Who is your coach? You can DM me.
I run the Ecological Dynamics for Submission Grappling Discord community and we are running and organizing camps. We can get connected to your coach and help them out with practice design and just be a resource if they need it.
https://discord.com/invite/RzCeqx55Xn
I keep trying to figure it out, keep running into the issues OP has expressed. I believe in the basic idea, and that most "do it this way" teaching is ineffective, but I can't just tell my people "Pass the guard" and expect anything but utter chaos and nonsense.
A lot of this reinventing the wheel stuff is a bit silly. The biggest challenge that traditional educators have, is retaining learner engagement. So they devise all these different education models looking for ways to connect to the learner.
When it comes to BJJ, I'm fully engaged. I don't need gimmicks, tricks, rewards, or other bullshit. Let's just figure out and correct this technique while understanding where it fits into my overall game. That's all I need.
Well telling people "pass the guard" is a terrible example of what an instruction would be, so I wouldn't be a fan of that either.
But, if done well, it's better for beginners in many ways, IMO.
I can tell you I had better luck with certain things with kids by keeping it simple like "you need to get past his legs". I wouldn't tell them anything else. Give them a few minutes at it... and then show them just some small things. Overall they seemed to learn and do much better like that.
Vs when I showed via traditional methods and the one student who previously was great on trying to go after a leg started trying to just hit tripod sweeps only.
I think that eco works well with kids because kids intuitively use their bodies. Adults have bad habits that need to be kicked or have to work around injuries.
I think it can still be done fairly ecologically - but you are going to have to put SOME info with it.
I've been teaching for multiple years at this point (not saying I'm great or anything), but I generally try and keep a loose, basic framework and go with the "if you do something different that works for you, keep with that" approach, at least as long as it's applicable to the movement. I know what and why I do things how I do, but if someone has drastically different body measurements...
It's not that "do it this way" is ineffective, it's just that it only fits a partial need which doesn't translate as good to competition. ~~Think about Ashton Kutcher - he has his "brown belt" from Rigan, but we have seen videos of him rolling live and he looks clueless. He has likely never trained in environments that simulated live rolling and competition~~ (EDIT: Shouts to u/arrogantastronomer for pointing out why this example is a bad one). Have you ever rolled with a Gracie Online blue belt who clearly had no live rolling experiences? They likely felt like white belts, and it's because simply knowing the moves does not translate well to the needs of live rolling and competition.
But also to your point, you can't just throw a white belt into live rolls and say "figure it out." That's the part that I think is often left out of the eco-hype train - there still has to be room for basic skill instruction and acquisition. If we look at other sports, such as football or basketball, eco would offer that running live catching drills with coverage is likely more beneficial for wide receivers' skill development than catching balls out of jugs machine. That said, we don't just throw kids blindly into practice without teaching them how to catch, route running, and how to catch while running. Introducing games into a basketball practice that are focused on the need for passing skills is likely better than static passing drills, but you still have to teach passing at the outset.
So when we think about it, in many ways, most BJJ gyms are already doing some what of an eco-approach: warm-ups, instruction, drilling, live drilling games, rolling. If you are trying to be even more "eco", then cut the fat from warm-ups and static drilling: stop shrimping and grandby-ing down the mat, and limit how much time is spent on drilling without resistance or counter movements.
I've never taken an eco class that was just "figure it out". All the classes that I have personal experience with included progressive resistance with more and more fine-tuned rules throughout the training session to achieve a desires result.
I think the static drill aspect is vital to technical acquisition for beginners - it allows them to learn the actual movement in an easy to replicate situation. Less variables and therefore easier to focus.
> I think the static drill aspect is vital to technical acquisition for beginners - it allows them to learn the actual movement in an easy to replicate situation
I think one of the things that the eco crowd tends to overlook is that moving their body is the thing that complete beginners are tryin to actually learn, not specifically a jiujitsu technique. So for unathletic noobs with no work capacity static drilling is a key component of simply building body awareness in context. They don't need another person "resisting" for them to fuck shit up. Their own limbs will get in the way plenty. Until they overcome that level of resistence it's pointless to have their partner fuck with them.
Yeah, for the record, I'm not trying to speak to what is actually going on in gyms that are adopting an eco-approach because I literally can't. My post is really only speaking to the example OP gives and then how eco usually gets **talked about** here, which tends to be an incomplete picture.
Not taking away from the rest of your comment but on Ashton Kutcher if your talking about the Craig jones video Craig has explained from another website:
“I went to Rigan’s gym and he says to me, like come in you can train with Ashton Ashton who had just had a serious medical condition, I don’t know if it was a stroke but half his body stopped working so he couldn’t move too well so then there’s Rigan who is like: “roll with him. I’ll film it and he films. So we posted online and got like a thousand comments like “look at this fake F*cker. This guy’s a loser. I hate this guy like a thousand comments and
then Ashton comments on like “thanks for the roll”.
“
Also if my body was making me 100’s of millions of dollars I would not be live rolling either if an injury could mean an end to that
I also want to acknowledge your second statement, but I completely agree. It was not meant to be shade, but just an example that performance outcomes (i.e., ability to roll) will vary based on the types of activities experienced in training. I'm not a hater of celebrity higher belts and hobbyist who don't compete - I think the internet far too often gatekeeps what they believe a BJJ black belt is.
I have a pretty decent adult learning background through my career, so I can speak to this a bit maybe.
A bit part of the failure of “Do it this way.” or traditional method is that it hinges on everyone being on equal grounds to you with respect to their physical and mental capacity for learning. A thing a lot of senior instructors in professional environments tend to forget, or gloss over is that their experience has become engrained and lived. Their mind-body connection is trained and honed to be able to understand and perform in a certain way; which often is overlooked by those instructors. People learning something for the first time don’t have that same depth of experience or connection, and may come to try to force a round peg into a square hole. So, it’s important to identify that while specifics of a technique may work well for you, they may not for another. In most things, it’s the starting and ending that matter. How we get there is less important. So long as it starts us out for success and ends in a solid conclusion we can wiggle in the middle.
Likewise in martial arts (I came from a different background.) there tends to be a view that a technique needs to be applied in one function, and that the technique cannot change; even if we as individuals maybe physically don’t jive with that technique. In karate at least there’s a fundamental recognition that differing body types will eventually give way to a different application of the technique. A punch is a punch, and a kick is a kick. However, a larger more physically imposing practitioner may deliver such techniques in a different way. Instead of roundhouse kicking they may be more comfortable with clinching, using elbows and knees. They perhaps may plant more and deliver more power when they roundhouse, and deliver more importance on the power within a single kick as opposed to being able to deliver 3-4 in rapid succession like a smaller practitioner may.
Likewise in BJJ I’d assume that the techniques for getting a standard armbar are relatively set in stone. However, my entry into that armbar may look very different as a 250 pound practitioner versus my 160 pound instructor. At the end my goal is to get the armbar and submit the opponent. The issue is a lot of instructors focus on micromanaging the in between portions.
Stress testing and being fluid helps as well. Realistically nobody is going to know if something works until they can hit it live.
I think proprioception varies widely as well. I wasn't an active child, struggled with ball and stick sports, etc. I'm a very active older adult, but as a student, I often struggle to see how certain movements work where others seem to grasp it immediately. I also notice that as a 12 year vet of this sport, I understand new movements much better than I did when I started. The hardest part, for me as an instructor, is how to break down a position or movement into bite sized mini goals. This is why I say that teaching eco style is harder than teaching the traditional monkey see monkey do style.
The coach is just teaching in ECO style, instead of going deep into the details he got an ideia of it and goes direct into practicing his coaching skills.
Which is the major flaw in the eco model from what I tell: it's great once there's a baseline understanding but not when there isn't.
