Greg Souders - Wolves Not Dogs

Dive into the revolutionary world of jiu-jitsu coaching with Greg Souders, owner of Standard Jiu-Jitsu in Rockville, Maryland, as he challenges traditional teaching paradigms and demonstrates how using the Constraints Led Approach transforms martial arts training.

Greg has made a name for himself through his athletes' impressive results and his distinctive methodology.  While traditional coaching often produces athletes who rely on their instructors for solutions, Greg's constraints-led approach develops independent problem-solvers who thrive unpredictably.

What sets Standard Jiu-Jitsu apart? From day one, beginners engage in live, unscripted training—pushing, pulling, and making decisions against resisting opponents. There are no lengthy warm-ups, technique demonstrations, or static drilling sessions. Instead, Greg designs rich learning environments where skills emerge organically through properly constrained problems.

Our conversation explores the philosophical foundations of ecological dynamics, the concept of invariance in movement, and how coaches can shift from being central instructors to environmental designers. Greg shares practical insights about managing athlete recovery, implementing high-frequency training, and monitoring physical readiness through heart rate variability and CO2 tolerance metrics.

Whether you coach combat sports or team athletics, Greg's perspective challenges conventional wisdom about skill acquisition and offers a compelling alternative that prioritizes whole practice over decomposition. His results speak volumes—proving that what many claim impossible is achievable and potentially superior. Prepare to question everything you thought you knew about coaching and learning.

Watch a Foundations Class at Standard Jiu-Jitsu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4QtQTRwwD0&list=LL&index=3

Transcript

Introducing Greg Saunders

Jeff Moyer 0:00

Hey , jeff , here DC Sports Training back with another episode of Down the Rabbit Hole . In today's episode , guys , we got Greg Souders . Greg is a jiu-jitsu coach and owner of Standard Jiu-Jitsu , located in Rockville , maryland , and Greg is someone that I've wanted to talk to for quite a while . I have been a fan of his work . I've listened to man , a whole lot of podcasts that he's done , even debates he's done which we get into in this podcast . Greg is really making a name for himself in the world of jujitsu for the results one him and his athletes are getting , but two for the way in which he's doing it , which is , you know , it's funny that his company's named Standard Jiu-Jitsu , which I would argue he's going against the standard of using a different teaching model than what is traditionally taught . Right ? Greg is a practitioner I would say a master practitioner of the constraints-led approach , and for anyone who's not familiar with it , I would implore to go back and listen to my podcast with Tyler Yearberry . But a constraints-led approach is a teaching and coaching method grounded in nonlinear pedagogy and adjusts specific constraints to present varied information to the learner , promoting them to discover movements rather than telling them what to do for movements . Right ? That's one of the big differentiatings between a coach-led practice and a learning-led practice is we're really trying to emphasize situational learning by setting the problems first rather than giving the solutions . And again , this is not a knock for me because I don't have a . You know I'm not in the field of jiu-jitsu , but traditional jiu-jitsu is taught where we're going to practice a technique . We're going to learn a technique , we're going to talk about the technique , we're going to practice the technique and then eventually get to trying to apply it in a live situation , where Greg's approach is much different . And we get into that in this episode . And we also talk about the role of a coach and how to set an environment for our athletes .

Jeff Moyer 2:14

Again , talking to Greg and listening to him as much as I have in his previous podcast , he's really questioned my . I've really questioned my knowledge of do I know sports movements ? Do I understand sports situation . Haven't been a sport coach for for about 10 years , um , at the high school , middle school and

The Wolf vs Dog Coaching Philosophy

Jeff Moyer 2:36

collegiate settings . You know um he . He has such a a depth of knowledge and he's broken down the sport of jiu-jitsu so well and eloquently that I want to that is now the standard in which I'm trying to hold myself to talk about , you know , soccer , baseball , football , lacrosse , hockey , all of the other sports that I work with and his ability to not only relay that information but then practically put it into , you know , to situations for the learners . And he's able to scale it of just live recordings of his practices at his facilities , just so people can get an understanding of what a learning-based coaching style is versus a coach-led style , a teacher-led style , where he is not giving any really instructions , he's setting learning environments and then he's letting the athletes kind of come up with their own solutions . It's really awesome and even if you're not in the sport of jujitsu , please listen to Greg and listen to again what the keys and what she teaches and coaches , and I think it's applicable to all sports .

Jeff Moyer 4:05

This was an awesome talk . Big fan of what Greg has got going on and everything he's putting out . You know , please , hopefully you guys enjoy this podcast as much as I did . Please give me a share , a like , get that word out there . But yeah , this is Greg Saunders , hope you guys enjoy . Well , greg , you are all over the place , according to social media man . You're doing seminars and you're on everyone's podcast and you're doing debates and you're just all over the place , man , so I am truly honored to have you on my podcast and take the time your busy schedule to come and talk shop with me , and so thank you so much for being here .

