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Brand new White Belt Josh Lu calls on Jake Luigi, BJJ Youtuber from "Less Impressed More Involved BJJ", and other guests for help on the path to improvement, performance, and enjoyment in the sport of Jiu Jitsu. Follow the journey!
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#177 CLA Coaching Panel, Early Lessons, Mistakes, and Advice from Ryan Moutinho, Rudy Gonzales, and Nick Hernandez
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In this episode, we have three coaches, Ryan Moutinho (@connecticutsubmissiongrappling), Rudy Gonzales (@mythicfightteam), and Nick Hernandez (@vacavillegrappling) who I met from Greg Souder's Skool Group who have started coaching using the Constraint Led Approach within the last few years. We talk about the common early challenges, lessons learned, and try to capture recent advice for anyone trying out the approach. Hope this is helpful!
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Hey everyone, welcome to the 1-800 BJJ Help Podcast. I'm your host, Josh Lou. Today I've got three awesome coaches on the line on a group call. First time doing a panel on the podcast, which is really exciting. And the goal for today is I wanted to uh talk to some coaches who have been implementing CLA and just capture any early lessons, mistakes, challenges learned along that journey to hopefully help new people uh who can relate and hopefully speed up their process in learning CLA. And so uh maybe we'll do some quick intros, real quick. Uh Ryan, if you want to kick us off, um, just who you are, how long you've been training, um, where you're coaching at now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm uh Ryan Motino. I'm the coach and owner of Connecticut Simmission Grappling up in Connecticut, Bridgeport, Connecticut, to be specific. I've been training jujitsu for eight years now, and uh I've been implementing CLA through coaching for about three years. And it's been uh it's been a wild ride, man, but it's been very satisfying and um engaging to say the least, yeah, as a coach and as a still an athlete myself, more on the coaching side now, but I do still train and compete not as much as I used to, but um um transitioning over into more of the coaching role um as it is my gym and I am the coach here, so I've been uh enjoying the implementation of CLA very much. Awesome. Thanks for being here, Ryan. Um, how about you, Rudy?
SPEAKER_02My name's Rudy Gonzalez. I started coaching professionally about five years ago. I opened up a school for someone else, and uh I was still doing the drilling approach, and one of my good students ended up showing me great souters, and then that instilled the whole rabbit hole. So now maybe four years of doing CLA, and uh I think it's humbling. It made me see that I don't know everything that I think that I do, um, and now it just brings me back to the whole becoming a student once more. The thing I think that martial arts really does for us. Uh I'm the owner uh and operator of Mythic Muscle Gym in Tacoma, Washington. Uh come train and uh yeah, come get jacked.
SPEAKER_03Perfect. And then Nick.
SPEAKER_01I'm Nick Hernandez. Uh I'm the owner head coach at Bacaville Grappling Academy, it's in Northern California. I started trading uh eight years ago and uh traditional ghee uh the whole time and I didn't really know about no gi at the time. But um as far as coaching, I started coaching on and off noon and morning classes in 2022, and that's actually when I found out about CLA and the podcast that Greg was was doing. And then I started implementing CLA in 2023 and um been going to his seminars every year since I sent my coaches the to the seminars too. So um it's been a it's been a very it's been a good learning experience to say the least. Um it's opened my eyes um from being so constrained to just doing it one way, and then now to broadening like what is jujitsu really. And um it's uh it's a it's a it's a learning experience for sure. So yeah.
SPEAKER_03Awesome. Um Ryan, for you, how did you first hear about CLA and what was your very first impression of it when you heard this, like this, this topic?
SPEAKER_00Oh man, um I heard it from one of my teammates and uh another coach that at a gym that I used to train at. And my first thought of it, to be honest, was like, oh, this is this is ridiculous. Um and my intrigue in it was to try and disprove it. I was like a heavy driller. Um I was the driller, but then I went, I would go roll and just get crushed by everybody, right? Like I knew all the details about how to show the moves to everybody because I was coaching and training the traditional way. And once I uh heard about CLA, I was like, ah, there's no way that works. But then I started to realize, like, hey, maybe this actually does make sense, and maybe this is why I have this collection of moves and techniques, but I I struggle to implement 99% of them. You know what I mean? So it was very much like, ah, this is kind of ridiculous. I'm gonna disprove it. And the more I listened to a podcast with Greg and and and looked into it, it just became more and more apparent that this is actually this is actually it, man. Like, this is the way.
SPEAKER_03Dang, I feel like as an adult, it's pretty rare to completely change your mind about something that you've believed for years and years. And so um that must have been a process. Uh so for you, Ryan, like you were so against it. How when did that when did you start to become open to the idea?
