scientific ideas, but Dr. Gray is an excellent communicator and makes the ideas very understandable.
Interestingly enough, it seems you or Greg didn't fully read. As Robert has said some strongly contradicting stuff to what is the narrative currently :). For example, Greg mocks/decries warmups...which Gray has his baseball athletes due to optimize their hitting ability while fatigued. Uh oh. And solo drilling, is literally by definition ecological. Which is where you know you are being sold a narrative, not science. @@nathankurtz5960
46:58 I’m with you there Matt. You teach me a juji grip break after playing a bunch of games, and after I’ve been stuck for a few classes - what’s the harm in that, and how is that less effective- and lastly, how can that be taught better through situational sparring + constraints?
Because now you are focusing on that technique and not focusing on just break the grip, through that you will discover many ways to break grips while doing so holistically and organically this trains the actual skill of self learning in this context.
@@ryanthompson3446 I'm 90% with you, and I just ran a class today funny enough on letting students go live from the armbar position with 3 goals (keep them pinned, disconnect their limb from anything it can touch, and straighten their arm as much as possible). I have almost 20 years in the game, and my experience just tells me that there are some really hard cases out there that are going to struggle with finding the most intelligent movement solutions. I know that's the job of a coach--to use the most accurate language possible combined with a true understanding of the art/sport, in order to make sure they have the best tools to self-organize around the problem. But there are still some folks out there that will almost certainly struggle with this. Is it really a big problem to throw some of these folks a bone every now and then? For example, similar to Matt's early armbar example, "Hey, one thing to keep in mind. Their arms are almost always stronger at defending armbars along the east-west plane. Think about how you can use north or south weight distribution to make their defense weaker."
as if you can't do both, genuinely this makes no sense to me@@ryanthompson3446. maybe this is for people who have done nothing but BJJ as a middle aged adult
Because it doesn’t promote movement degeneracy
Great discussion so far. Thank you for playing the part Matt. Greg literally performing miracles out here.
3h flew by 🤜🤛👌
"Never be repeated twice" is for sure hyperbolic. People do the same things lol.
I agree. I like to say traditional BJJ shows the "high school science project" version of a technique where they try to impart the most important 5-10 details of something like an armbar. Once white belts get that pattern in their head, it's now up to them to spend the rest of their jiu jitsu career adding in the extra 100+ details that allow them to adapt to the close but not quite applications.
Super intriguing! Is there a way to test that this approach works better than the current meta which is like tech->drill->positional sparring?
Sorry had to listen to the 48 minute mark again
Dr rob gray has some good books on this
What happened from 2hr 40min mark where there was a tech issue causing you guys to talk over each other?
Why aren’t people listening to Greg. He is talking about learning human biomechanic movement (he applies it to submission grappling).
He is teaching biomechanics and allowing his students to learn about THEIR biomechanics against another opponent. That’s the role of the coach.
Best Episode ! Greg is a very likeable person because he doesn't mince his words, I rather have that , then someone telling me lies just for the fact of making me feel good .I devoured the whole 3h in one sitting. Didnt liked the non bjj subject like religion , believe, conspiracy and so on. Just for feedback tho :)
the level of PATIENCE greg had on this podcast was incredible, matt straight questioning science he didn't even take the time to read it´s so frustating. congrats to greg
he was literally discussing scientific truths with his opinions and feelings hahaha
he was just asking common sense questions? science has to be questioned if not its not science
he was not asking questions he was literally arguing like a childish kid with a termper problem and also before questioning science you should AT LEAST read that science, you can´t argue something you don't know@@salsafusionstudios
he was so furious at one point greg asked him to stop reading a wrong definition and he kept reading on purpose come on man he acted like a jackass, so disrespectful
@@fran9023yeah cuz Greg is known for being super respectful 😂😂😂
Thumbnail had me thinking I was looking the Gordon Ramsey. Woulda loved to have seen Gordon vs Bourdain.
Greg a wildly intelligent dude. Matt has more patience than any human on the planet. How many times do you think Greg has been told by a loved one, ‘it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.’
43:09 Bingo!
For 100 percent that footwork pattern and moves like it help. The reality is that greg will not let anyone question the science
The ecological approach isn't just a different way to structure class. It's an entirely different way to look at jiu jitsu. Just becuase Matt is putting similar games in his class doesn't mean he's following the philosophy. Greg is saying jiu jitsu isn't a collection of moves. More so it's a collection of concepts and objectives. So for Matt to teach a move shows he's not fully following it. Which is fine I think it's better than the traditional class model. But he talk like "my way is best", without actually internalizing the way of thinking in the ecological approach.
The reason there are no moves is because the ecological approach argues we are constantly reacting to what's in front of us (our environment). To better understand this think about when you're guard passing, are you actively thinking about each time you take a step? No, your body naturally moves without any conscious control based off where you are, what your opponents doing, etc. So if I do a preplanned pass I'm now no longer reacting, I'm simply doing a preplanned order of operations.
Does Matt disagree with this view? Does he think despite this we can still show moves? And if so why? Idk it would be interesting to hear his reasoning but instead he's just like "I do this and it works. Top guys do this and it works". Which makes this video a hard watch. Watch Rob Grays "Key Principles of the Ecological Approach to Skill" video!
Can someone help me design a "game" or "games" using the eco approach that would lead kids to learning armbars from the closed guard. I've been exploring this in my program and it's been super beneficial, but I'm having a difficult time with this specific example.