Greg Souders 4:44

Oh , you're so welcome man .

Jeff Moyer 4:47

I don't mind at all . Yeah , man . Well , you know , for anyone that's not maybe familiar with you or hasn't been online or looked at anything in the movement world in a while , man , you know , can you just give a brief little background on yourself and you know what you do ?

Greg Souders 5:02

Yeah for sure , my name is Greg Souders . Of course , I'm a grappling coach out of Rockville , maryland . I run a school called Standard Jiu-Jitsu and I try to produce highly skilled jiu-jitsu players . I specifically use I try to use updated training methodologies to do so . So that's it , just a jiu-jitsu coach who's interested in becoming a better coach and creating great students .

Jeff Moyer 5:27

As I was telling you offline , man , before we jumped on , I was introduced to you through mutual people in the movement world from Sean , mishka and Tyler and everyone in that kind of ecological dynamics world . Uh , and I've always been fascinated with mma and jujitsu . I wish I found it um , earlier in my life . I'm a little too broken to to jump into it , but , uh , I I'm fascinated . My kids do jujitsu and I absolutely obsess with it , and so when I found someone that is talking movement and motor learning in this field , I just was , I was , I was gravitated towards your work and actually the very first podcast you did that I heard was with the Yoakum one . And right away , what ? What hooked me , man , was the , the conversation you had .

Jeff Moyer 6:14

Because I'm also a business owner , I own a gym . The first fucking thing that hooked me , man , was the conversation you had about talking about wolves and dogs . Because , man , that was like I mean that's a hundred percent how I feel , but for you and to hear someone else feel that frustration as well , that that I was like , okay , I got to listen to this guy some more . I mean this is exactly right up my alley , this is exactly how I feel and it's awesome to hear someone else explain something a struggle that , as a business owner , I go through on a daily basis . So , yeah , if you don't mind , I mean if you remember that little conversation just explaining what that is , because it's an analogy I use with all my clients now every time they come in .

Greg Souders 6:58

So I think , as a coach , our whole job is to help try to change the behavior of our students or athletes or whatever , and I think one of the the current paradigm around the coaching space is that a coach sits at the center of the room and it delivers information and delivers things down to its students , its athletes . Now I take a different view . I take a view as the coach is a guide , not so much a central figure in the room , and that the central figure in the room is the students and the things that students are doing . Now , looking at these two things , we have the coach centered room , we have the student centered room .

Greg Souders 7:33

The analogy I use to describe like why I think one is superior than another would was the idea of domesticated dogs right Versus wolves . So you can , you can consider like a coach centered room it's very good for a domesticated dog . A dog is going to learn little tricks and solve little problems and every time it can't , it's going to stop , it's going to look at its coach , it's going to look at the daddy and be like , hey , help me solve this thing that I don't know how to do , and then that's the relation that gets developed . But on the other side , when you see the coach as a guide , that's just creating an opportunity for students , to students who engage amongst themselves , doing a thing they came there to do . This would be analogy here , would be like the wolf , right ?

Greg Souders 8:06

You're going to solve problems and do things just like the dog is , but you're not going to look at the coach for the majority of solving your problem . You're going to look at your other student . You're going to look at your , your opponents , you're going to look at the other students . You're going to look at your problem and you're going to dig down deep into it , uh , and you're gonna do everything you can to try to solve the problem yourself . Now , of course , a coach is there to help and , of course , guide this process along . But , uh , my center philosophy , uh , surrounding how a coach should interact their students , is based on that right . I don't want to be the type of coach that creates a bunch of domesticated dogs . I like to be a type of coach that creates a bunch of wolves who solves problems for themselves , regardless of the difficulty they face .

Jeff Moyer 8:53

Dude , and I 100% love that because , again , as a gym owner , that's what I don't want to be a hand holder , I don't want to be a babysitter . I want to create people and athletes that can think for themselves and solve their own problems . I want to help them in that process but , like , I want them to ultimately be part of that . So you know the phrase I use in my facilities . You know you get 49% saying everything we do , but I get 51 , but I want your input , I want you to think , I want you to , you know , be involved in this process .

Jeff Moyer 9:16

It's a . It's a . It's a partnership , more than it is a dictatorship , uh , where a lot of these parents will come in and they just want me to handhold and babysit , and you know step-by-step and , and , and you know I , I just struggle with that . So that was a great analogy that I love and I give that . I tell that story to everyone that comes in be a wolf , not , not a dog . So yeah , man , that that right there was just like all right . This is the type of business owner that I am and it's awesome to hear from someone else , man . So thank you .

Greg Souders 9:46

Well , it's one of the hardest things ? Oh no , of course , man . One of the hardest things being a business owner is you have the constraint of trying to keep the lights on , and so part of that is appealing to the expectations of your consumer . In typical sales environment , that's exactly what you do . You sell the emotional experience for whatever it is that you offer . So if you're a car salesman , you don't sell the most gas efficient car . You don't sell the most well-made car . You sell the car that people are coming to buy .