SPEAKER_00Oh, I realized like, okay, you know what? In the process of trying to maybe disprove this or see where the flaws are in this, maybe I'll try and implement it into one of my classes. I had a beginner class at a at a different gym that I used to coach at. And the results were just like it was not very different than if I had shown the move. People the same amount of people were still having trouble as it was as compared to when I was showing the step-by-step technique. So there wasn't an excess of people having a hard time, but at the very least, now everybody's moving and sweating and they're grappling and they're laughing and having fun. So it was more so that you know the the staring at the ceiling and picking at the fingernails and the uh disinterest in the seven to ten minute rant about why you have to be on this side to do the triangle and you have to do X, Y, and Z. It really made it that the whole class was so engaged, and I just saw people happy training. You know, science and skill acquisition aside, everybody that was there, teen to adult, were was having such a fun time. And I was like, oh man, at the very least, they're in so engaged that I'm gonna keep trying to do something with this because people are enjoying it. And my class size just started to grow. Like more people were starting to come to my class. So I was like, oh man. And then I I just got deeper down the rabbit hole. I was like, you know, people are enjoying this, but you know, I actually see people doing some really cool stuff too. So it was uh it was a wild, wild ride. It was definitely an ego death. Like I had to like put aside everything I thought I knew. And I was like, all right, man, I don't know what I'm doing at all. I'm just gonna let this take over and see where it leads me. Wow.
SPEAKER_03Uh for Rudy and Nick, both of you guys' first impression was with Greg when you first heard him. Were you bought in? Or like maybe Rudy, you can kick us off. Were you bought in like right away when you when you first heard him?
SPEAKER_02No, I think to uh speak what you were talking about earlier, I was super averse to all of his ideas. I was trying to disprove stuff, but I came from a martial arts background growing up really early in my life. Um I was a taekwondo guy, then a kickboxer, then a muay thai guy, a wrestler. My dad is like the biggest uh influence in terms of pushing me into martial arts, and so I don't think that I think I fought a I think I fought it for all of about 30 to 40 minutes, and then I just decided that I was gonna ask the guy who was bringing it to my attention, okay, then teach me a class and run this class and show me what you mean. Um after I got to take off the coaching hat and then just put the student hat on, I realized that it allowed me to balance things a lot easier um with my responsibilities. I was getting paid to be a coach. My egotistical pursuit is that of an athlete. Um I'm always an athlete and uh I mean now the biggest thing is not just only embracing it. Um I'm not a super intelligent individual. I like to lift heavy things and grudge real loud. Um but I do understand now how the work and the direction that Greg has gone with understanding and putting these things into action and giving us an example now makes it so that we can access the same literature that he has and then eventually become even more creative. If we can be creative as coaches, that's what allows us to put our signature on something. And uh I don't know really know what I'm talking about, as I'm pretty sure all of us don't really know. But the cool thing is how Ryan alluded to earlier, the fun that's happening in class is what's most important to all of us. Uh so in like in the spirit of that, I think that that's what the CLA has like brought most to my environment that I'm teaching in. My school is all about fun and hard work. And uh if we can like get better along in the process, sure, great. But there's a whole lot of other things that have to happen other than just like just trying to be good at jujitsu. So yeah, that's been my process so far.
SPEAKER_03That's very cool that you were like 30 minutes in, just just do it, just teach, just run a class and just let me try it. You just jumped right in. Um, Nick, how about for you? When you first heard Greg on a podcast shouting, you know, no drilling, drilling is dead, like what was your first first impression?
SPEAKER_01I I honestly was bought in because uh along my journey, I was watching a lot of instructionals in 2018, 2019, 20, 21, 22. Um, and that's all I did because I did private prote I do private protection for families. I would put them and get all the things done, and then at the last half of shift, I'd watch six hours of instructionals on night shift. And I would try those things at practice at sparring time, and I wouldn't have as much success because I didn't like drilling either, but I would try that. I would purposely try the instructional at practice, and then I just noticed it it just wasn't translating very well. So then I started watching matches and seeing what was current, and then bought my instructionals based off that. And so, and then meanwhile, I was coaching here and there. Um, but that was still not translating very well. I'm like, how am I gonna remember all these moves, all these techniques, and keep buying all these instructionals over and over again? And it's the same instruction with this third technique, this variant, this this specific thing that they do this way. And so I was like, How am I gonna teach all this and remember all this? So when I and so I was already going to towards that path of like, this is just not sustainable. You can't, we're not computers, we don't process information like that. So I just I saw this YouTube video, I forgot what it says, like this coach doesn't drill or something like that. And then from there I just searched in 2022 all the podcasts. I think it was like August, September, October. I was just going all up in the podcast with Greg, and a lot of people didn't like his attitude. I don't really care about that. I just wanted to know the information. I I care less what your attitude or how you present yourself to others, and um everything he said made sense because of my previous journey of instructions and things like that. So to answer your question, yes, I I was bought in.
SPEAKER_03Okay, cool. Um so, Ryan, do you remember when you first implemented it? Now you're starting to run classes using CLA. How did you implement it? Did you like do hybrid first? And then what were some of those big mistakes or challenges in the early days?
