Gordon Ryan appears to be distancing himself from his previous harsh criticism of Ecological BJJ by rebranding similar concepts under a more familiar term.Just months after dismissing Ecological BJJ as “re*tarded” in shared WhatsApp conversations, Ryan recently shared training footage where he described his coaching approach as “creativity drills.” In the video, Ryan can be seen guiding students through dynamic positional scenarios, explaining:
“We’re just doing some creativity drills right now, I didn’t want to do a boring class where I taught the normal technique that we do.”
The timing of this shift is particularly noteworthy given Ryan’s previously documented confusion about Ecological BJJ principles. In publicized conversations with ADCC bronze medalist Dan Manasoiu, Ryan had initially asked,
“So what is ecological jj? It’s just positional sparring, isn’t it?”
When informed that the approach discourages structured technical instruction in favor of live training, Ryan responded with disbelief:
“That can’t be real.”
Following the circulation of his training video, Ryan took to social media to clarify his position, stating:
“We have been doing creativity drills since I started with john like 12 years ago, and they were doing them before I arrived lololl!”
His response suggests an attempt to establish precedence for his current training methods while avoiding direct association with the Ecological BJJ movement he previously criticized.
The controversy surrounding Ecological BJJ has divided the grappling community, with leading advocate Greg Souders positioning his Constraints-Led Approach as a radical departure from traditional instruction. Souders has openly criticized the need for technical knowledge before training, calling it
“the craziest thing” he has ever heard,
while dismissing widely respected instructional content as redundant.
This stance has drawn criticism from established competitors and coaches. Manasoiu has labeled the Ecological Approach “misinformation” and accused its proponents of
“diluting the essence of the sport.”
Even BJJ legend Gui Mendes dismissed the movement’s terminology, stating:
“You guys and these crazy names. Just say drilling with reaction.”
Interestingly, Ryan’s brother and former teammate Nicky Ryan has offered a more nuanced perspective on the debate. Speaking on The Simple Man Podcast, the younger Ryan acknowledged benefits in Souders’ methodology while maintaining that traditional drilling still has value.
“I definitely like what Greg’s doing. I think that there’s a lot of uses to it,”
Nicky Ryan said, though he added,
“Me personally, I would do it differently.”
Nicky Ryan’s approach appears to bridge the gap between methodologies, incorporating constraint-based training while maintaining technical feedback.
“I think a good medium is what I’m trying to do now with Nicky Rod where I’ll sit on the side, watch him do this positional round with these constraints, and then I’ll give him suggestions on things he could improve on,”
he explained.
Gordon Ryan‘s latest social media commentary revealed his criteria for evaluating coaching effectiveness, stating:
“Wanna know how to guage which coaching strategies are the best? Look to see which coaches have produced (not recruited) the most champions (that all have a similar game to one another). It is literally the ONLY criteria to judging coaching effectiveness on.”
Whether this represents genuine pedagogical evolution or strategic rebranding remains a subject of discussion among practitioners and observers alike.