Create a game where the intention is to get the elbow inside the thigh. Play a game from elbow inside thigh and work to climb to legs up to shoulder. Create game where from legs attached to shoulder, work to get both legs attached to same side shoulders and head. Create game where your goal is to keep arm isolated and partner under control. You are allowed to off balance and bring partner shoulders to floor within the armbar position. Create game finishing armbar, partner can take any defensive grip.
Super helpful, thank you so much @@brandonm5295
31:00
I think a lot of people here miss something Greg is very hesitant to talk about.
Like, sure - practising footwork for the longste[ might develop a subset of the skill necessary to use that pattern effectively in a live situation. But given the science behind the eco approach it is plausible that there is a better way to develop the effective use of that pattern.
But then again this is basically the age old debate of anecdotal experiential evidence vs the scientific method
The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ruling material relationship expressed as ideas.
Bro, people aren't doing this because they make more money having middle aged people do a Kata. In fact their whole business is based on that.
Facts, real training is harder and requires more failure and less certainty.
most definitely @@ryanthompson3446
not only that @Breeze954 but a lot of coaches frankly don't understand enough about jiujitsu to even teach any other way than just showing moves that they were taught, or moves that they've looked up. In order to build practices for people without techniques, you've got to have a much deeper understanding of the critical things that cause different positions and movements to work or fail. I think a good chunk of coaches or instructors can show a lot of moves, and they may even be good, but they may not understand the concepts that they'd need in order to build those kinds of practices for students.
I love pickles…great conversation guys keep it up
You simply cannot tell me that showing people proper ways to solve problems, in any way, inhibits there ability to solve problems in other ways.
Why? Because you randomly claim it to be so?
Many times, people get stuck trying to solve a problem only one way, the solution theyve been told is supposed to work.
This preoccupation with any particular solution takes their mind off the most important features of any situation, the invariants, and disallows them to think freely about the problem at hand.
This is why it takes most prople years to become proficient at grappling. Instead of the old dogmatic ways, let's start building problem solvers in Jiu-Jitsu from day one.
1:06:45 by this logic, I guess shadow boxing is useless and so is visualization.
its a good warm up, doesn't build skill
Visualization can help set intention, shadow boxing won’t translate to landing strikes on a fighting opponent, why is that complicated to understand?
Creates muscle memory. Improves fluidity. Does it translate 100% of the time in a real fight but it does increase my chances of performing the task via more fluid/confidence via shadow boxing. I’ve improved so much from it and my students too.
I also won worlds back in 2015 with a move I watched on UA-cam right before the match. No practice just hit it because the situation lined up.
Outliers are a thing tho
Shadow boxing is 'relatively' useless yes. Prolly as valuable as air guitar is for being a musician. Or a wanker being a porn star.
Greg Souders: “that’s a logical fallacy; you’re just appealing to authority.”
Also Greg Souders: Proceeds for the next two hours to appeal to authority.
One main problem with Greg is that he says a lot of half truths.
100%. Misrepresents the evidence and overinterprets it egregiously.
Greg discovered developmental teaching existed and took it to the most extreme interpretation then pretends like his understanding of it is the Truth. His whole schtick how "the science is settled on this" is a classic example of someone who is overconfident and misinterprets the scientific evidence. This is far from settled and Matt brought up a lot of good points which led to Greg generating a lot of subtle but always present contradictions
Greg really needs to work on his communication. He is struggling to explain the mindset shift he is talking about.
These podcasts are so incredibly frustrating to listen to, sounds like all the "dead drills" and "Kata" justification we heard from the traditional martial artists back in the 90s when they were exposed to aliveness. People have such difficulties understanding the Ecological approach because they've been brought up in cargo cult jiu jitsu taught by carnies: going through the motions without understanding the fundamental principles of grappling. So all they are left with is teaching the rote without understanding WHY it works.
Greg is not selling anything, hes simply pointing you in the direction of ecological dynamics.
...he also does not charge even a day rate for people to take a class and check it out.
If he ever sells out and becomes a culty business man, im happy to agree with you, but as of now i dont see it.
This is all just a pointless argument to me. He's just trying to be a culty business man, just like his original coach.
But Greg isn’t selling anything. He doesn’t have any products for sale. No instructionals. It doesn’t cost to visit his gym. He lets people train for extended time periods for no money, and he will talk with strangers for hours for free, and he gives away hours of consultation time for free. He runs a gym but he’s not really a business man at all.
Ecological approach works better for intermediate to advanced players. It would be terrible to tell a brand new student to just "figure it out". They'll just spaz and hurt themselves or others. You are forcing them to reinvent the wheel from scratch. It's a waste of time. Also, tell Greg to be nicer. You catch more bees with honey ❤
Not true, but have a nice day 😄❤
100% agree. Beginners need to learn fundamental positions, and techniques, as well as situational sparing.
He’s talking about fundamentals. Fundamentals of biomechanics
No you are just wrong, from day one i was working this way with my daughter at home outside of class she is the best kid at our school in 1 year dominates adults too that are close to her size, you just need to learn how to actually make games and to do it right you need to understand the ecological system actually learn it. Teach kids principles and make games around them.
Greg can be abrasive, Brandon, but I think it's a misunderstanding to state that you're just telling brand new students to "figure it out." If you're coaching them properly, you should be paying attention to them, and the mistakes they're making, and directing them towards more effective problem solving. You're still teaching them in this model. You just aren't teaching them with explicit technical details. Greg has a video of one of his beginner classes, and his super new students are looking pretty solid: ua-cam.com/video/V4QtQTRwwD0/v-deo.html I used to think that the eco model was just telling people to figure it out, but I've researched it a lot the past 6 months, and I really do think that's a misunderstanding of it.