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. Um, I just literally copied Greg's games. Like he he does say, no, there's no plug and play, but I had to start somewhere. So I just went on the standard Instagram and I stole some of those games. I had a a beginner class, so that that was good enough for what we were working on. And I just, you know, jotted all the notes down, wrote it out in my phone notes, and I just started playing games with my class. And um the biggest thing that I remember about it is how uncomfortable I was because people weren't doing the things that I wanted them to do, they were solving problems the way they wanted to solve the problem, whether it was effective or not, they were moving towards a goal that they had in mind, right? So it was like being able to step back and not intervene every 10 seconds, 20 seconds, and correct somebody's hand or this or that. That was like the biggest thing where I was like, okay, I need to really control myself instead of control these people. Um that's like the biggest thing that I remember about it. I was literally just going copying Greg's games and like throwing them into the room. And then slowly I would realize that people were being effective, even if they weren't being efficient, you know, and they were finding different routes to the solution. I would see really cool stuff happen that was like so off the beaten path of how I would do it or how I was taught to do a certain thing. And I was like, okay, wait a second, I gotta really like keep my mouth shut here and not try and correct the individuals and then also stop the game midway because I think that people don't understand it. Just let it play out, man. It's like six minutes, just let it play out. At the very least, they're sweating and they're grappling. There's the resistance, there's the the struggle, there's the fighting happening, and that's way more important than them listening to me talk about what I know about uh half guard passing or whatever we're working on that day. So it was it was just hard for like it's a it's a blow to the ego, man. It's like you have to really restrain yourself and constrain yourself as a coach, give them the task, give them the focus, and then step back. And as long as nobody's hurting each other, you just you that you know, that stepping away from intervening was the hardest part. Wow.
SPEAKER_03Nick, how about for you when you first started implementing it? Um, how'd the class go and what were those early mistakes or challenges or lessons?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I started implementing when I was training at my coach's gym and I started doing the morning practices Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So I did two mornings of gi and one morning of no-gi. I was really, I really liked the no-gi, so I would train that in my garage at other times. But at my coach's gym or my professor's gym, I would uh try to uh use it with the gi and no gi. Um but specifically I had problems with uh just like like Ryan said, you kind of want to get do something to uh create a move that you know and try to gear them that way. But it I so to answer your question, I was being too specific and not broad enough to let them go different routes and be more of uh effective over just aesthetic type thing. We don't want to like, oh, you did it, but you didn't do it the way I it looked like I wanted you to do it type thing. So I was being too specific. And um and I started noticing with the gi, you kind of have you can uh kind of get it to it's kind of specific because we have grips now, but um when I did it on Fridays with Nogi, I started feeling feeling like okay, this is this is this is good because now it's we're focusing on controlling body and not just cloth. And um that kind of like helped me get out of this. Well, we need to do one simple move and or get it to that one move. So um that the doing it in Nogi was actually what helped me to uh broaden my scope and to allow people to find different routes of the same um to the problem.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, I heard um I hear a lot of people when they first start doing CLA, maybe it's because they have so many, they've been doing technique for so long and truly for so long that they do try to force a technique to happen. Like today I'm gonna teach everybody how to make triangles happen. And basically it's like first game is like the first step or whatever, and second game is the second step, and third game's the third step. And um uh Nick, at that time early on, I don't think there was a lot of Gee games out there in the internet that people could copy. So, were you in both Ghee and Nogi just making up your own games just to start for the screen talk?
SPEAKER_01Uh I was kind of like in the same boat with Ryan. I would watch like a lot of his YouTube channel stuff, like you'd have uh uh advance in beginners uh foundations practice, and I would watch that and how he would talk and coach. And so I'd use that the way he talked and coached at his practices as like kind of like a format, I would present the information, you know, um definition objective pass type thing. And so I would organize my thoughts on that. And then when I um then I would look at the Instagram page for for games and stuff like that, and I would try to just make the games for the gi as similar as possible because if you think about like hand fighting, you're grabbing wrists, elbow head, there's a collar, there's a sleeve grip, there's a you know, just target those areas. So that's what I would do. I just kind of come um, you know, make it uh fit, but with those specific grips, you know.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, makes sense. Rudy, how about you? What were the early days teaching CLA like?