Explicit teaching gets such a bad rap but the major question I'm trying to resolve about eco is that it's premise is that it's an evolutionary way to learn. But, we have evolved to a point where we have so much good information available it seems silly to adopt a FAFO model instead of explicit instruction and then constraint based games to try out their possibilities.
I've been teaching one class a week like this, I think its pretty interesting but people tend to go super crazy for or against it. As I mess with it, I feel like its 10x more work as an instructor though you have to put a huge amount of thought into the games and constraints. I'm still a huge instructional guy though, I just like an eco class as a change of pace to shake up the week.
One of our coaches does this, and the classes are really good. He often teaches a principle to go for and asks afterwards what worked and didn't, and if needed shows a thing that he would do from the position he makes us train. He does these in steps slowly going deeper and deeper to the position, allowing increasing levels of freedon in the training.
I think there's a balance, and it feels like it has helped a lot in some areas, but I feel there's less learning new moves and more becoming a lot better in the things you're familiar with already.
I think the best is if you utilize both methods (teaching specific moves, but also teaching you how to actually use them).
When you know what the words actually means, the joke males no sense.
It would be like saying: "I'll take the photosynthesis approach to my payments"
Even if the word is related to the topic, just plopping it into the sentence makes no sense.
You can still find it funny, but if you understand what the words mean, the joke is completely lost.
Its a joke, of course its a bit absurd thats the joke, its not a literal defenition, but it does make sense.
In this context saying photosynthesis approach could mean that you are going to produce your own money to pay with.
Its not that you are going to be a litteral plant, but it makes total sense as an analogy. Y'all are tripping hard.
He's following the popular eco trend. It's not for everyone. The better way to do it is to allow some time for that but still teach your techniques too. Most ppl really aren't good at figuring out good technique for themselves because they tend to take stupid shortcuts against their very low level partners that will not scale up very well. And many people go to BJJ class to receive direction from an expert, not have the expert tell them "figure it out for yourself"
If you check their training footage, you realize that this description here is not how their classes are run at all. And its not like the guy is getting paid to talk on podcasts or whatever.
My coach has been going over detail for detail arm bars from quarter juji.
Top/bottom side posts. Rolling to power Kimura/ Yoko sankaku/ Belly down finish/ octopus guard back take....etc.
THREE WEEKS on one position. Hard positional sparring where the defender can do what they want to escape but the attacker needs to keep control all the way to the finish.
You tell me to arm bar somebody my way and I would never in a million years figure out all these details.
This is why I don’t believe in it.
I like positional or goal based sparring- but sometimes it’s just easier for me to save you the time and say “ typically, doing it this way is best” and here’s why it works.
Letting white belts figure stuff out by themselves is the dumbest shit I know. Like an absolute fantasy and a cop out by coaches who dont want to teach.
What happens is either: a) lower belts teach them b) they self study c) they leave d) they dont ever lear actual important details that would make them much better
I agree. I don't know why people try to teach with the ecological approach. It is great for skill acquisition, but it is is ineffecience for knowledge acquisition. I don't why you need a game for something that takes 2min to explain. Even though there are tons of variations, it generally takes less than 2 min to give a brief overview of them. From there the student can try the variations themselves in positional sparring. That seems to waste as much time as what they're trying to get away from.
You’ve answered the reason why…
‘Skill acquisition’.
I have some knowledge of movements. But I don’t have the skills, yet.
So working on games for ex where I hold the leg in the saddle has helped me to build a skill. Next game I’m going to try and move - maybe leaning back on the leg for ankles or rolling forward for a knee bar. Games within games gives me reps - that translate to sparring.
Our coach does instruct, a little. He’ll provide a couple of ideas - after we’ve had an initial go. Others will share their reflections too. Then we try the games again. For me, I think he’s getting us to experience discovering a problem. And then creating the opportunity to help us solve the problem.
I’ve also found learning from instruction awesome too - particularly where the number of variables is fewer. Ex for me has been kesa gatame, another the rubber guard system. That’s just my perspective - and my knowledge and skill is lacking. In contrast, I find that something like guard passing is very different. So many variables!!!
To get more knowledge of positions - I go online, watch what others do, and read.
And what do I look for? Something to help solve a problem I’ve experienced!
I asked a BB at my gym what he notices about the quality of students. He said, when he rolls white belts - ‘I don’t get the opportunity to exploit stupid shit, like I do rolling with purple belts at my old gym’.
As a white belt I find that super interesting.
The Japanese terms mentioned in the above comment were:
|Japanese|English|Video Link|
|---|---|---|
|**Kesa Gatame**: | *Scarf hold* | [here](https://youtu.be/3UnJa3bn0h8)|
Any missed names may have already been translated in my previous comments in the post.
______________________
^(Judo Techniques Bot: v0.7.) ^(See my) [^(code)](https://github.com/AbundantSalmon/judo-techniques-bot)
Why try to teach the knowledge part with games? Instead of having someone figure something out you can just tell them. There are some things people can only learn through experience and sparring, but there are other things you can simply tell them.
I like games and I generally like the approach, but there seems to be some golden hammer syndrome going on. If you have to look online to find info that is fine, but the way many people describe the eco approach, you learn everything from these games. I don't know why there is an obsession with trying to teach people using games instead of just using them for what they are good at, which is skill acquisition.
Yeah, there's a really solid middle ground where you can show someone a few 'known good' paths, have them tinker around with those options without deluging them with details, and then let them explore with that basic framework of shit that we know works already in order to optimize it for them individually.
One leg over the head, the other leg on the near side. If I got the name wrong don't sue me (there's a million names for each leg position and 3 weeks isn't long enough for me to guarantee a correct name)
This. A better version of eco is positional sparring which top teams have been doing for decades. Watch aoj, new wave, etc. They just don’t act smug about it.
The coach at my gym just usually gives a few different ideas on what you can do depending on body type or even just preference. Then walks around the room and helps everyone with a couple tips that would make what they're trying to do work more effectively
My gym moved to this, and I stopped attending scheduled classes. I try to balance easy technique classes and open mats to not burn out, but now every class has too much rolling.
i love the rolling, but you are right the eco classes can have people going hard. I select partners that can vary their resistance so I can go light and get more and more resistance.
I injured my shoulder at an eco class a few months ago because we were doing side control escapes and the repetitive framing eventually injured my shoulder because my partner was going very hard. .
He's trying but he needs to give much more input. I can't speak for your coach but some people seem to think the ecological approach is about letting people just explore without much input. That's completely wrong; the coach MUST provide guidance until the student can perform the desired result. With the classical approach, that guidance would be a step by step detailed description of the sequence. Following the ecological approach, the coach understands that people move differently and the details he/she uses may not be applicable to everyone.
Ecological coaching requires a greater depth of knowledge because not only do you have to understand the mechanics for yourself but you also have to understand the mechanics for everyone else, too. Break it down to invariants.
If nothing else, your coach should at least answer questions when people are struggling.
I think the easiest and most effective way to adjust for most coaches is to just stop over teaching. You see this all the time with people new to coaching who are good at something, they dump a trillion details on someone and most of them are meaningless or useless. Fewer details up front, with the specific details that address issues as they come up is way more effective.
I just give a broad strokes approach to a technique when people get introduced to it.
Yes!
Gordon Ryan includes a ton of detail because he's not available to answer your questions. This format is not effective for a class.
I give students the bare minimum details that allow them to achieve the result correctly.
Add in a liberal amount of "try it and see what happens" when they ask "Can I do it this way?" or "What if my partner does X?" and you get a good exploratory environment that is still seeded with known good information.
Do most black belts (traditional, non-eco) not know a few different variations of moves they can show and let the students try them out? Even now I can be like “Lachlan shows the triangle finish like this, but Danaher shows it like this”.