Greg Souders 10:11

So if somebody walks in like

Guiding Athletes vs Giving Instructions

Greg Souders 10:12

I want a green car , fuck it . That's what you're selling them . If somebody comes in , I want the fastest car , that makes all the ladies look at me . Well , that's what you sell them . You know what I mean . You let them dictate where you point them and what you have them by . But in an environment where I'm trying to create a change in somebody , I don't think that model works very well . If I'm only ever appealing to the expectations or the emotions of my consumer , then they're coming there for whatever reason they want to come there for , and that's what I'm giving them . But that's not how I operate the business . My job is to make people better at the game that we play . So if your expectations don't align with that , I'm going to have to shift your expectations before I can help you become better at the game .

Jeff Moyer 10:51

I absolutely love that , yeah , and so with that , how much coaching do you do ? And then , how much do you let your students take part in in the that , that , um , that process that you have at your facility ?

Greg Souders 11:08

well , we're both taking place . So the way I kind of think about it is this I design a daily and a weekly practice that I'm willing to shift at any moment's notice , and by shift I mean I change something about the practice , either daily or weekly . This shift is heavily dependent on uh , the needs of my athletes . So as I set off a practice on Monday and Tuesday and we implement it and start going about what we're going to do , I see the students interact , I see things emerge from this practice and then that will determine whether or not I continue with what I had set , planned or I shift in one direction or another . But either way , we're both communicating .

Greg Souders 11:42

And again , I only see my role as the designer of practice . And then , once my students start to implement my design , I can now see was this designed well ? Do I need to shift away from this ? Do I need to stay with this ? What are we doing for the rest of the week ? And so , in that sense , there is a communication going on because they are participating in the thing that I designed . Now , as far as verbal communication goes on , that changes day-to-day athlete to athlete . Some athletes are much more verbal with what they want and what their expectations are . And some athletes don't , they just come to do the practice and they don't care , they just want to engage , you know , um ? So it's a constant level of it's constant interaction at multiple levels between me and my students now what , um ?

Jeff Moyer 12:20

I mean okay , so I'm going to backtrack a little bit so I apologize what I mean ? Do you have a background in coaching ? I mean , how'd you , how'd you kind of find , find all this stuff , man , you know what kind of led you to starting your own , your own practice yourself ?

Greg Souders 12:36

and I knew my competition career was over , that I wasn't going to be able to dedicate to that anymore .

Greg Souders 12:44

But I really loved the sport and I wanted to stay in the sport . Plus , I had spent 10 years doing nothing but living on the mats , so I had to find some way to make what I'd been doing over the last 10 years lucrative . So of course , every jiu-jitsu practitioner if you want to make money in the sport starts to open a school . Right thing that I said I was going to be . So if I said I was going to teach Jiu Jitsu , I damn sure better be able to do that . So I started researching , learning , coaching teaching , and I realized there's tons of shit that I did not know , that I had no idea how this whole thing works , and so I just started reading about what our coaches were doing , what science was saying about learning , what philosophy arguments were being had over learning , and I just decided to implement some of the stuff that I thought would be the most effective for me to be the best coach I can possibly be , and I became a coach through trying to become a coach . You know what I mean .

Jeff Moyer 13:33

Yeah , Now , when you first started off as a coach and a business owner , like how did you kind of market that ? I mean , how did that ? You know , people probably first got there and they're thinking you're going to just learn basic techniques , You're going to practice them and you're just going to roll a little bit . I mean , how did that kind of at least in the beginning of your practice start ?

Greg Souders 13:54

Well , really , for me it was just we were doing jujitsu , so everyone sort of knows what that is . I mean , it's very rare that someone walks through the door who doesn't know what jiu-jitsu is . Now you get your occasional oh , I saw it online , I heard about it on a podcast and I want to try it . But most people at least seen , had have had eyes on it , whether they wrestled previously or they watched the ufc or they watch youtube videos on jiu-jitsu . Um , so they're already coming in with the expectation of what they're going to be doing . Uh , now I didn't really focus my marketing on what I was doing . It was just oh , here's jiu-jitsu , here's where it is , here's what it is . Come do a practice . And so people would come in on the scheduled time 6 to 7 , 7 to 8 , 8 to 9 , and each practice would be designed based on a level of a certain practitioner . So beginners , intermediate or all levels , and then advanced , and then each of the classes were designed based on that type of player in mind .

Greg Souders 14:50

But I didn't really market it . I just used those time slots to design my practice relative to who I thought was going to be in the room . So , again , beginner's class was focused on how beginners learn and so everything I tried to understand about how to create that class . I read in books and I listened to podcasts and I watched videos on how to teach appropriately , and I would do the same thing for the other two levels . But I just slowly started implementing these ideas into my program , into the jiu-jitsu that people were coming there for . But I didn't market myself as a coach or I didn't market myself as utilizing one pedagogy over another . It was just here's a jiu-jitsu school , come give it a shot . I'm Greg , I'm teaching you jiu-jitsu , kind of thing .