SPEAKER_02I think the early days for myself focused around aesthetics as well. Maybe the being super specific was what limited me in terms of making the creativity appear. Um I think that for myself I ended up becoming very akin to drilling. Some of my coaches in the past were always telling me that I needed to drill and I couldn't. I remember one of the famous praises what's Rudy, you have to drill, you can't just make shit happen. And I of course disagreed. Um I was much younger. So I took on the drilling approach and to some success when it really pushed through, it would push through on the less experienced people. But when I started to move towards the people who were closer to mine, then the real fight is what ensued. So instead of backing away from the real fight, which is I think uh sometimes kind of what ends up happening as we like climb the ranks, um, I realized that with the CLA, the real fight is in the gray area of in between passing the guard or implementing whatever position you're trying to do. Um I was a ghee fanatic for such a long time. Um, but that was also because I had such an advantage knowing how to control the body without the cloth. So when I finally took the cloth completely away, um, it evened the playing field a lot for myself and some of the students that were training with me that were closer to my skill level. But then when it came to advancing the newer people who were like day zero, their advancement just skyrocketed. And uh within a couple years' time, I had a couple brothers, like there was three of them, but two of them really trained now. Uh, these these brothers like just exponentially increased. And during that time, the youngest one learned judo by himself through YouTube. And so now he's hitting these. I know the traditional Japanese name of Sasei Surikomi Goshi, and you know, all these nice uh sounding things, but he's hitting me with these things in practice, and uh so I realized that it's like a reality that a man can watch things, constrain himself, and learn on his own. Um, and so now with that being what it is, my goal is figuring out okay, can I still keep teaching these young men uh ways how to get better, as well as you know, getting my own training and then uh nurturing the people that are coming up. So a lot of the mistakes were all based off of me, my own wants and needs. Um but then as I'm like learning through Greg and understanding how to critically think more, then it allows me to kind of start to implement some of those things that can be specific. But at the end of the day, it doesn't need it it a lot of it, I think, is limited on us as coaches and like dispelling some of the personal beliefs that we have.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I it's a common theme that keeps keeps coming up. And also I like this topic you brought up about just how your students are reacting to this. Um, so I do want to ask about that. Maybe Ryan, for you in the beginning, you know, you're like super uncomfortable, you're maybe you're interjecting too much, and you're it's like a whole new world. How are the students engaging with it at that point? And are they giving you feedback?
SPEAKER_00And they just sort of having fun. So this is at an old gym I used to coach at. I just had one class a week. I had a Monday like beginner class, and the number of students who attended it just kept growing. So that was enough feedback for me. There was retention. All the people who once came were now showing up every week. And now there was more people coming. And like I said earlier, they were just having so much fun. So that was enough of the feedback for me to continue to. Do what I was doing and try and expand on it. Because I mean, what else do you need other than people showing up to your class with a smile on their face, excited to practice? Because they know, hey man, in in 50 minutes we're going to get a better workout than we do in I mean any of the other classes where we're sitting there for 30 minutes listening to like lectures. So that was enough for the feedback. And then they were telling me it's fun. And a lot of them were beginners, so they don't really have a they don't expectation of anything else, anyways. And then, you know, a big another big uh turning point was when they would start asking the other coaches, like, hey, is your class all live as well? And then I was like, oh no. Like, this is when, like, you know, the clashing starts, and now that you know what I mean? Like, well, Coach Ryan's class is live. Like, he told us we could do it anyway. Like, you say we have to do it this way. And I was like, oh no, I have to open my own gym. Like, you know what I mean? And it it led to me opening eventually, not right away, eventually opening my own place. But the feedback was just I could see it. I could see people lighting up before, during, and after class. They were happy to be there. They were there every week. The class size was growing. Um, and then the comments here and there of like, it's just a fun class. This is, you know, nothing like, hey, I'm learning how to enter 50-50 and heel hook better. It's it was all just very baseline stuff of like people enjoying training and actually training, and then you could see on people's faces that it was like worth their time and this was something they were looking forward to. So it was just that alone. I was like, oh man, like they need to enjoy this more than I need to implement or uh put my knowledge about into them. You know what I mean? Like, I know about this, you need to know about this. It's like, hey man, if you can show up every week, that's that's the key. Getting people to show up every week. So that was the biggest uh feedback that I got, just paying attention to people actually wanting to be in the room. Gotcha.
SPEAKER_03You know, uh when you first started, you were basically copying Greg. Um did you when did you start making up your own games and start adapting games on the fly and stuff like that? That seems like a pretty big hump to get over in terms of learning CLA is going from copying to like now adapting on your own.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh that came with time of just watching the room. So um we're really like holding back from correcting people and watching what's happening and then adjusting accordingly. If I saw something, you know, a lot of people having a hard time or something was ineffective, maybe I could tweak it here and there, and I can make one subtle change. I could be like, all right, guys, we're gonna play the same game, but now you have to stay standing when you keep the feet off of them. Like just some, you know, if it's like a guard passing game or guard retention kind of game. Um, everybody's dropping to their knees. I didn't I didn't constrain them. Okay, now gonna make them stand the whole time. Uh just really, really subtle little tweaks to the games to where it wasn't just a brand new iteration of the game, but something they've already experienced with a little more constraint or a little less constraint, and um it would just be from watching, like you have to watch your class. You cannot really train or start to go around and nitpick people's way of doing things. You have to sit back and actually see what's happening in the room. Even if a good percentage of the room is having success, they're effective. If there's still a substantial amount of uh people in the room that are kind of gaming the game or not engaging with the game, it's not really about going and telling them verbally, like, don't do this, don't do that. Just do another iteration of the game. Now they can't do that, right? So your verbal intervention is not as effective as giving them a new task. And that was a huge light bulb moment for me. It's like, oh, I don't have to be like expert game designer like Greg. I just have to pay attention to my room and tweak things where they need to be tweaked. And um, that started to give me a lot of confidence where it's like, oh, I can take what he did and kind of put it in the room, see what uh develops from there, see what emerges from there. And I could uh, you know, add a little bit, take a little bit out, you know, play around with the recipe a little bit. That was that gave me a lot of confidence. It's like, oh, I can start doing this. I can start. It's just a start. I don't have to be an expert. I just have to start.
