I began coaching kid’s Jiu Jitsu classes in 2018 as a newly minted blue belt under my friend and mentor, Mike Cusi of North Park Jiu Jitsu in San Diego. I taught kids’ classes alongside Paulette Celebrado-Cusi and was mostly there learning how to coach Jiu Jitsu for children while keeping those children from going completely feral. As a coach, I learned a few things that I still keep with me: students should have fun during class—which makes for a delicate balance between chaos and fun—and the “stickiest” movement solutions were always the ones the students discovered for themselves.
This development and exploration would not have been possible without the encouragement and freedom I’ve been afforded by my friend and coach, Conor Huen, owner of 10th Planet Denver. I’ve been in the 10th Planet System since 2021 and was recently promoted to brown belt by Conor. I was awarded a blue belt rank from Mike Cusi of North Park Jiu Jitsu and received the rank of purple belt from both Mike Cusi and Johnny Tama (Tama Jiu Jitsu).
That’s a lot of reading to get to my main point, which is to present my experiential research into coaching using Ecological Dynamics through the Constraints Led Approach (CLA).
Like many Jiu Jitsu obsessives, I’ve kept my fingers on the pulse of grappling since I put on my white belt in 2017. As I transitioned from Kids Coach to the adult classes, I found myself cramming Instructionals each night before class and doing wayyy more talking during class than necessary, plus feeling inadequate as an expert (not a black belt) and unable to articulate why a grappler would put their hand here instead of here.
A few years back, I heard Greg Souders on the Sonny Brown Podcast and it made me rethink my entire philosophy of coaching and what I was attempting to impart to students. It is odd but not surprising to me that Greg is as polarizing as he is in our niche sport. It is a martial art/sport that is full of ego, hubris, tribalism and toxic masculinity. I can personally attest to Greg’s generosity. He spent several hours on the phone with me, a total stranger, sharing his findings and pointing me in the right direction(s).
What Greg did on that initial shot across the bow of traditional methods of instruction of line drill warmups, step-by-step instruction, and dead drilling culminating in full rounds of Jiu Jitsu was to put every coach on blast.
Be better. A rising tide lifts all boats.
What if I told you there was a more efficient way to get students better faster and the answer wasn’t more detailed instructions but (duh) more grappling?
Why should “we” stop doing what we’ve been doing for the last several dozen years to try something different? If you like the traditional approach, then you can find a place that does it just about anywhere in the world.
In this first of I-don’t-know-how-many dispatches on coaching grappling, I want to talk about the Constraints Led Approach first because I feel it may provide a more tangible framework for understanding how this entire Eco thing, uh, works.
The constraints-led approach (CLA) is a framework for teaching, coaching and practicing motor skills. It takes a holistic and individual approach to learning by considering the interactions between different ‘constraints’: the performer, the environment and the task.
🤔 SOURCE
CLA is the framework I utilize to help guide my practice design.
I must know what is invariable in a given situation. If I do not know what is invariable, then I must observe what emerges from dynamic situations between a pair of grapplers.
Let’s break it into something that uses the shared language of our broader grappling community. The most attractive aspect of having people train using the CLA is that it trains both players simultaneously in a live and dynamic situation.
SITUATION:
We have two grapplers on the mat;
Player 1 is standing (top)
Player 2 is seated (bottom)
Task for PLAYER 1 (top):
Player 1 must get Player 2 to their back, achieve a chest-to-chest connection and pin the bottom player there without dropping to a knee.
Task for PLAYER 2 (bottom):
Player 2 must maintain their seated position and keep off their back only using Posts and Frames.
RESULTS
Top players will find ways to turn the bottom player’s frames and posts into levers, working their way around the “guard” to a pinning position while maintaining pressure.
Bottom players will find ways to pummel and adapt to the dynamic nature of passing by keeping their hands and feet on the top player.
That’s going to be it for this dispatch. I imagine as I write more of these, my language will become more streamlined and efficient. My next dispatch will be about practice design. Working with time, theme and in blocks.
Here’s some live footage from a class last spring with similar tasks for bottom and top player.
In future posts I’ll try and add images and video.