Jeff Moyer 15:22

Gotcha Well , I'm greg , I'm teaching you jujitsu kind of thing . Gotcha well , I mean , correct me if I'm wrong , but right now it seems like you're known as the constraints guy , the ecological dynamics guy . I mean you're , you're on a million podcasts , you're on interviews , you're talking to academics who are arguing with you and it's just like . I mean that's , I think , unfortunately , maybe the bucket you're kind of being led towards . But uh , yeah , you know , and hey , man , someone's got to fill it .

Jeff Moyer 15:46

And a couple , a couple of things about that one . I mean you gotta be just listening to these podcasts and the people ask the same questions and it doesn't seem like they do their background homework a little bit . I could be wrong , as far as you know , asking these questions , what these things are , what constraints , let approaches , what ecological dynamics is , and I mean one that's got to be a little maddening , and especially in a community . Now , I'm not in the jujitsu community , but listening to your podcast it sounds very familiar to football that I work with and baseball and some of the old school dogmatic views of coaching and how things should be done . I mean , don't , don't you kind of get a little tired of having to always explain yourself and put out fires , and just you know what I mean .

Greg Souders 16:33

Like I mean man . God bless you .

Jeff Moyer 16:35

Cause yeah .

Greg Souders 16:36

We can't even get , we can't even have a real honest conversation . So the first issue is that , yes , nobody's coming to this thing in good faith . It's just a bunch . It's pure emotional response .

Greg Souders 16:46

Even three years later coming about four years later , after I initially started talking about me using CLA publicly because I've been using CLA exclusively since 2016 I found out about 2014 and I was sort of like trying to figure out how it worked . I guess I'm still trying to figure out how it works . I don't feel like I have it completely dialed in , but but it was this process I went through and then again , I introduced myself as using it and developing athletes with it in around 2019 , 2020 . And even now 2024 , 2025 , people just have not got past the base thing of what it is and why we are using it . So , yeah , it's deeply frustrating . Everyone's telling me I'm wrong , it can't be't be done , I'm selling something , I'm a charlatan . They're saying all these things , but what they're not doing is doing their due diligence and trying to figure out what the hell they even disagree with .

Jeff Moyer 17:34

Yes , you know , I I agree , and some of those guys I . I like your , I'm a uh , I was

Standard Jiu-Jitsu's Unique Approach

Jeff Moyer 17:40

a history major . I went to school to be a social studies teacher , so I enjoy listening to a good debate and I enjoy how people argue and listening to how they construct their arguments and things , and I think you do a great job of asking questions back to get people to kind of realize that they don't know what the fuck they're talking about . Or they try to sound smart and use your words , but they don't even know what those words mean . Um , you know so I , so I enjoy that . My question , I guess , then , is like , why are you arguing ? Like why just let them do their shit ? Why create your own competition , man ?

Jeff Moyer 18:12

You know , what I mean .

Greg Souders 18:17

So I've only done two debates and they were kind of accidental . I didn't even know . I almost walked into them blind . I didn't know they were going to be one . So the first one was Big Dan just saying hey , I'm going to show you the ecological brooch is bullshit . I bet you greg sauders won't answer . Well , greg sauders me , because I'm not going to speak with some third person . I'm a lot of fucking things , but I'm not a coward and I'm not , I'm gonna . I'll answer a call . You call me out , you're gonna , I'm gonna , you're gonna see me in a minute . You know what I mean . So I got called out . Of course I'm going to show up , and so that's all that was . So I didn't know what I was walking into . I said , ah , screw it , we'll just have this conversation . And you saw how that went .

Greg Souders 18:52

And then the Dr Mike Idritel one , I didn't even think that was going to be a debate . The guy , josh Vogel , was like hey , I and we'll just kind of have a conversation around this stuff . I thought we were just having a conversation . I didn't know that it was going to be couched as a debate , so I wasn't even prepared to argue my point . We were supposed to just have a conversation and then it turned into what it turned into . So and I'm not very good in that space yet I haven't done this . I've kind of walked into it accidentally , doing it twice now and I feel like I did a horrible job . To be honest , I felt like I used hyperbole , I exaggerated , I made unsupported claims , I used jargon , I was overly dismissive . I could give good reasons for all these things , but yeah , I just I don't know I could do better I'm just just curious , like why create your own competition , though , when it's such feedback ?

Jeff Moyer 19:49

so for me I ? I don't know if you're familiar with dr michael yeses um in the sports performance world , but he's a pretty polarizing gentleman . He brought over the russian training back in the 1960s . I mean , he's one of the reasons why we know the name yuri verka shansky and and bonder chuck and I know those two guys .