SPEAKER_03I like that. I like that you didn't put the pressure on yourself to like, okay, I gotta make a whole new game and iterate it completely. You can just take the same game and just add one little thing or take something away. I feel like that's a very tactical piece of advice that someone listening could just go do in their next class. Uh, Rudy, I see you nodding a lot. Like, any thoughts on on what Ryan's sharing here?
SPEAKER_02Um, I agree with everything that he's saying. Um obviously. Um paying attention to the class is like a huge uh thing, especially when we're asking people to do things that are uh that are critically thinking based. Um people's personalities usually dictate how they're gonna solve the problem. More relaxed or laid-back individuals are gonna solve it in a way that can be more uh consistent in their approach, not so much aggressive in using like uh uh force to like break the door down. But then there's some people that are on the opposite spectrum, they will use force. Teaching those two different individuals to learn how to find that middle point for them is what I think we can learn how to do as coaches. Um the more experienced that we have someone, a challenge, I guess that I would say that I found for myself and people who are longer, uh longer in the tooth of training martial arts, they want to be very efficient and uh intentional with what they're doing. And sometimes it can't be as sexy as what we perceive it to be in our brain. And if it can't be that sexy, then we have to figure out how much pressure and force and aggression we need to use to make the thing that we want to happen happen. Um I grew up watching Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan movies, and obviously the choreography is the biggest thing that like draws the eye. And especially with our sport now evolving as it is, when you see something cool happen, you want to make it happen again. I think that now paying attention to the room, like Ryan was talking about, super essential for coaches. I used to teach the deadpan drilling, and it would allow me to take a mental reset in between those work periods for the students where I would have to go, no, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is correct. Now, in reality, not much in my route is wrong unless the student or athlete is no longer doing the game. Um and that's my experience dealing with CLA and transitioning from drilling over to the games. Uh, because now it shows me that we have to just be accepting of more people's personalities and their problem-solving abilities because we're all gonna change as we get older, as we get smarter. So that's it. Very cool. Nick, how about you?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, um I agree with everything everything they said is absolutely true because when you do it long enough, you're gonna see all those problems. But for me, like my students' reactions in training, I have like you have the experienced people who are I think are the hardest to get to this put to the opening of your mind and be more adaptable to change. Because, like you said in the very beginning, people just want to be set in their ways, and it uh and with what Rudy said, it's that personality. So you have the combination of that personality with the experience of just drilling, drilling, drilling. That was the hardest for me to get those guys to kind of like broaden their scope. And then for the new people, like they're easy to train because they have a blank, fresh point of view. Like, I want those people to come in because it's like a challenge for me. How could what can I get them to like experience and learn? And so for them, it's awesome. But even more than those guys, the the youth, uh, when I teach the youth class, I honestly didn't even want the youth class. I didn't want it. I was like, I don't want to teach kids, but I'm gonna I have just started a school. I need to get kids in. I need to, I need to have a kids program. That's what everyone tells you, right? But now it's my favorite practice because like they're young. They're like, it's it's the culture thing that this also brings with CLA. Like the CLA brings the culture of we're gonna work with each other, we're gonna help each other get better, and it's athlete focused, not me, it's you. And so with these kids that come in from school, they're like tired of hearing their teacher tell them stuff, their parents tell them, you gotta do it this way, you gotta, you gotta write the sentence like this, you gotta solve them, you gotta shut up and and listen. When I get them on the mat, I'm like, I want you guys to like ask me questions. I don't want sheep in my room. I want you guys to come in here and ask questions and be wild, but like play the games, and you could just see the growth. I have like, and especially the girls, man. The the the the the boys hammer hitting nails, right? But the girls are assassins, dude. They're just like planning your demise seven steps before. And like, and it's good to see these girls or just the youth students in general, seven to twelve, they're just like you give them the experience, you give them the exposure, the opportunity, and the intention to do these things, and the things that they do is just is just awesome to see. And so the kids' class, I love it. Um, so that's how uh my students reacted to those experience harder, new people, easy. The youth youth are the new and and um they're just like have energy. So, and and that actually helped my adult practice because then my language was simpler. I didn't talk as much because they don't care about me. They want to like start training. So I have to hurry up and deliver the message, get them going, and then boom, like so. That helped my adult practice teaching the kids. So that's how that's how my students reacted to the type of training that we did there.
SPEAKER_03So it's funny when you said that the experienced people were the hardest to work with. Everybody here was just like nodding, like, oh my gosh, what did not want to give it a shot?