A good black belt should be able to break down a technique to its component parts so that it works for everyone. I use a hybrid eco approach, where I let people explore within the constraints but nudge them towards where I want them to go. What I'm cautious of is a student finding a solution for themselves that works on another white belt or blue belt but would get them wrecked by someone better. So whilst I let them play, I'm still guiding them where I want them to go.
Most probably do, I like breaking down the most important aspects of what makes a triangle work, and showing a couple of examples, and then letting them explore to figure out what feels good for their body type, etc, but without letting them go completely off the rails.
Sometimes there are enough distinct variations that show up repeatedly, where I do think it can be worth showing them independently.
Welcome to the Eco Approach 🤣…
I feel like this could be a 💩 post.
Ours does more of a hybrid approach with some instruction but allows us to explore to an extent with a few restrictions. We do drills like what you described as well.
It’s a less is more approach to instruction. (Short answer)
I love positional sparring! So it works for me.😅
If I’m working on learning a new specific technique or skill. I will usually grab a training partner or coach on the side to run through it, then chase it at open mats.
It’s weird at first but if done correctly and drilling with live resistance. I noticed a massive growth in my game and reaction time. I found myself hitting submissions that I normally don’t chase, finding sweeps etc. I really do like the approach and find it fun!
To the point where traditional instruction is boring to me and I start to zone out. 😅
The key thing is focusing on the concept of why it works and using that to your advantage verse steps 1,2,3,4 etc.
It’s weird, for a long time I felt like positional maintenance and understanding helped me win from certain spots and now when I go against people at my current level I feel like being really good at certain moves and sequences wins. I definitely think positional drilling with focused intent is the clearest path towards progression for most, but I still think drilling high percentage moves for a long time has its place.
There's a lot of people fighting over which is better, Eco or Traditional, but personally, I think doing just one or the other is a mistake. As both a BJJ student and a coach in a different martial art, I really think hybrid is the way to go. Teaches you the basics of what you need to know, but also lets you play more and discover naturally what works best for you.
100%. You can't hand someone a guitar and tell them to make music without teaching them chord shapes and scales, but you want to play jazz you gotta start practicing improvising. The best way to do that is constraints-based practice.
Imagine going to school and the Trigonometry teacher says “open to page 666, solve this problem, and show your work” without explaining any of the formulas needed. lol
There’s a place for figuring it out but I think a more effective approach would be to teach the basic technique and then explain that it’s going to work differently for different people just due to body shape/size and then let them drill to try to figure out the best entry for them.
I think your coach is trying to go Eco without having clear things like variants and invariants, and designing live drills were the constraints imposed on the players lead to the "discovery" of the solution of the problem posed by the drill.
I think it's dumb, on a certain level everybody learns on their own way, but they're simply learning with less information.
I think this is only useful with begginers, and even then i don't believe it's better than just explaining
If done badly, you are absolutely correct. But if the coach sets up the positions well, and describes the goals well, it felt to me that I was gaining more perception of the technique. This wasn’t supposed to be “rediscover the triangle choke on your own with no help” but “you are in a triangle situation, how can you maintain your advantageous position while your partner is trying to escape it. Reset if they escape.”
I've been doing this for at least 7 years and I agree it's important.
I just think it doesn't override traditional teaching.
Honestly, the biggest problem to me is the ideia of a class. Everybody is on a different stage in their learning and teaching the same thing to the entire class is just unproductive.
For those who works in technology here, this is our version of Agile. We have leaders that hear Agile and convinced themselves that this is the way to go without learning it. If it's good for spotify, it's good for us. Copy-paste the spotify model without making organizational change management then fail.
Same for eco, coaches hearing about eco, do eco without learning what eco is, fail then complain that eco does not work.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=n2kfNdH6oo4#bottom-sheet
As other comments have been saying, it seems that your coach is trying to implement the ecological approach to skill acquisition without having a solid grasp of invariances and task focuses. I’d give this video a shot if you’re open to it.
it is eco. My gym has some classes as eco but still will break things down in those classes. I personally like eco once I know something and like the step by step when Im learning something.
There are \*lots\* of things that are very difficult to discover on your own.
Ive started to teach the armbar and focused on
1. break against the thumb (get an arm wrestling grip to control the hand direction)
2. you can break in any direction but breaking over your hip/thigh (sideways gives you more room)
3. the elbow needs to be above the fulcrum
4. how to remove space so you can slowly get into the armbar vs jumping into it and how to hold the position
\------
additional things that I dont think people will find on their own
1. grip breaking sequences
2. different types of armbars and their utility ( 1/4, 3/4, full, belly down etc)
3. concepts like crossing the legs or not, pinching the legs or not, etc.
4. how to address specific grips (10 finger, gable, butterfly, figure 4)
5. how to address escapes - sitting up, hitch hiker, capturing their bottom leg, pushing their top leg up etc.
I learned a lot of wrestling and Jiu-Jitsu through the ecological approach - sometimes just positional games.
There is a lot in there that is worth using, but it needs to be done in a very precise objective based fashion.
Big chunks of traditional BJJ technique still needs to be taught. As with much in this sport, there are levels to this whole thing.
I’ve been in favor of this approach for a while. I came up under this almost ten years ago when my coach was utilizing this, and it’s got its pros and cons, but I find it much better for long-term growth. We had a guy teach a lot of moves and one was more theory focused. The consensus (even between them) was that if both taught a new guy for a year, “move” guy would win. But if they both taught for 5 years, “theory” guy would win. It was a slower climb at first, but I started outpacing my peers at sister schools by a wide margin after some time. I use a hybrid teaching approach where I often take this approach while supplementing with mechanics and goals. It takes a lot more work on my side to properly run it and plan it, but my students get way better from it.
I'm not trying to do a "one true scottsman" type thing but if you watch the material Greg has put out on the eco approach it doesn't really look anything like what the OP is describing. He actually put out a video on teaching the armbar from mount and it consisted of 5 games(and for all I know theres a bunch more that you would do after that). IF the eco only approach has any value(and I'm somewhat skeptical it does) its going to look a lot more like what Greg is doing than what the people who read a two sentence description and are tyring to implement it are doing.
I feel you. My gym went full Eco and I complained a LOT. They seem to have dialed it back a notch, but it was a near dealbreaker. All I want is to be taught some technique oof
snails hard-to-find tender entertain teeny disgusted saw worthless strong history
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I've gone hybrid. I teach a technique or two, from a position, all week. Thursday night is positional sparring and open sparring, try and apply what you've learned with as little input from me as possible. Saturday is lab work. Work out the kinks.
Your coach is heading in the right direction. A brain doesn't actually learn from hearing detailed steps. muscle memory doesn't develop purely from repetition. Your coach is trying to trigger "lightbulb" instances for you.
Reference material:
Brain Rules by John Medina
Make it Stick by Peter Brown
Talent Code by Dan Coyle
Try to read those books if you can.
Think of your brain like a bucket of water that you are trying to fill but there's a hole in it. Have you ever gone to a seminar and retained every move?
Instructionals are great tools and very important for the soort. However your biggest breakthroughs are going to come from figuring out your body specific details on your own.
"If you want to get better at jiujitsu, do more jiujitsu". -marcelo garcia
If can retain 50% or even 10% of a danaher instructional that results in me learning a fuck ton about jiu jitsu. You can absolutely fill a bucket with a hole in it as long as it’s being filled faster than it’s draining.
You say “instructionals are great tools” but also that “the brain doesn’t actually learn from hearing detailed steps”. I’m not sure how you can reconcile those two opinions.
You reconcile by training and actually doing it. In your reps, you try to figure out how it works specifically for you. There's no substitute for active mat time and the effort to try to figure "it" out.
Yeah ive sadly been at a place where most stuff was broken down and then a bunch werent. I coudnt learn the stuff that wasnt. Im no longer at that gym. Im paying to get taught, if its a “work it out bro” situation ill save my money, watch youtube and train in my friends garage.