Jeff Moyer 20:06

I don't know the first guy , but I know those second two yeah , and so he was a polarizing figure and always going into debates . And doc , uh , he just passed away several years ago . Um , he was a mentor of mine , but he would love going to these debates and he chased it just like , doc , why like ? Why ? Why would the energy man just like let you know ? Why create your own competition ? Just let you know . But but I mean , I've also heard you want to change the industry , which kudos to you . So you know , I mean like that , I think that's a very noble thing and that's awesome . But uh , some of these people just I don't know man , they just yeah , of course .

Greg Souders 20:41

So I'm low level too . So , yeah , I'm not like , I'm just a regular guy who's interested in something , who's read a bunch of books on a subject and tries to apply it as quickly , as closely to what I'm reading as I can , uh . So I'm not , uh , an academic and by any means I I'm not classically educated in that in that way . So it's difficult for me , too , to talk on , speak on that level . Right , I'm trying .

Greg Souders 21:04

So really I think of it like I would do a competition . You know , if I want to get better at jiu jitsu , I need to be out there grappling and competing and losing in the face of other people and looking stupid and figure out my weaknesses and my strengths . I think debate has a similar path , right , so I'm going out there , I'm sharing my ideas , right , wrong or indifferent , saying dumb things , saying good things , I don't know . But I'm getting that feedback immediately , because people are then hearing me and they're saying , oh , you suck at this , you're right about this , you're wrong about this , and so it's actually giving me a chance to understand not only my subject better but also understand myself a little bit better as it relates to how I'm communicating these ideas . So for me it's just all growth , you know .

Jeff Moyer 21:41

Well , again , one , I would argue that you're fantastic . I think you're very good at that stuff . Um , again , I think you , you have a way with words , um and and uh . I think you're very powerful when you when you talk about that stuff . Two , to be honest with you , sir , is someone who knows what cla is , and we'll get into that in a few minutes . You have a couple videos on your YouTube of you recorded live classes . I think those are fucking gold . Like , why not just share those and just be like you know why debate ? Just share those and like watch this and see what's going on with my athletes and then talk to me about this ?

Greg Souders 22:17

Yeah , those videos are amazing , like you understand that I came out with all this stuff four years ago , so I , a lot of that stuff was four years old . So , like I was , I was doing all the podcasts . People were interested oh who is this guy ? What's he saying ? Okay , I I shared what ecological dynamics was . I shared what constraints that approach was and I thought , okay , they'd be interested , they're going to go do the reading on their own . I I gave them resource materials again , thinking people are going to engage . Then I showed videos of live classes . I let all my seminars be filmed and put up for free . I never put anything behind a paywall . I showed everybody my work and I thought that if they'd see me do it and they read the material , they would see the connection . Nobody engaged in that way , I mean , except the people who really did . And then now they're growing and they're using it themselves .

Jeff Moyer 23:01

But yeah , man , those videos are awesome , just to see it live , you know , I mean , because , again , as you know , someone who's read these books and who's read these papers and and listened to turvey and listened to , you know , gibson and , and even tyler and sean , those there's a lot of fucking big words , but to see it in action is completely different , not , you know ? Uh , I don't know if you you watch the emergence latest seminar from last year , but it was the show , your work , I mean , it was a great , great seminar . But now it's like , okay , let's , let's see people put this stuff into action . And I think your classes are fantastic , at least the ones you know , the , the courses and the videos I saw on your YouTube .

Jeff Moyer 23:38

So I would , I would just send those off . And why , why ? Why even argue , man , cause those things are , honestly , those are gold . Yeah , as , as someone that also has small children , that that are getting into jujitsu , just you know what I mean . For me to just play around and implement a little dose with them is been huge , and so those things are great , man , yeah , so I just wanted to at least give you kudos on the videos because of those I mean honestly , just like , why use words ?

Jeff Moyer 24:06

just fucking watch what I do . See , if the athletes are doing what you know me , say they can't do , and then then we can talk about it . But you know again , people don't want to do their homework .

Greg Souders 24:15

The willful ignorance is wild , like it's not even . It's not even that I'm right or wrong . Is that I'm doing what you say can't be done ? That's the frustrating part . And I tell everyone the same thing .

Greg Souders 24:25

I explicitly , on purpose , took out explicit instruction and static drilling , on purpose , whether it's effective , whether it's ineffective , whether it's right or whether it's wrong . The literature was saying that it wasn't necessary , and so I said , okay , well , let me see if it's true , let me see if I can replicate what the philosophy that they're saying , like what the science is suggesting , might be a better way to do things . Because you know , we're talking about complex systems , and if complex systems are emergent and they are , uh , self-organizing , then we should see the human movement system and a grain , like game , like grappling , do the same thing . So I wanted to see if that's even possible . And it is like it , like even though we don't have a lot of studies supporting self-organization and complex systems . As far as human sport goes , we have , you know , some initial studies and some things saying that it might be going in this way . We don't have a lot of support for it .