SPEAKER_01And I'm like, dude, can we just just just try? Can I do this? Can I do that? I'm like, as long as you are going this way in these directions, these tasks I'll give you, you I don't care how you solve it. Just do it, try it. Is this okay? Is that uh that doesn't I'm like it doesn't look right. I'm like, it doesn't matter. Is it effective? Did you get on top? Did you, you know, so yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, can I I'm just gonna jump in. I this is such I agree so much with this. This is all I'm experiencing. I have a such a brand new gym, less than two years open, where we've always been 100% CLA. We're all nogi. Like I've never worn a gi in my life. Like, I don't even I've never done another martial art. I've only done no giu jitsu. So I have I wouldn't be able to teach anybody or try to teach any anything else. And I have like purple belts coming in, you know, blue belts, purple belts, brown belts, and they are they're like, what do you mean feet in between? I'm like, are your feet in between? Like, where do you where? I'm like, and then I have like a 15-year-old kid just like doing barumbolos, and he hasn't he's never been shown a barumbolo. Like the contrast between like somebody who's been had their hand held throughout the entire training of their jujitsu compared to like people who have just only interacted with the CLA uh environment is so eye-opening once you just have that. There's nothing else. And uh yeah, the growth of new people is so exponential compared to having to unlearn all the things that experienced people have to unlearn and then re-learn the game. It's almost like I I would say like it's like an average of a year of training exclusively CLA until an experienced person can actually start behaving differently compared to a day one grappler who's only done CLA. In like two months, you'll see like they're doing quote unquote advanced movements that you know would take 15 minutes in a traditional class to explain the steps. Where it's like this kid has never been shown this in his life. Like, how is like I'm saying, like, I see baronbolos, I see false reap entries into heel hooks, like this kid, like these kids, they don't they've never been shown this, they just try to get to the task or complete the task. It's it's very eye-opening. That's the the biggest thing that I notice is the new people compared to the existing um experienced players. The growth is just so much quicker. And the in the uh not to rant too long, but the ability to move fluently without freezing up, like thinking like, where's the next step? What's the next step? They're just moving, man. They're just they just don't stop.
SPEAKER_01Um I feel like the new people uh create that culture and and can and help the the more experienced people kind of break free of that constraint of like I need to do it this way. And the new people continue. I think culture is huge in Jim. I've been trying to change the culture, but with with Ryan, what Ryan was saying, yeah, the new people just when the experienced people see new people do CLA and they haven't been taught anything else, and the new people are just hitting bare balls and stuff, and they're like, wow, this it that culture and that that uh that training environment just helps everyone, even the experienced people. They learn from the new people.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, man. What before I opened my gym, uh Greg, I talked to him in person, and he was one of like he was the influence of he was like, Hey man, just open a gym then. If you can do it, just do it. And he said, the most important thing is culture. Culture is all you have. Set the culture first, and then everything else will fall in place where where it needs to be. So I agree 100%, man. It's all about the culture. That's that is what the gym is.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Uh speaking of Greg, you know, we've been in his school account or like school program for a little bit. Um I am really curious how each of you use it, like who you would recommend it for. Um, Rudy, maybe you can start. Like, what made you join the the school program and then how do you use it?
SPEAKER_02Sorry. I joined the school program as soon as I found out that it was like popping off. I've bought every single product that Greg has had. Um, and I'm hopefully not self-incriminating myself. I've pirated every other instructional that I've ever had from every other coach, minus Greg. Wow. Uh and one other coach named Key Vaughn. Um what got me into that? Um I just I read all the books that Greg had prescribed by Robert Bray. And for me, trying to relate uh knowledge about to the sports specific was where I needed to really close that gap. So I it was no it was a no-brainer. I'm gonna do the I'm gonna go to the school account. And then being able to go to Greg's whenever I want to as well is just the cherry on top. Um how do I use it? I take notes on everything um in terms of the things that he puts out for like the classroom, um, and then the seminars and stuff that are dropping kind of consistently now as well. I take notes on everything, and then I see can it be scaled into a practice for the foundations, um, the all levels, and then for uh for a competition style class too. So that's pretty much what I use the school account for, and of course, meeting fine young gentlemen like yourself. Everyone I've been talking uh where I live at in Washington State, uh I live in Tacoma. Um I've been telling everyone that'll listen to me, read these books, uh look at this person, sign up at this school account. I do not know how many people have done it, but I really hope that more do because um, with respect, the grappling in Washington, we stink, dude. And if we want to get better, we have to all want each other to get better. I can't hold on to the secrets of what made me an amazing martial artist as a young man and what has allowed me to go seamlessly from competitor to coach with my own gen. I want other people to make the same thing happen. And if they're not willing to, that's okay. However, I'm not gonna still stop beating my drum of like, hey, come to this free class or check out this free resource. Um because as we see, as like we pay attention to the community, the folks who are expanding their minds and proving their own like disbelief, um they're the ones that are advancing the fastest. And as a coach now, I should want my personal suits to get five times as better as me in half the time. And when they finally reach that timeline of training as long as I have for about 15, 16 years, they should be a world champion if they choose to be. Or they should be 10 times a successful coach than I am. So everyone should use it and you should just you should, man.