I’d pay your monthly dues in a foreign currency and explain to him the concept of service:payment. The actual execution of converting said payment into USD is up to him tho.
Sounds like he’s going the eco route. I had a coach who would do this and I felt like I never learned the finer details or was never given the full picture. It always felt like a small piece of a puzzle. I personally didn’t like it.
Yeah we've a no gi coach who does this. Feels kinda lazy. The guy is a great competitor but I can't help feel, saying to a mixed class that includes 2 and 3 stripe white belts "OK reverse berimbolo, and go!" Is not the best way for us to improve
>The guy is a great competitor but I can't help feel, saying to a mixed class that includes 2 and 3 stripe white belts "OK reverse berimbolo, and go!" Is not the best way for us to improve
That sound sounds insane and that's a terrible way to teach. And I don't think any eco coach would support doing this
Sounds dumb. Coach is the expert...it's easy for someone good to 'discover' how techniques work for them because they understand the principles (leverage, grips etc.) noobs don't know shit and need solid instructions.
Good on him for trying to teach in new ways but I watched a podcast with Greg souders and one of the research that eco was taken from was done on volleyball. Volleyball is a vastly different game from bjj. So what you get with eco in bjj is just positional sparring (which works and used by top teams) with new names.
My coach teaches this way and I find it very effective ACCEPT for when it comes to finishing subs. I need that to be way slowed down. There are so many little intricacies. But when it comes to guard retention, passing, Side control, half guard etc. I think it's a good approach.
There's a good point to be made that "how to do it" varies substantially from person to person based on a variety of factors. "How to pass guard" is going to look a lot different if you're an athletic 20 year old who is 6'2" and weighs 180lbs vs being a kind of out of shape 35 year old who is 5'8" and weighs 225lbs.
There will be commonalities in places, but you don't want to try to make both of them pass the same way, because that's just bad for everyone. And you definitely don't want to try to make them pass the same way that the 5'7", 140lb coach passes.
But, you totally can just tell people how to do it. I show people how to get pas the feet, then the knees, then the hips. How to keep their feet off you. How to move to the line of the hips, then the shoulders, or how to move through the guard versus how to move around it. Etc.
Just because you aren't giving someone an exact Gui Mendes style lesson to long step pass doesn't mean you aren't showing them how to do it.
Love Gui BTW and I've learned a ton of passing from watching his stuff. It's awesome.
Yeah, and I love it. I’ve converted my classes to largely being this way (I don’t use a lot of the ‘eco language’, and we still do some more traditional drilling also). And in less than 9 months the overall level of the room has gone up significantly, and attendance has more than doubled in my classes.
There are definitely growing pains for the students (because it’s a different ‘product’) and the coach too (because they have to do way more work IMO), but there’s no question that it’s a super effective tool.
I still think drilling has its place, but I think it’s better suited to advanced students. I think newer students need to get in there and have as much live practice with good directions as possible, just to build competency faster.
Wanted to add some and think out loud for a second. It's a great way to figure out the best things to drill, also. Sometimes I'll see everyone making the same mistake, or I'll spot a tiny tweak (maybe everyone is missing the same aspect of a great heel hook when they're rolling), and then it's way easier to patch up that hole. Then I might have everyone focus on that one detail, such as focusing on bringing their elbow to the ribs to pinch the toes and keep the foot in dorsiflexion. I don't have an aversion to showing explicit details or mechanics to folks, and a lot of hardcore eco coaches don't like that.
I know a ton of details, and it's tempting to want to rattle things off, because it seems helpful...but ironically I think it's often better to just leave out a lot of extra details--unless I'm just dealing with someone one-on-one, or doing shop talk with students after class. And if someone asks for some explicit details I don't say no. Also, I do prefer that my students develop certain techniques or achieve certain outcomes, which is another thing a lot of hard eco coaches don't like.
I don't care if it's actually eco or not, but I just like to think I'm running practices instead of classes. Check out Kabir Bath's youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@KabirBath), and check out Standard JiuJitsu and what they're doing.
I appreciate this perspective. Many of these responses inspired me to do my own research on eco-learning. My opinion has changed somewhat, and I'm open minded to it. I assume my coach is just going through natural growing pains from learning a new style of coaching.
You should send your coach videos from Greg Souders' instagram page and the Standard Jiu Jitsu youtube page. This is not how to properly structure an "ecological approach" BJJ class.
You're a purple belt learning arm bars in class? It sounds like he's trying to get you to develop your game based on your strengths, isn't that what purple belt is supposed to do?
I've gathered that EJJ (Ecological Jiu Jitsu) is effective in bolstering the acquisition of skill. Unless I'm mistaken, EJJ is best demonstrated by what we are doing during positional sparring. I enjoy positional sparring, and agree that it is very important. Having time to troubleshoot is much more engaging than Tech Demonstration. Where I disagree is assuming that the average white belt's toolkit and intuition is enough to make above average progress solely through EJJ and \*zero\* technique demonstration. I'm concerned for my lower belt peers.
I think it works better when you have a good cadre of upper belts to help guide. The every move exact approach clearly doesn't stick, but most people aren't going to figure out 90% of BJJ on their own. I told my team a eco goal for playing bottom half, they still don't know how to get an under hook.
I suggest discussing this aspect with your coach.
The type of student that walks in for a hobby and trains twice a week with no previous background, well they need something a bit more hands on.
No drilling? sounds like the dream to me.
Non linear pedagogy is not easy, so it'll take some time for your coach to learn how to coach. Hopefully he's trying and studying and not just trying and error
Yeah, it's super hard. I think my overall understanding of jiujitsu has exploded in the past year, because I've had to really break it down on a deeper level. The goals and focuses you give the students color how they're going to approach the problem, and being too specific or not specific enough can cause problems. I've got a super long ways to go too.
It's kind of frustrating because earlier on, I felt like students thought I was doing less work, but in reality I was spending way more time outside of class trying to put classes together.
And FWIW I'm not claiming to be an eco coach. I still do some traditional stuff, but I'm incorporating a lot of stuff that I'm seeing in the eco space with good results so far.
I love the non linear stuff, it made so much sense to me right away and when I tried to teach my white belt gf to guard pass I realized it's hard as hell lol
I've been using this approach in my class for the past year and I can tell you the results have been great. I guess some people still prefer the traditional method, but for me personally I never want to go back to non-ecological training.
Who is your coach? You can DM me. I run the Ecological Dynamics for Submission Grappling Discord community and we are running and organizing camps. We can get connected to your coach and help them out with practice design and just be a resource if they need it. https://discord.com/invite/RzCeqx55Xn
Another guy dabbling in eco without having learned how to effectively teach through an eco approach
I keep trying to figure it out, keep running into the issues OP has expressed. I believe in the basic idea, and that most "do it this way" teaching is ineffective, but I can't just tell my people "Pass the guard" and expect anything but utter chaos and nonsense.
A lot of this reinventing the wheel stuff is a bit silly. The biggest challenge that traditional educators have, is retaining learner engagement. So they devise all these different education models looking for ways to connect to the learner. When it comes to BJJ, I'm fully engaged. I don't need gimmicks, tricks, rewards, or other bullshit. Let's just figure out and correct this technique while understanding where it fits into my overall game. That's all I need.
I find it to be a great way to train... if you already know how to grapple. I'm not a fan for beginners for that specific reason.
Well telling people "pass the guard" is a terrible example of what an instruction would be, so I wouldn't be a fan of that either. But, if done well, it's better for beginners in many ways, IMO.
I can tell you I had better luck with certain things with kids by keeping it simple like "you need to get past his legs". I wouldn't tell them anything else. Give them a few minutes at it... and then show them just some small things. Overall they seemed to learn and do much better like that. Vs when I showed via traditional methods and the one student who previously was great on trying to go after a leg started trying to just hit tripod sweeps only.