Greg Souders 25:23

But even without the support , even just following what they were suggesting in the books . I got an amazing result with it and I was like , oh , that's fucking fascinating . And I had not . I didn't have a soul to ask , I didn't have . Hey , am I doing this right ? Am I interpreting the work right ? Am I understanding what these words mean ? But I guess I was .

Jeff Moyer 25:41

I'm a resultist . That's kind of the way I've explained myself . I don't , you know , like you , I don't have a particular degree in this shit . So I've been chasing results and then I look at the studies and stuff afterwards . But I want to see the results first and I don't know , talk to the people who's done it , find out the results , what they've done , and you know then if their study's done it , awesome , but I want that . And so , with the constraints , led stuff and things like that , listening to to you and the other people in in the field that have been using it , um , it's been very . I don't know it's just why not . I don't know why people are just some closed off to it . Get , get , listen to it to people who's been getting their hands dirty and shit .

Greg Souders 26:21

Um , you know , is that , is that kind of .

Jeff Moyer 26:23

I'm sorry no , please don't ask those , please well it was going to tie into a little analogy that you used , uh , in another podcast about being a chef and and , just like , just people don't want to be fucking chefs , they don't want to know the the details of of things like that . Uh , I wore this shirt for you .

Jeff Moyer 26:41

Uh , I got it from a gym from uh oh , nice , nice , I love it , I got it well , I got it from a gym from portugal that they were kind enough to send me a shirt and I was just like okay , I think . I think greg might like this . Education over knowledge is what it says . For anyone that doesn't see this um , because coaches , in my opinion , at least around here in in pittsburgh that's that's where I'm at uh , it's all , it's all . What old school , what ? What we've done ? You know verse , verse , knowledge . So the analogy that I've heard is you know , I get coaches say oh , I've been coaching for 20 years . Well , have you been coaching for 20 years ? Or you've been coaching one year 20 times , right , and they haven't evolved , they haven't fucking changed anything that they've done no-transcript , and people are always confused by what I mean when I say that Right , so I'll make it clear .

Greg Souders 27:34

Maybe I can articulate it better here . Using the chef's analogy , I would say that if we want to learn how to cook right , recipe books don't work . Now , what I mean by that is it's not that I can't create a recipe , but you can . But if you can't remember the recipe and you've got a bunch of ingredients laid out in front , you want to cook a meal , how are you going to do that ? So this is what I mean the recipe book doesn't work . It doesn't make you a cook . It will allow you to replicate a meal , but it won't allow you to become a chef . So if we're talking about becoming chefs and learning how to cook , recipe books don't work . Now , if you want to become a chef , you have a deep , you have a strong constraint . Now you have to understand what it is at its base . Fundamentally , how do we manipulate food ingredients , the stuff that we can ingest , in such a way that we can create with it without being given a recipe ? That's a different experience .

Jeff Moyer 28:30

So the interventions we're going to use to create chefs are going to be very different from the interventions we use to create people who copy recipes to uh have a meal do you ever use the analogy because I've used it with with a lot of my clients or people who may come to me like , if you want to , you just want a cheeseburger , there's a McDonald's down the road , man , but if you want a gourmet , gourmet burger , you know , I'm on the on the place difference between a , between a butcher and a surgeon , right , that's kind of what the way we look at it . But no , I love . I love that again to me . Do your homework , Find it . If you're going to do this shit , go into it , Go deep . And I don't know .

Jeff Moyer 29:13

I question listening to you talk . I question if I even know the constraints that approach stuff now , because you've broken down jiu-jitsu so fucking well and so basic . Just listen to the way you talk about the fundamentals of this and that I'm going back through because I work with team a lot , mostly team sport athletes . I'm going through man . Okay , do I even have it as broken down as as greg ? Because I really love how you you've simplified . It is as much as as it can be and then you can scale it based off of that . But yeah , if we can get into the details , you know CLA , how'd you find it ? I mean , you mentioned what 2013, . 2014 is kind of where you stumbled into it . You're just doing homework . I mean , what particularly about ? Well , what is the CLA and what particularly about ? It kind of struck you as you were doing your research versus open loop , closed loop and all the other kind of mode of learning stuff what all kind of sounds good when you first read it .

Greg Souders 30:08

You know what I mean . So when you read schema theory from smith from the 70s which he now , uh , doesn't he doesn't even agree with his own his own findings , by the way . He thinks he's moved on from his own science , which is funny . But either way , even when you read his stuff about part practice , when you read it , it it sounds kind of good . Right , I do it a little over here , I practice a little bit over here , and you put it back together and then you learn how to play the whole game . Oh , it sounds great . And then you know you got this other method where it's like , oh , you got to play the whole game , but you got to , you know , just constrain it a little bit .

Greg Souders 30:40

And difference for me that really just stuck out , that made me go towards the CLA route , is the idea of whole practice .