SPEAKER_03You should use it. Nick, how about you? What what made you join and then how do you use it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I joined as the first day it came out. Um the way I use it is I um I study um a lot of the stuff he I look at how he talks and speaks and how he designs practice, and then like from month, I implemented on Monday, and then I try to see where I would go with the next week by applying uh it to the advanced players. All right, I think this is where we're headed next week, so I'm gonna apply this to you, you're the advanced players to see like how well I know the information. Do I know the invariants of what's going on here? And so I apply it that way. And but and I agree with everything Rudy says, so I'm not gonna go off of what he says, but I'm gonna add a little something else. I like the seminars because I like watching how he talks and how people react to his wording and the way he delivers the message. And just watching it, I'm sitting here and my mind just starts wandering, dude. I'm like, oh, I need to watch this wrestling match. Or I need to like, what? Wait, he's talking about standing and like the let me just see how many times I can see that in a wrestling match or some type of like match. And it like brought, and then I'm like, oh, let me go look at this book or something. Like it just the seminars alone has helped me like just broaden my scope and what I'm uh want to research and look. It just it gets my it basically gets my juices flowing, dude. I'm cleaning the mat or I'm taking a shower, that's what I'm thinking stuff, right? But the seminars do the same thing, dude. I'm like, well, well, I need to learn more. Like, where can I like learn more? Because I like I need to get better. And every time I watch the seminar or the way he presents the information, I'm just it just for it, it something in me wants to learn more. So everything Rudy said, but also like additionally, the uh I use it to personalize my practice to each individual, see what like he might do for the next week so I can like see if I'm going in the right direction. And then also the seminars. The seminars, you get it at least a day earlier, and you're just um it's just a lot of information. I love it. So it helps my mind wander into areas of uh more research and things like that.
SPEAKER_03Um, Ryan, for those listening, if they don't even know what the school program is, like they're like, what the hell are you guys talking about? How would you describe it to them first? And then yeah, what made you join and how to use it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I joined it in the first, I think the first day it came out, at least within the first 48 hours. It's a just a community. It it's a application on your phone, and you know, sign up for it, and it's like a forum of people who are also signed up for the same school community, interacting daily almost about their niche sport or activity or hobby or whatever it is that they're working at. And then um the moderators, Greg and Rod, just drop endless amount of content for us to nerd out on and use in our own gyms or our lives accordingly, right? So I use I try and use every aspect of it, right? I watch the seminars, I watch the classroom application, um, and I I try and take pieces of everything and put them into my room. But similar to what Nick said, I really think I benefit the most from listening to Greg talk to his students or the students that he's visiting at seminars. Um, The biggest thing I realize is nobody wants to hear about you. Right. So, like a lot of times be like, well, for me, I do it in this, and that like, if that makes sense, like Greg really does a great job at answering questions without his experience. He'll ask a question or answer a question with a question. He'll he won't interject what he experienced when he was doing jujitsu or anything that he's answering. It's more of a I don't know how to frame it as like properly, but it's the way he interacts with his students and others is such a great way for a coach to hear how to interact with their athletes or anybody who has a question. Um, I've been really benefiting a lot from that, but I think anybody could benefit from the school. Um, athletes, coaches, um, I can't say enough good things about it, not only just to like, you know, um boost the membership or anything like that, but it's like, man, they're consistently putting more stuff in there. And one more like huge thing for me was finding an actual community of people who are implementing this, because I've been kind of like a black sheep of doing this in my area. Like nobody at first, everybody was like, dude, that guy does not know what he's talking about, do not listen. You cannot learn jujitsu that way. Um, and now slowly people are incorporating games in their gyms and like slowly doing a technique plus live game approach where it's like I just went in the deep end head first, and it's nice to be amongst um fellow travelers. You know what I mean? Like now I don't have now I have a place to go to not be like the weirdo. It's like, hey man, like there's like a hundred of us in this group, and we're doing this, like even though I'm the only gym in the area besides another one about an hour away that's implementing CLA. Um, it feels good to be able to like communicate with you guys about it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and the classroom is really cool. I feel like there's a lot of people. I know this group here has been using CLA for a few years now, um, but there's a lot of people I think joining who are brand new to using CLA, and Greg has like a very structured classroom where you can take those games, use it, and then start tweaking them along the way week by week for foundations and all levels. Um, and then yeah, all the other the bonus stuff. Um I got a few more minutes here. I'm curious. Maybe last question is like I'm curious to know for each of you what is one recent lesson, and then what are you trying to get better at now? Like what's next in your CLA coaching journey? Uh, Rudy, if we can if you can kick us off.
SPEAKER_02A recent lesson? Yeah, really. Like something that I'm trying to work on.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um man.
SPEAKER_03Or was there a recent aha moment?