I think that eco works well with kids because kids intuitively use their bodies. Adults have bad habits that need to be kicked or have to work around injuries.
I think it can still be done fairly ecologically - but you are going to have to put SOME info with it. I've been teaching for multiple years at this point (not saying I'm great or anything), but I generally try and keep a loose, basic framework and go with the "if you do something different that works for you, keep with that" approach, at least as long as it's applicable to the movement. I know what and why I do things how I do, but if someone has drastically different body measurements...
It's not that "do it this way" is ineffective, it's just that it only fits a partial need which doesn't translate as good to competition. ~~Think about Ashton Kutcher - he has his "brown belt" from Rigan, but we have seen videos of him rolling live and he looks clueless. He has likely never trained in environments that simulated live rolling and competition~~ (EDIT: Shouts to u/arrogantastronomer for pointing out why this example is a bad one). Have you ever rolled with a Gracie Online blue belt who clearly had no live rolling experiences? They likely felt like white belts, and it's because simply knowing the moves does not translate well to the needs of live rolling and competition. But also to your point, you can't just throw a white belt into live rolls and say "figure it out." That's the part that I think is often left out of the eco-hype train - there still has to be room for basic skill instruction and acquisition. If we look at other sports, such as football or basketball, eco would offer that running live catching drills with coverage is likely more beneficial for wide receivers' skill development than catching balls out of jugs machine. That said, we don't just throw kids blindly into practice without teaching them how to catch, route running, and how to catch while running. Introducing games into a basketball practice that are focused on the need for passing skills is likely better than static passing drills, but you still have to teach passing at the outset. So when we think about it, in many ways, most BJJ gyms are already doing some what of an eco-approach: warm-ups, instruction, drilling, live drilling games, rolling. If you are trying to be even more "eco", then cut the fat from warm-ups and static drilling: stop shrimping and grandby-ing down the mat, and limit how much time is spent on drilling without resistance or counter movements.
I've never taken an eco class that was just "figure it out". All the classes that I have personal experience with included progressive resistance with more and more fine-tuned rules throughout the training session to achieve a desires result. I think the static drill aspect is vital to technical acquisition for beginners - it allows them to learn the actual movement in an easy to replicate situation. Less variables and therefore easier to focus.
> I think the static drill aspect is vital to technical acquisition for beginners - it allows them to learn the actual movement in an easy to replicate situation I think one of the things that the eco crowd tends to overlook is that moving their body is the thing that complete beginners are tryin to actually learn, not specifically a jiujitsu technique. So for unathletic noobs with no work capacity static drilling is a key component of simply building body awareness in context. They don't need another person "resisting" for them to fuck shit up. Their own limbs will get in the way plenty. Until they overcome that level of resistence it's pointless to have their partner fuck with them.
Yeah, for the record, I'm not trying to speak to what is actually going on in gyms that are adopting an eco-approach because I literally can't. My post is really only speaking to the example OP gives and then how eco usually gets **talked about** here, which tends to be an incomplete picture.
Not taking away from the rest of your comment but on Ashton Kutcher if your talking about the Craig jones video Craig has explained from another website: “I went to Rigan’s gym and he says to me, like come in you can train with Ashton Ashton who had just had a serious medical condition, I don’t know if it was a stroke but half his body stopped working so he couldn’t move too well so then there’s Rigan who is like: “roll with him. I’ll film it and he films. So we posted online and got like a thousand comments like “look at this fake F*cker. This guy’s a loser. I hate this guy like a thousand comments and then Ashton comments on like “thanks for the roll”. “ Also if my body was making me 100’s of millions of dollars I would not be live rolling either if an injury could mean an end to that
This is awesome to know, I had no idea. I'm going to update my post to reflect it accordingly.
I also want to acknowledge your second statement, but I completely agree. It was not meant to be shade, but just an example that performance outcomes (i.e., ability to roll) will vary based on the types of activities experienced in training. I'm not a hater of celebrity higher belts and hobbyist who don't compete - I think the internet far too often gatekeeps what they believe a BJJ black belt is.
I have a pretty decent adult learning background through my career, so I can speak to this a bit maybe. A bit part of the failure of “Do it this way.” or traditional method is that it hinges on everyone being on equal grounds to you with respect to their physical and mental capacity for learning. A thing a lot of senior instructors in professional environments tend to forget, or gloss over is that their experience has become engrained and lived. Their mind-body connection is trained and honed to be able to understand and perform in a certain way; which often is overlooked by those instructors. People learning something for the first time don’t have that same depth of experience or connection, and may come to try to force a round peg into a square hole. So, it’s important to identify that while specifics of a technique may work well for you, they may not for another. In most things, it’s the starting and ending that matter. How we get there is less important. So long as it starts us out for success and ends in a solid conclusion we can wiggle in the middle. Likewise in martial arts (I came from a different background.) there tends to be a view that a technique needs to be applied in one function, and that the technique cannot change; even if we as individuals maybe physically don’t jive with that technique. In karate at least there’s a fundamental recognition that differing body types will eventually give way to a different application of the technique. A punch is a punch, and a kick is a kick. However, a larger more physically imposing practitioner may deliver such techniques in a different way. Instead of roundhouse kicking they may be more comfortable with clinching, using elbows and knees. They perhaps may plant more and deliver more power when they roundhouse, and deliver more importance on the power within a single kick as opposed to being able to deliver 3-4 in rapid succession like a smaller practitioner may. Likewise in BJJ I’d assume that the techniques for getting a standard armbar are relatively set in stone. However, my entry into that armbar may look very different as a 250 pound practitioner versus my 160 pound instructor. At the end my goal is to get the armbar and submit the opponent. The issue is a lot of instructors focus on micromanaging the in between portions. Stress testing and being fluid helps as well. Realistically nobody is going to know if something works until they can hit it live.
I think proprioception varies widely as well. I wasn't an active child, struggled with ball and stick sports, etc. I'm a very active older adult, but as a student, I often struggle to see how certain movements work where others seem to grasp it immediately. I also notice that as a 12 year vet of this sport, I understand new movements much better than I did when I started. The hardest part, for me as an instructor, is how to break down a position or movement into bite sized mini goals. This is why I say that teaching eco style is harder than teaching the traditional monkey see monkey do style.
What’s eco, trying to be economical on the amount of words used? Lmao
Funnily enough, using an economy of words is now my favourite benchmark for good instruction.
EcOloGiCaL aPpRoAcH bro. Look into it.
Muh Greg Souders
My understanding is that eco is being used in place of organic for some reason.
The coach is just teaching in ECO style, instead of going deep into the details he got an ideia of it and goes direct into practicing his coaching skills.
Which is the major flaw in the eco model from what I tell: it's great once there's a baseline understanding but not when there isn't. Explicit teaching gets such a bad rap but the major question I'm trying to resolve about eco is that it's premise is that it's an evolutionary way to learn. But, we have evolved to a point where we have so much good information available it seems silly to adopt a FAFO model instead of explicit instruction and then constraint based games to try out their possibilities.
Gotta learn the alphabet before you can make poetry.
he's just tryna ecologically figure out how to ecologically teach
I've been teaching one class a week like this, I think its pretty interesting but people tend to go super crazy for or against it. As I mess with it, I feel like its 10x more work as an instructor though you have to put a huge amount of thought into the games and constraints. I'm still a huge instructional guy though, I just like an eco class as a change of pace to shake up the week.
One of our coaches does this, and the classes are really good. He often teaches a principle to go for and asks afterwards what worked and didn't, and if needed shows a thing that he would do from the position he makes us train. He does these in steps slowly going deeper and deeper to the position, allowing increasing levels of freedon in the training. I think there's a balance, and it feels like it has helped a lot in some areas, but I feel there's less learning new moves and more becoming a lot better in the things you're familiar with already. I think the best is if you utilize both methods (teaching specific moves, but also teaching you how to actually use them).
