In a recent episode of the Simple Man Podcast, jiu-jitsu instructor Greg Souders presented his approach to skill acquisition in martial arts through what is known as the constraint-led approach (CLA) or ecological approach to training.
Souders, who pioneered this method in jiu-jitsu, was joined by DeAndre and Gavin Corbe, two black belt practitioners who have been implementing his methodology for several years. The podcast, hosted by the B Team’s Nick, Ethan and Damien, provided a deep dive into how this alternative training philosophy works and why its proponents believe it’s superior to traditional drilling-based practices.
“In simple words, we’re trying to scale live work,” Souders clarified. “We’re trying to keep everything live, everything unscripted, uncooperative with resistance, and we’re trying to figure out how to make it work without doing anything that’s not live.”
Unlike conventional jiu-jitsu classes where instructors typically demonstrate techniques which students then drill repetitively, Souders’ approach uses games or task-based rounds. These games have specific objectives that force students to find solutions to problems while working against resistance.
The ecological approach isn’t just a jiu-jitsu innovation—it’s based on established scientific research in skill acquisition. Souders first encountered these concepts around 2014 through the work of researchers like Michael Turvey and Rob Gray.
“Elite movers, people who do things at a high level, have more movement variability in the thing they do than beginners,” Souders explained, citing one of the key scientific findings that influenced his approach.
Souders noted that this approach is gaining traction in professional sports: “It’s not just working in jiu-jitsu now, as we’ve shown, but it’s working in all sports. These professional teams—the MLB, the NBA, the NFL—they’re hiring skill acquisition consultants from CLA camps.”
The Corbe brothers provided firsthand testimony about how switching from traditional training to Souders’ ecological approach transformed their jiu-jitsu.
DeAndre Corbe shared: “I hopped into a class and there was no drilling. At the time it was the beginning of COVID, I was still training in the gi… COVID was like a time warp. There were no competitions anymore, so I was like, ‘All right, let me dive into this no-gi thing.’
I saw a lot of value similar to what you guys saw these past couple days. I was like, ‘There’s something here.’ And before I questioned Greg, let me try to learn what he was reading, and it made a lot of sense.”
His brother Gavin added that he followed DeAndre’s lead and began working with Souders remotely, implementing the games-based approach with his training partners. The results were impressive:
“I ended up winning Pans that year,” he noted, referring to a major jiu-jitsu competition.
A key feature of Souders’ teaching methodology is the creation of “games” that contain specific constraints designed to develop particular skills. For example, when asked about how he would teach a rear naked choke without explicit instruction, he outlined a game that would naturally lead students to discover effective choking mechanics:
“We do different things. I’ll give you an example… Let’s say I have one strangle arm and they have two defenders. So if we know that there’s two defending arms versus the one attacking… we have to remove those things. So maybe a task constraint to enhance someone’s ability to strangle would be get to the hands and stay on the hands.”
Souders explained that over time, these games would be made increasingly complex, adding new constraints that guide students toward discovering the invariant aspects of techniques—the things that must happen for a technique to work—without explicitly telling them what to do.
Central to understanding Souders’ approach is the concept of “invariants”—the fundamental aspects that must be present for a technique to work, regardless of variations in body types or resistance levels.
“Invariants are things that must happen in order for something to occur,” Souders explained. “There are things that must be done with a head-arm strangle that if you don’t do, you will never get it. Those are embedded as tasks, and there’s enough room in each that you as the individual can figure that out.”
For example, with strangles, the invariant feature is compression on both sides of the neck. The specifics of how a practitioner achieves this compression may vary, but the compression itself is invariant.
Some might wonder how coaching works in a system that avoids explicit instruction. According to Souders, the coach becomes a designer of learning environments rather than an instructor of techniques.
“A coach’s job is to understand the sport they’re playing,” Souders explained. “Coaching has learned how to speak to athletes, how to manage athletes’ fatigue levels, how to notice a difference between two athletes and what you might need to do to affect one that doesn’t affect the other.”
DeAndre Corbe added that this approach “allows you to build the relationship between athlete and coach. It’s not instructing… Typical traditional jiu-jitsu gyms, they’re instructors. They come in, they do a couple moves and do live. What this allows you to do is really understand your athletes.”
The podcast participants discussed several advantages they’ve observed with the ecological approach:
- Individualized Skill Development: Nikki Rod, one of the B Team members, noted: “I would have gotten better much faster” if he had trained using an approach that allowed him to focus on movements relevant to his specific game rather than techniques that didn’t match his style.
- Natural Adaptation to Body Types: Gavin Corbe shared his experience teaching children: “When I showed the technique, all the kids were trying it, but all the kids were coming in all different shapes. When I stopped showing technique, they played to their strengths.”
- Enhanced Problem-Solving Skills: By repeatedly facing problems with varying levels of resistance, practitioners develop the ability to find solutions in real-time—a crucial skill in competition.
- Transfer to Competition: The constant exposure to live resistance creates training conditions that more closely match competitive scenarios.
While Souders acknowledges that his approach remains controversial in jiu-jitsu circles, he and the Corbe brothers believe it represents the future of training methodology in the sport.
“We only know based on our outcome,” DeAndre Corbe said. “If our outcomes are not what we expected, we change something. That’s just in general skill development.”
The podcast concluded with Souders emphasizing that while this approach may seem radical to those steeped in traditional training methods, it’s backed by scientific research and delivering results for his students—many of whom have never been exposed to conventional drilling yet are developing high-level skills.