SPEAKER_02The thing that I'm trying to work on is embracing my creativity as a coach. I don't have as many competitors as I do hobbyists or casual people. With those competitors, I really try to tap into personalizing things for them. Things that I believe or have show have been proven uh to be true about the ways that they can be better about the things that they're doing. Um using my brain. That's a big part that I'm trying to work on. Something that I'm working on right now is the next question. Yeah. Not many people in the area that I train in now are super knowledgeable when it came to the leg game. There was only one person, and I'll name him. His name was uh Polly B, dude. He was uh he was the guy in our area that was a leg lock guy. And coming from a heavy gi background, it was very preached against. Um now my pursuit um is figuring out how I can accentuate my wrestling knowledge about and combine it with my leg lock knowledge about so that I can play that gray area much better. Um, whether I'm shooting a double leg to slide into the inside position, or whether I'm using the inside position to get up to a wrestling exchange so that I can slam someone and then just reattach their legs. Um so finding that gray area within all things is something that personally I'm working on.
SPEAKER_03Very cool. Nick, how about you? Any uh recent aha moments in your CLA journey and then what you're working on now?
SPEAKER_01Uh aha, there's aha moments every every practice, dude. And I'm like, dang, okay, this is awesome. But uh more specifically, um personalizing practice. I've been actually trying to get what I started now was a Friday practice, a youth private Friday practice. So I invite people or kids that uh have to train at least two times a week and then um then then also compete. And I invite them on Friday to a youth practice. It's private, but I have a coach per group, and we I what I do is I um we start with a standing guard pin game. So we do a standing, and then from there, after standing, I get we I I let the their coaches, they they teach CLA. So I'm helping them build their coaching style and their experience. And so after each standing selection, I have the students like, what would you like to work on? And then I have the the coach create their own practice there so they can get more personalization and more training. Because I feel like CLA is way the best if you can personalize it per individual. So that's why adult practice, I partnered up with some of my coaches and more experienced people who know how to train this, and so they can um help get coached up and then also, but um what I'm kind of personally working on is culture, like kid maintaining culture, doing things my way, because as you guys know, like when I started, we didn't do standing every day. We didn't do guard, we didn't do pins, we didn't do leg locks. You can't do this because you're not a blue belt or purple, all that kind of stuff. So we do only nogi, and I find that culture of nogi and CLA work great because just naturally, when you have a belt on, it's rank structured and it's based off belt, get it back there, your white belt, go back there type thing. And there's nothing like that at the gym, it's just focused on skill and just helping each other, help each other. Like we're athletes, let's get better. And it's so I've been trying to make it the change the culture where I'm at. And um, we don't have all these rules and we have to bow to everyone, or there's a picture of some guy I don't know. I don't care about that. We just want to do some standing, let's do some guard pins, let's do some sparring after, and uh let's just have everybody get better. So that's my primary focus, and that and like personalizing practice for the youth on those days and getting my coaches the ability and opportunity to be able to do that.
SPEAKER_03Beautiful. Ryan, how about you? Any recent aha moments, and then what are you working on now?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it sounds uh I I could uh just you know, I'm in agreement with these guys, like a looks a lot of the same stuff, um, just preserving the culture as an aha moment. Um I did just continuously weekly, besides the technical aspect of what's happening on the mats in jujitsu is making it so enjoyable that people show up again. Like I knew that a long time ago when I first started coaching, but now it's like coming back where it's like, man, this has to be, and this reflects uh back on what Nick was saying about culture. Like the culture of the room has to be something that people want to engage in. Um, whether it's the guy who wants to put his nose down and just grind the whole time, we got that. If it's the uh guy who's here to make friends and there's after practice chatting going on, we got that. It's really to make sure that every aspect that you would get in a traditional gym is there besides the fat that was there, the bowing, the this, the that, the other thing that you know we can kind of take out of practice now, but we need to keep the culture alive, the the hard work, the friendships, the people who are just lose weight. So those that's a like aha aha moment. And that's also what I'm continuously working on. Now, in terms of just specifically skill acquisition and working with um some of my guys, is I have a very, very small room. So I'm still working on getting more people into my gym, which is you know, always the goal to have more athletes in the gym, but I have one specific full-time competitor. So it's my job every day to make sure he's getting the proper training um with the proper people, the amount of variation and the amount of um stress or least amount of stress on the system according to the day of the week, in order for him to go out and um achieve his goals as a competitor. So I'm constantly thinking about um him and what he needs, and then the trickle-down effect will go into everybody else in the room. Um, and that's it. Like just making sure I could be the best coach every day for my guys, whether they're coming in here to lose a couple pounds, or like I said, my full-time competitor who's looking to go out there and do the pans and the uh ADCC opens and all this stuff and try and get him to gold as quickly as possible.
SPEAKER_03Such a great way to wrap it up. Man, I feel like there's so much we can still go into. And just want to say thank you guys so much for joining today. You I'm a stranger to you, and you yet you were willing to hop on and uh just share your experience for the last hour. So open invite if any of you want to come on individually on the podcast ever. Like I'd love to pick your brain more into this topic. Um, it's such a knowledgeable group here. So thank you guys for joining, and uh, thank you all for listening today. We'll catch you on the next episode. Thanks.