Greg Souders 30:46

So this idea that you want things can't be taken apart , that the component parts don't add up to the greater whole , that there are relationships present in complex systems that we can't account for through decomposition or breaking things apart in practice . And to me that was like , oh , that's really interesting , because that was sort of what I was experiencing while practicing jujitsu the training interventions I felt really removed from what we were actually doing , nothing really translated directly , nothing really transferred unilaterally across , you know , the training protocol and the performance setting . And I felt that the reason why is because we couldn't we're not playing enough of the game , the game , you know , we weren't getting enough of it into each training session . So that that was the reason I went to cla route , because it seemed to be the route that kept the whole game together , that kept everything present while training the decision making , the resistance , the , the uncertainty , the novelty . They were keeping that in the training and I was like , oh , this , this seems like the way we might want to go .

Jeff Moyer 31:47

And then I mean , would you just read the first book , or did you pick up a paper ? I mean , what was kind of the , the source ? I mean I just kind of dabbled on about why I do it's all good , no , no so , uh , I was just reading different things .

Greg Souders 31:57

I think one of the four first things I read was motor performance , and skill acquisition is one of the first textbooks that I read . And then I got the dynamics of skill acquisition and I read that Um . And then I found Rob Gray's podcast and then I messaged him and I was like , what should I read ? And he gave me a reading list and I read those books . So I was just kind of like poking around . I really didn't know what I was going to adhere to , um , but I was just absorbing anything about it .

Greg Souders 32:22

If I would read a study or , excuse me , I'd read a point and they would have references I would go to those references and I'd read the study . A lot of it had to do with like button pressing tasks and eye tracking tasks and things like that . So , yeah , no , I was just poking around , man , and out of all the stuff I was reading , just CLA or nonlinear pedagogy , specifically felt like what was pulling me the most the idea of non-deterministic systems , complex and chaotic systems . Uh , non-linear dynamics these were just drawing me in for some reason .

Jeff Moyer 32:52

And cla I thought that was the best represented those ideas and then that I mean , was that something you had firsthand knowledge , kind of loosely , from your previous

Debating Coaching Methodologies

Jeff Moyer 33:02

experience of being on the mat , or what kind of what was your background on ? Background on the mat or from being coached or pedagogy , you know what was used with you before and did you feel ? You know , maybe you felt that didn't work and that's why you started searching , or what ?

Greg Souders 33:15

what kind of well from your background maybe I would say there were two things , if I could , if I could , like , pick them out that really always stuck out to me . One was I got good at what I discovered , so I always noticed . The things I would always go back to are not the things that I was told , but the things that I understood for myself , that I could explain in my own words and I could show clearly through demonstration , and I I never knew how to justify that . I thought that it was just a by-product of doing what your coach told you . I didn't know how to like , like justify my own yet that I was seeing things , I was experiencing things and I was organizing around these experiences , but I felt it happening . I just again , I thought it was caused by another thing , so I knew that was happening at some level . I was like , well , my coach didn't say this , but it's working like this and so maybe this is right . Or they said this is supposed to happen , this is not happening , but this is happening instead , and happening , but this is happening instead . Maybe I'll just do this . So I knew that was there .

Greg Souders 34:08

The second thing was language actually . So I am picky about language and I never liked the way we talked about grappling . I was really obsessed with judo for a while and how the Japanese described throwing , because that was the most clear example that I could find of language being reflective of the actions that were taken , and I realized we didn't just have a good way to talk about what was happening in jiu-jitsu , and so I wanted two things I wanted to understand how my discovery it was going to contribute to a higher level skill and how I could use the language to describe it or to at least convey it to somebody else gotcha .

Jeff Moyer 34:40

so that's where the language comes in , because , yeah , man , you use it , use it very well . Now can you describe ? I mean I'm going to add into the show notes and stuff the videos of your practices , if that's cool that you have on your YouTube , man , but I mean ?

Greg Souders 35:05

would you describe what the difference between your practice session at your facility versus , maybe , a traditional jujitsu ? Yeah , so we start off with live work right away and so , coming off the day day , one basic class we're going to be grabbing a partner and doing something to them . Now , the first thing that I always choose . It doesn't matter , and I've done different models of this . I've started with pins , I've started with guard work , I've started with the end . I've started with the beginning , I've started from standing . I've done this a bunch of different ways , but the most important thing is , the first thing that we do of the day is going to be low in variability and very simple . So it's going to be something that leads to what's going to happen later .

Greg Souders 35:36

So let's say , for example , we're working in a standing situation and we want to start the beginnings of hand fighting . We're going to start very simply . I'm going to give them targets to grip a hold of . It could be something as simple as an elbow in your partner's head , and your only job is to get an elbow in one hand and their head in the other , however you can , and while doing so , you're going to deny your partner access to yours . And so at first it seems kind of confusing , but it just gives people a way to put their hands .

