Nicky Ryan has revealed how his encounter with ecological training advocate Greg Souders fundamentally transformed his approach to coaching. The admission came during a recent podcast appearance where Ryan discussed his successful tenure as head coach for the Craig Jones Invitational winning team.
Ryan admitted his journey with Souders’ methodology began with heavy skepticism. “Initially, I’m not even gonna lie, initially I thought it was bulls—. I was like, ‘This is so s—.’ Yeah. I was like, ‘This is absolutely r——,'” Ryan said. His perspective shifted after direct exposure to the methods. “And then when I met him and we had him come out to B Team and run a few sessions and I was like, ‘All right, maybe it makes sense,'” he explained.
The ecological approach promoted by Souders represents a departure from traditional instruction. Instead of isolating specific techniques like knee cuts or guard passes, it emphasizes creating games and scenarios where athletes naturally develop solutions to positional problems. This constraints-led approach is rooted in ecological dynamics, focusing on how athletes adapt and learn through environmental manipulation rather than direct teaching.
Despite operating from a smaller facility without a large team, Souders has produced notable athletes, including the Corbet brothers, who won ADCC trials and the $100,000 Subversiv bracket. These results have demonstrated the effectiveness of his unconventional methods.
Ryan’s conversion became clear in how he structured the CJI training camp. Working alongside Damien, he broke down essential skills for the ruleset and created games and positional rounds to develop those abilities.
“We pretty much just made games up based off of that or positional rounds based on the skills that we wanted each athlete to develop,” Ryan explained.
Instead of beginning sessions with traditional technique breakdowns, Ryan implemented Souders’ philosophy with a 10-minute warm-up followed by positional rounds and games.
“I wouldn’t actually teach anything in the beginning. It would just be essentially those games and positional rounds,” he said, describing a complete inversion of conventional training structure.
Still, Ryan didn’t adopt the approach wholesale. While acknowledging its effectiveness, he kept some traditional elements.
“I do differ in opinion with him in some areas. Like you know for instance Greg would be like you know he like never answers questions he never gives direct answers he essentially just makes another game. That’s where you know I differ a little bit that’s why I do a Q&A at the end I give live feedback things like that,” Ryan explained.
He stressed the importance of maintaining some direct knowledge transfer for athletes.
The success of this methodological shift was validated at CJI, where Ryan’s team came out on top. His hybrid system of Q&A and feedback, combined with ecological training, created an accessible but innovative environment. Ryan credited Souders’ approach with producing high-level competitors despite resource limitations, recognizing its potential to shift how grappling is taught.