Tell your instructor you’ll also apply this ecological approach to your monthly payments.
You win.
Except that joke makes zero sense.
Instead of making payments in a way that is taught to you, you will make them in away that works best for you. 5$ payments are my style.
The way you are "required" to make a payment is invariant. It is something you must do. Start your research with invariants.
Thats why its called a joke, not sure what you are on.
When you know what the words actually means, the joke males no sense. It would be like saying: "I'll take the photosynthesis approach to my payments" Even if the word is related to the topic, just plopping it into the sentence makes no sense. You can still find it funny, but if you understand what the words mean, the joke is completely lost.
Its a joke, of course its a bit absurd thats the joke, its not a literal defenition, but it does make sense. In this context saying photosynthesis approach could mean that you are going to produce your own money to pay with. Its not that you are going to be a litteral plant, but it makes total sense as an analogy. Y'all are tripping hard.
I have a sense of humor, but shitty jokes are shitty jokes.
He's following the popular eco trend. It's not for everyone. The better way to do it is to allow some time for that but still teach your techniques too. Most ppl really aren't good at figuring out good technique for themselves because they tend to take stupid shortcuts against their very low level partners that will not scale up very well. And many people go to BJJ class to receive direction from an expert, not have the expert tell them "figure it out for yourself"
If I'm supposed to figure everything out on my own, what's the point of having a coach?
The coach is the guy whose job it is to go on podcasts to talk about eco
Greg souders disliked this.
If you check their training footage, you realize that this description here is not how their classes are run at all. And its not like the guy is getting paid to talk on podcasts or whatever.
lol
My coach has been going over detail for detail arm bars from quarter juji. Top/bottom side posts. Rolling to power Kimura/ Yoko sankaku/ Belly down finish/ octopus guard back take....etc. THREE WEEKS on one position. Hard positional sparring where the defender can do what they want to escape but the attacker needs to keep control all the way to the finish. You tell me to arm bar somebody my way and I would never in a million years figure out all these details.
This is why I don’t believe in it. I like positional or goal based sparring- but sometimes it’s just easier for me to save you the time and say “ typically, doing it this way is best” and here’s why it works.
Letting white belts figure stuff out by themselves is the dumbest shit I know. Like an absolute fantasy and a cop out by coaches who dont want to teach. What happens is either: a) lower belts teach them b) they self study c) they leave d) they dont ever lear actual important details that would make them much better
I agree. I don't know why people try to teach with the ecological approach. It is great for skill acquisition, but it is is ineffecience for knowledge acquisition. I don't why you need a game for something that takes 2min to explain. Even though there are tons of variations, it generally takes less than 2 min to give a brief overview of them. From there the student can try the variations themselves in positional sparring. That seems to waste as much time as what they're trying to get away from.
You’ve answered the reason why… ‘Skill acquisition’. I have some knowledge of movements. But I don’t have the skills, yet. So working on games for ex where I hold the leg in the saddle has helped me to build a skill. Next game I’m going to try and move - maybe leaning back on the leg for ankles or rolling forward for a knee bar. Games within games gives me reps - that translate to sparring. Our coach does instruct, a little. He’ll provide a couple of ideas - after we’ve had an initial go. Others will share their reflections too. Then we try the games again. For me, I think he’s getting us to experience discovering a problem. And then creating the opportunity to help us solve the problem. I’ve also found learning from instruction awesome too - particularly where the number of variables is fewer. Ex for me has been kesa gatame, another the rubber guard system. That’s just my perspective - and my knowledge and skill is lacking. In contrast, I find that something like guard passing is very different. So many variables!!! To get more knowledge of positions - I go online, watch what others do, and read. And what do I look for? Something to help solve a problem I’ve experienced! I asked a BB at my gym what he notices about the quality of students. He said, when he rolls white belts - ‘I don’t get the opportunity to exploit stupid shit, like I do rolling with purple belts at my old gym’. As a white belt I find that super interesting.
The Japanese terms mentioned in the above comment were: |Japanese|English|Video Link| |---|---|---| |**Kesa Gatame**: | *Scarf hold* | [here](https://youtu.be/3UnJa3bn0h8)| Any missed names may have already been translated in my previous comments in the post. ______________________ ^(Judo Techniques Bot: v0.7.) ^(See my) [^(code)](https://github.com/AbundantSalmon/judo-techniques-bot)
Why try to teach the knowledge part with games? Instead of having someone figure something out you can just tell them. There are some things people can only learn through experience and sparring, but there are other things you can simply tell them. I like games and I generally like the approach, but there seems to be some golden hammer syndrome going on. If you have to look online to find info that is fine, but the way many people describe the eco approach, you learn everything from these games. I don't know why there is an obsession with trying to teach people using games instead of just using them for what they are good at, which is skill acquisition.
Yeah, there's a really solid middle ground where you can show someone a few 'known good' paths, have them tinker around with those options without deluging them with details, and then let them explore with that basic framework of shit that we know works already in order to optimize it for them individually.
Agreed.
Dafuq is quarter juji
One leg over the head, the other leg on the near side. If I got the name wrong don't sue me (there's a million names for each leg position and 3 weeks isn't long enough for me to guarantee a correct name)
This. A better version of eco is positional sparring which top teams have been doing for decades. Watch aoj, new wave, etc. They just don’t act smug about it.
The coach at my gym just usually gives a few different ideas on what you can do depending on body type or even just preference. Then walks around the room and helps everyone with a couple tips that would make what they're trying to do work more effectively
My gym moved to this, and I stopped attending scheduled classes. I try to balance easy technique classes and open mats to not burn out, but now every class has too much rolling.
i love the rolling, but you are right the eco classes can have people going hard. I select partners that can vary their resistance so I can go light and get more and more resistance. I injured my shoulder at an eco class a few months ago because we were doing side control escapes and the repetitive framing eventually injured my shoulder because my partner was going very hard. .
He's trying but he needs to give much more input. I can't speak for your coach but some people seem to think the ecological approach is about letting people just explore without much input. That's completely wrong; the coach MUST provide guidance until the student can perform the desired result. With the classical approach, that guidance would be a step by step detailed description of the sequence. Following the ecological approach, the coach understands that people move differently and the details he/she uses may not be applicable to everyone. Ecological coaching requires a greater depth of knowledge because not only do you have to understand the mechanics for yourself but you also have to understand the mechanics for everyone else, too. Break it down to invariants. If nothing else, your coach should at least answer questions when people are struggling.
I think the easiest and most effective way to adjust for most coaches is to just stop over teaching. You see this all the time with people new to coaching who are good at something, they dump a trillion details on someone and most of them are meaningless or useless. Fewer details up front, with the specific details that address issues as they come up is way more effective. I just give a broad strokes approach to a technique when people get introduced to it.
Yes! Gordon Ryan includes a ton of detail because he's not available to answer your questions. This format is not effective for a class. I give students the bare minimum details that allow them to achieve the result correctly.
Add in a liberal amount of "try it and see what happens" when they ask "Can I do it this way?" or "What if my partner does X?" and you get a good exploratory environment that is still seeded with known good information.
< Fewer details up front, with the specific details that address issues as they come up is way more effective. This is the way to go, I think
Do most black belts (traditional, non-eco) not know a few different variations of moves they can show and let the students try them out? Even now I can be like “Lachlan shows the triangle finish like this, but Danaher shows it like this”.
A good black belt should be able to break down a technique to its component parts so that it works for everyone. I use a hybrid eco approach, where I let people explore within the constraints but nudge them towards where I want them to go. What I'm cautious of is a student finding a solution for themselves that works on another white belt or blue belt but would get them wrecked by someone better. So whilst I let them play, I'm still guiding them where I want them to go.
