Ecological dynamics describes how we learn. It’s new to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) but not so new to the rest of the world. I want to break down some information on how it works in a way that is applicable to training grappling, avoiding as much of the technical language as possible.
I’m going to give some basic explanations for differences in models, but this article isn’t designed to convince you that this model is right. If you want convincing or otherwise of that, you should absolutely look into The Information Processing Model vs The Ecological Dynamics Model.
Assuming that you do think the ecological approach is the right way, this is to give you a primer and tools on how to implement it in your BJJ training methods.
What’s Important, and What Are The Differences
So, the ecological approach vs. the information processing model. Basically, information processing describes your head as a computer. You take in information, process it with your prior knowledge, make a mental model of what will happen, and act on it. For this reason, you might give someone a load of instructions and expect them to do better, as the processing part will be improved.
In ecological dynamics, rather than information being given to us by people telling us things and us creating an internal image, all the information we need is in the environment. Ecological dynamics describes the body as self-organising rather than top-down, so the focus goes from people giving us information to us experiencing things and building up reactions and skills in our subconscious.
In practice, this means we learn each situation best by experiencing it first-hand. We need to put ourselves in a situation to look for the right bits of usable information, and over time, we will develop the right responses. Because of the many tiny differences in each situation, it’s impossible to tell people every detail of how to move and hold themselves. Broad instructions are fine, but we must let people feel the best way to do things.
There are three important takeaways.
Firstly, you can’t just tell people stuff and expect them to get better. What videos and instructions might do is tell us where to look, but people aren’t going to gain sudden improvements from watching instructionals or receiving last-minute advice.
Secondly, we need people’s attention on the environment. They need to think about what they are doing to their opponent rather than what they are doing themselves. If the outcome is correct, and their attention is in the right place, that’s the ideal situation. And you can’t train things in isolation. There isn’t, for example, a part of your brain that controls reaction times or hand-eye coordination. You need to look at the environment for cues.
Thirdly, experience and practice are needed. Repetition without repetition is a good way to describe this. You want to spend as much time in a situation as possible and make your way to the outcome you are looking for as many times as you can. But you don’t ever get there in exactly the same way. You repeat, but you don’t.
The Constraints-Led Approach – Setting Up A Session
There are a couple of learning methods in ecologic dynamics, but the Constraints-Led-Approach (CLA) is the most practical for BJJ.
This is where repetition without repetition comes in. You want to put people in a situation (for example, head and arm grip from butterfly guard) with a goal (put your partner onto their side or back) and tell them where to put their attention (stretch their opponent’s elbow and knee as far apart as possible). If you either reach a position where the person on top has fallen, or if they free their arm from the grip, you start again. You have given them constraints (start and end position), where to put their attention (stretching knee and elbow apart), and you are building in good behaviours by giving them an intention (isolating the arm, while getting on top).
The CLA is not positional sparring. Positional sparring is far more open; there are constraints, but not many, and there’s no particular behaviour being worked on. Positional rounds are much more about playing the game and executing from different places, rather than learning how to grapple.
One big question is how small to slice the game. As a general rule, beginners need to have things sliced smaller. For triangles from closed guard, for example, you may need to do a game where they force a post, then get an overhook, then get one in one out, and finally get the triangle locked in, all as individual games. More experienced competitors, on the other hand, won’t need this degree of slicing. They can often get away with just free sparring – someone who has a big skill advantage can force someone into a position of their choosing, and look to execute the move they want to work on. They get live training and repetition without repetition, just as we would design in the games.
There are some good templates for building out eco drills for BJJ. Start with the position. For an example, we’ll look at the shoulder crunch again. Have students start with the head and arm grip and hold it for as long as possible while the top player tries to extract their arm. Once people are used to the position itself, build entries to it. Have people set it up, likely by forcing people to post and taking the grip, before holding it for as long as possible. Finally, execution: start with the same entry game, and have them try to sweep their opponent from the shoulder crunch position. What this does is put people in consistently realistic situations, with realistic responses, and allows both the top and bottom players to work at the same time. Whatever you do when building out ecological drills, make sure it’s live, unscripted, and realistic. If you have those components, you won’t go far wrong.
You can plan all you like, but bear in mind you are trying to train people to build good behaviours. Whenever you provide a game, you have to consider what the people in front of you are actually doing, and if it needs to be changed, address it. You have to coach what’s in front of you. The job of a coach, even under the ecological framework, doesn’t end when you get into the gym.
So how do you know if people are doing it right? Well, aside from people having sensible behaviours, it shouldn’t look pretty. Real matches don’t, and we want to make things look as real as possible. When it starts looking too clean, change it up and make the activity harder.
The Place of Prescriptive Instruction
Prescriptive Teaching is a bit of a taboo topic in the ecological approach, but there is a place for it. Remember though, it’s always better to have an external focus of attention (i.e. focussing on the environment, and what they are making their opponent do). Don’t make people’s attention turn inwards if you can help it. When you do use the prescriptive cue, pay attention to how well it works. If it doesn’t have the desired effect, move on to something else.
Closing Thoughts
There’s a lot of evidence regarding ecological dynamics, so I encourage you to go out and look for it (and counter-evidence) to decide for yourself. That said, it’s not a closed story. There are people who still promote the information processing model (traditional approach), and there are still things that we can’t properly understand using ecological dynamics.
This will not be the final model of learning that we describe. In such a complex and hard-to-test thing as learning and interacting with the world, it will take a huge amount of time to iterate through all the needed details, so all we can do is find the most accurate and effective method with the information we have.
If you want to learn more about the subject in general, look at Dr. Rob Gray, who is a leading expert on the topic. Within BJJ, the best coach for games has to be black belt Greg Souders, who puts out a ton of free content to review. And on the sciency side, look at Ed Ingamells. Though he doesn’t put out as many easily implemented games, he does have an amazing understanding of the topics and great tips to go with that understanding.