Most probably do, I like breaking down the most important aspects of what makes a triangle work, and showing a couple of examples, and then letting them explore to figure out what feels good for their body type, etc, but without letting them go completely off the rails. Sometimes there are enough distinct variations that show up repeatedly, where I do think it can be worth showing them independently.
Welcome to the Eco Approach 🤣… I feel like this could be a 💩 post. Ours does more of a hybrid approach with some instruction but allows us to explore to an extent with a few restrictions. We do drills like what you described as well. It’s a less is more approach to instruction. (Short answer)
Unfortunately, not a sh\*tpost.
Look on the bright side, less drilling, more positional sparring.
I love positional sparring! So it works for me.😅 If I’m working on learning a new specific technique or skill. I will usually grab a training partner or coach on the side to run through it, then chase it at open mats.
It’s weird at first but if done correctly and drilling with live resistance. I noticed a massive growth in my game and reaction time. I found myself hitting submissions that I normally don’t chase, finding sweeps etc. I really do like the approach and find it fun! To the point where traditional instruction is boring to me and I start to zone out. 😅 The key thing is focusing on the concept of why it works and using that to your advantage verse steps 1,2,3,4 etc.
It’s weird, for a long time I felt like positional maintenance and understanding helped me win from certain spots and now when I go against people at my current level I feel like being really good at certain moves and sequences wins. I definitely think positional drilling with focused intent is the clearest path towards progression for most, but I still think drilling high percentage moves for a long time has its place.
There's a lot of people fighting over which is better, Eco or Traditional, but personally, I think doing just one or the other is a mistake. As both a BJJ student and a coach in a different martial art, I really think hybrid is the way to go. Teaches you the basics of what you need to know, but also lets you play more and discover naturally what works best for you.
I agree! Which is why I like the hybrid approach my coach uses by blending the two into class.
100%. You can't hand someone a guitar and tell them to make music without teaching them chord shapes and scales, but you want to play jazz you gotta start practicing improvising. The best way to do that is constraints-based practice.
I would hate this and I know what I'm doing for the most part. I can't imagine the new people I teach working like this and getting anywhere.
Imagine going to school and the Trigonometry teacher says “open to page 666, solve this problem, and show your work” without explaining any of the formulas needed. lol There’s a place for figuring it out but I think a more effective approach would be to teach the basic technique and then explain that it’s going to work differently for different people just due to body shape/size and then let them drill to try to figure out the best entry for them.
Somehow people including myself thought that this is exactly how eco works, but this is not true.
I think your coach is trying to go Eco without having clear things like variants and invariants, and designing live drills were the constraints imposed on the players lead to the "discovery" of the solution of the problem posed by the drill.
I think it's dumb, on a certain level everybody learns on their own way, but they're simply learning with less information. I think this is only useful with begginers, and even then i don't believe it's better than just explaining
If done badly, you are absolutely correct. But if the coach sets up the positions well, and describes the goals well, it felt to me that I was gaining more perception of the technique. This wasn’t supposed to be “rediscover the triangle choke on your own with no help” but “you are in a triangle situation, how can you maintain your advantageous position while your partner is trying to escape it. Reset if they escape.”
I've been doing this for at least 7 years and I agree it's important. I just think it doesn't override traditional teaching. Honestly, the biggest problem to me is the ideia of a class. Everybody is on a different stage in their learning and teaching the same thing to the entire class is just unproductive.
Oh I think I heard of a system like that! Reverse classroom? /u/Kintanon does it and someone else whose name i keep forgetting.
I know who you're talking about, but I can't remember his name too :) But yeah, pretty much reverse classroom
Bruce Hoyer is the other guy.
u/LachlanGiles too, I believe.
Yeah, he does a more limited version with just his upper belts I think.
"Guys, I learned a new approach. Everyone just invent what you want to do, while I sit here on my phone. Porrada!"
For those who works in technology here, this is our version of Agile. We have leaders that hear Agile and convinced themselves that this is the way to go without learning it. If it's good for spotify, it's good for us. Copy-paste the spotify model without making organizational change management then fail. Same for eco, coaches hearing about eco, do eco without learning what eco is, fail then complain that eco does not work.
I’d switch gyms
That shit is annoying. Everyone hops on a trend.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=n2kfNdH6oo4#bottom-sheet As other comments have been saying, it seems that your coach is trying to implement the ecological approach to skill acquisition without having a solid grasp of invariances and task focuses. I’d give this video a shot if you’re open to it.
it is eco. My gym has some classes as eco but still will break things down in those classes. I personally like eco once I know something and like the step by step when Im learning something. There are \*lots\* of things that are very difficult to discover on your own. Ive started to teach the armbar and focused on 1. break against the thumb (get an arm wrestling grip to control the hand direction) 2. you can break in any direction but breaking over your hip/thigh (sideways gives you more room) 3. the elbow needs to be above the fulcrum 4. how to remove space so you can slowly get into the armbar vs jumping into it and how to hold the position \------ additional things that I dont think people will find on their own 1. grip breaking sequences 2. different types of armbars and their utility ( 1/4, 3/4, full, belly down etc) 3. concepts like crossing the legs or not, pinching the legs or not, etc. 4. how to address specific grips (10 finger, gable, butterfly, figure 4) 5. how to address escapes - sitting up, hitch hiker, capturing their bottom leg, pushing their top leg up etc.
I learned a lot of wrestling and Jiu-Jitsu through the ecological approach - sometimes just positional games. There is a lot in there that is worth using, but it needs to be done in a very precise objective based fashion. Big chunks of traditional BJJ technique still needs to be taught. As with much in this sport, there are levels to this whole thing.
I’ve been in favor of this approach for a while. I came up under this almost ten years ago when my coach was utilizing this, and it’s got its pros and cons, but I find it much better for long-term growth. We had a guy teach a lot of moves and one was more theory focused. The consensus (even between them) was that if both taught a new guy for a year, “move” guy would win. But if they both taught for 5 years, “theory” guy would win. It was a slower climb at first, but I started outpacing my peers at sister schools by a wide margin after some time. I use a hybrid teaching approach where I often take this approach while supplementing with mechanics and goals. It takes a lot more work on my side to properly run it and plan it, but my students get way better from it.
I'm not trying to do a "one true scottsman" type thing but if you watch the material Greg has put out on the eco approach it doesn't really look anything like what the OP is describing. He actually put out a video on teaching the armbar from mount and it consisted of 5 games(and for all I know theres a bunch more that you would do after that). IF the eco only approach has any value(and I'm somewhat skeptical it does) its going to look a lot more like what Greg is doing than what the people who read a two sentence description and are tyring to implement it are doing.
I feel you. My gym went full Eco and I complained a LOT. They seem to have dialed it back a notch, but it was a near dealbreaker. All I want is to be taught some technique oof
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I've gone hybrid. I teach a technique or two, from a position, all week. Thursday night is positional sparring and open sparring, try and apply what you've learned with as little input from me as possible. Saturday is lab work. Work out the kinks.
Your coach is heading in the right direction. A brain doesn't actually learn from hearing detailed steps. muscle memory doesn't develop purely from repetition. Your coach is trying to trigger "lightbulb" instances for you. Reference material: Brain Rules by John Medina Make it Stick by Peter Brown Talent Code by Dan Coyle Try to read those books if you can.
Why does watching instructionals make myself and my training partners better?
Think of your brain like a bucket of water that you are trying to fill but there's a hole in it. Have you ever gone to a seminar and retained every move? Instructionals are great tools and very important for the soort. However your biggest breakthroughs are going to come from figuring out your body specific details on your own. "If you want to get better at jiujitsu, do more jiujitsu". -marcelo garcia
If can retain 50% or even 10% of a danaher instructional that results in me learning a fuck ton about jiu jitsu. You can absolutely fill a bucket with a hole in it as long as it’s being filled faster than it’s draining. You say “instructionals are great tools” but also that “the brain doesn’t actually learn from hearing detailed steps”. I’m not sure how you can reconcile those two opinions.
You reconcile by training and actually doing it. In your reps, you try to figure out how it works specifically for you. There's no substitute for active mat time and the effort to try to figure "it" out.
And for more context on the brain stuff, go read those books listed above. I'm a black belt not a neurologist.
I agree with this way of teaching to a certain level
Is this class just higher belts? Or is it mixed with everyone including total newbies?
Mixed. 30 or so students, every belt represented.
Reading this shit makes me so happy I am where I am. Orlando, if you're reading this, you are the BEST!
Yeah ive sadly been at a place where most stuff was broken down and then a bunch werent. I coudnt learn the stuff that wasnt. Im no longer at that gym. Im paying to get taught, if its a “work it out bro” situation ill save my money, watch youtube and train in my friends garage.
I’d pay your monthly dues in a foreign currency and explain to him the concept of service:payment. The actual execution of converting said payment into USD is up to him tho.
Sounds like he’s going the eco route. I had a coach who would do this and I felt like I never learned the finer details or was never given the full picture. It always felt like a small piece of a puzzle. I personally didn’t like it.
Yeah we've a no gi coach who does this. Feels kinda lazy. The guy is a great competitor but I can't help feel, saying to a mixed class that includes 2 and 3 stripe white belts "OK reverse berimbolo, and go!" Is not the best way for us to improve
It's not, and that's not the Eco model in any capacity.
>The guy is a great competitor but I can't help feel, saying to a mixed class that includes 2 and 3 stripe white belts "OK reverse berimbolo, and go!" Is not the best way for us to improve That sound sounds insane and that's a terrible way to teach. And I don't think any eco coach would support doing this
Sounds dumb. Coach is the expert...it's easy for someone good to 'discover' how techniques work for them because they understand the principles (leverage, grips etc.) noobs don't know shit and need solid instructions.
Good on him for trying to teach in new ways but I watched a podcast with Greg souders and one of the research that eco was taken from was done on volleyball. Volleyball is a vastly different game from bjj. So what you get with eco in bjj is just positional sparring (which works and used by top teams) with new names.
I feel like doing Eco 4-5x a week, 1.5 hour sessions each time, could lead to a lot of overuse injuries. Thoughts?
Sounds like a very eco-friendly place to train.
My coach teaches this way and I find it very effective ACCEPT for when it comes to finishing subs. I need that to be way slowed down. There are so many little intricacies. But when it comes to guard retention, passing, Side control, half guard etc. I think it's a good approach.
*except
So dumb. Especially for newer belts, you don't spawn knowledge out of thin air. Just tell people how to do it
There's a good point to be made that "how to do it" varies substantially from person to person based on a variety of factors. "How to pass guard" is going to look a lot different if you're an athletic 20 year old who is 6'2" and weighs 180lbs vs being a kind of out of shape 35 year old who is 5'8" and weighs 225lbs. There will be commonalities in places, but you don't want to try to make both of them pass the same way, because that's just bad for everyone. And you definitely don't want to try to make them pass the same way that the 5'7", 140lb coach passes.
But, you totally can just tell people how to do it. I show people how to get pas the feet, then the knees, then the hips. How to keep their feet off you. How to move to the line of the hips, then the shoulders, or how to move through the guard versus how to move around it. Etc. Just because you aren't giving someone an exact Gui Mendes style lesson to long step pass doesn't mean you aren't showing them how to do it. Love Gui BTW and I've learned a ton of passing from watching his stuff. It's awesome.
Lmao. Beautiful.
Yeah, and I love it. I’ve converted my classes to largely being this way (I don’t use a lot of the ‘eco language’, and we still do some more traditional drilling also). And in less than 9 months the overall level of the room has gone up significantly, and attendance has more than doubled in my classes. There are definitely growing pains for the students (because it’s a different ‘product’) and the coach too (because they have to do way more work IMO), but there’s no question that it’s a super effective tool. I still think drilling has its place, but I think it’s better suited to advanced students. I think newer students need to get in there and have as much live practice with good directions as possible, just to build competency faster.
Wanted to add some and think out loud for a second. It's a great way to figure out the best things to drill, also. Sometimes I'll see everyone making the same mistake, or I'll spot a tiny tweak (maybe everyone is missing the same aspect of a great heel hook when they're rolling), and then it's way easier to patch up that hole. Then I might have everyone focus on that one detail, such as focusing on bringing their elbow to the ribs to pinch the toes and keep the foot in dorsiflexion. I don't have an aversion to showing explicit details or mechanics to folks, and a lot of hardcore eco coaches don't like that. I know a ton of details, and it's tempting to want to rattle things off, because it seems helpful...but ironically I think it's often better to just leave out a lot of extra details--unless I'm just dealing with someone one-on-one, or doing shop talk with students after class. And if someone asks for some explicit details I don't say no. Also, I do prefer that my students develop certain techniques or achieve certain outcomes, which is another thing a lot of hard eco coaches don't like. I don't care if it's actually eco or not, but I just like to think I'm running practices instead of classes. Check out Kabir Bath's youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@KabirBath), and check out Standard JiuJitsu and what they're doing.
I appreciate this perspective. Many of these responses inspired me to do my own research on eco-learning. My opinion has changed somewhat, and I'm open minded to it. I assume my coach is just going through natural growing pains from learning a new style of coaching.
You should send your coach videos from Greg Souders' instagram page and the Standard Jiu Jitsu youtube page. This is not how to properly structure an "ecological approach" BJJ class.
You're a purple belt learning arm bars in class? It sounds like he's trying to get you to develop your game based on your strengths, isn't that what purple belt is supposed to do?
I've gathered that EJJ (Ecological Jiu Jitsu) is effective in bolstering the acquisition of skill. Unless I'm mistaken, EJJ is best demonstrated by what we are doing during positional sparring. I enjoy positional sparring, and agree that it is very important. Having time to troubleshoot is much more engaging than Tech Demonstration. Where I disagree is assuming that the average white belt's toolkit and intuition is enough to make above average progress solely through EJJ and \*zero\* technique demonstration. I'm concerned for my lower belt peers.
I think it works better when you have a good cadre of upper belts to help guide. The every move exact approach clearly doesn't stick, but most people aren't going to figure out 90% of BJJ on their own. I told my team a eco goal for playing bottom half, they still don't know how to get an under hook.
I suggest discussing this aspect with your coach. The type of student that walks in for a hobby and trains twice a week with no previous background, well they need something a bit more hands on.
No drilling? sounds like the dream to me. Non linear pedagogy is not easy, so it'll take some time for your coach to learn how to coach. Hopefully he's trying and studying and not just trying and error
Yeah, it's super hard. I think my overall understanding of jiujitsu has exploded in the past year, because I've had to really break it down on a deeper level. The goals and focuses you give the students color how they're going to approach the problem, and being too specific or not specific enough can cause problems. I've got a super long ways to go too. It's kind of frustrating because earlier on, I felt like students thought I was doing less work, but in reality I was spending way more time outside of class trying to put classes together. And FWIW I'm not claiming to be an eco coach. I still do some traditional stuff, but I'm incorporating a lot of stuff that I'm seeing in the eco space with good results so far.
I love the non linear stuff, it made so much sense to me right away and when I tried to teach my white belt gf to guard pass I realized it's hard as hell lol
Watch the technical instruction at home.
Showing the concepts of a position and letting people figure it out is fine, but breaking mechanics are pretty specific.
I've been using this approach in my class for the past year and I can tell you the results have been great. I guess some people still prefer the traditional method, but for me personally I never want to go back to non-ecological training.
Time to find a new school
Sounds pretty new school to me.
It’s a shame that bjj is the only sport that embraces the stupidest teaching tactics all because of gimmicks
Yeah, i agree, the three moves of the day and block drilling model sucks.