Greg Souders 36:00

So I'm trying to look for elbows and grab them . I'm trying to look for elbows and grab them . I'm trying to look for people's head and grabbing them , and I'm going to let them perform the task , and then we would build something into that , and then the next game would be another standing game . It would relate to something about grabbing our partner's head and elbows . So , same targets we're going to try to grab ahold of a partner's head and elbows , but this time we're looking to go towards that end . If you achieve the underhook , you win the game , and so I've given them simple tasks . There's live resistance , it's unscripted , it's uncooperative , and I'm having them play right away from day one . So , uh , low in variability on the scale , low in complexity on the scale .

Jeff Moyer 36:39

Live resistance , unscripted , uncooperative now verse a traditional jiu-jitsu place that might teach what an arm bar or some kind of lock all right , guys , line up , let's bow in .

Greg Souders 36:51

Now we're gonna do a warm-up . We're gonna run around , we're gonna jump , we're gonna flip , we're gonna roll , we're gonna blah , blah , blah , all that shit . Right , we're gonna learn how to do movements , stance in motion , front rolls , back rolls . They spend 15 , 20 minutes doing that shit . Then they all circle up for explanation . Then , okay , guys , we're going to work on guard passing today and they go about defining it in different ways , showing different examples , talking about it , modeling it , blah , blah , blah , and then having students static drill it , and that usually takes around 30 minutes and over the last 20 to 15 minutes of class , if they do a typical hour and they only do an hour , the last bit is either spent live sparring or situational sparring . Uh , some programs have done differently , where they'll do like a 15 minute warmup , a 45 minute static drilling and then an hour of situations in live grappling , so that's a two hour practice , for example . So there's lots of different ways that traditionalists like to orient explanation modeling , static drilling , warmup , situational sparring and live work .

Jeff Moyer 37:45

We just keep it all together gotcha sounds very much like american football , where you have your individuals , your team , your group , and then then you move on to the next thing individuals , group , team maybe and then you scrimmage a little bit , and situational scrimmages , um , just , I was a college football coach , so just I don't know . Listen , you talk about traditional practice . Just makes me think of that . And again , what can we do from a team sport , athlete , uh perspective , or coaching perspective , to to be more ecological ? Um , but , uh , yeah , what , uh , now what ? You kind of alluded to it before , but now , during practice , like , what is the role of the coach , what , what is it you do to again , maybe get the outcomes that you want or things that you know ?

Greg Souders 38:32

I mean that you're trying to to get across in that lesson so the first thing is , again , I always start with beginners , because it's important to understand that most people are walking in a gym , are going to , are going to be on , are not going to be exposed to this . It's gonna be the first time they ever touched a body , moved a body , so we're teaching them how to play a game where you have to touch and move bodies . So that's the first experience you need to have . They need to be pushing , pulling , twisting , tugging , resisting , squeezing . They need to experience this um , and so when I my , my job as a coach is to create an environment where they get to experience these qualities , these conditions , as they relate to how to play the game . You know what I mean . So I create classes rich in opportunity for our students to take action against resisting bodies , so they can see the effect of their actions , so they can try to achieve outcomes through um , task focus or intentional task focus .

Greg Souders 39:30

Okay , um the resistance is always there again . It's always unscripted , it's always uncooperative , and we're making decisions against all this in real time and that's a description of like a low level class , like a white belt .

Greg Souders 39:46

Yeah , a white belt class ? Yep , we would do a little bit from each position . We do some stuff on the feet , we do some stuff in guards , we do some stuff in pins and then we have an open round where they can just do whatever they want . Now , how does that , if at all , does it change ? For , like your higher level belts , yeah , for the high level classes ? Just , we increase the variability and then we might scale the focus to be more tactically optimized .

Greg Souders 40:11

So let's say we need all our students to get better at breaking on the legs and breaking on the arms , then a lot of the the games that we play are going to be exposing our students to situations where the demands of the task require them to finish on the legs and finish on the arms or or whatever . But again , there'll be variability , added high amounts of it . Like example would be if we're trying to work on leg finishing , uh , for a 10 minute round , we might have them start in six different positions , but but all have the same outcome finish in this way , perform these actions , fulfill these conditions , whatever gotcha .

Jeff Moyer 40:44

Um , now do you guys also do , I mean , do you do ? Do you even do a warm-ups at your , at your ?

Greg Souders 40:50

practice . Or people say warm-ups I don't even know what that means . Like do you mean just jump around violently in place , like what do you mean ? Like ?

Jeff Moyer 40:56

we're trying to get , trying to get the heart rate up and try to get , you know , I mean trying to get the , the joints loose and everything before before they kind of start rolling well , that's going to happen .

Greg Souders 41:05

As soon as they start touching each other , like if we're doing a basic hand fight and where our job is to grab ahold of our partner's wrists and elbows and we're both fighting over it your heart rate is going to go up , your body temperature is going to go up , your snow , snow , your flu is going to start warming up All the typical warmup things are going to happen . There's nothing special about the actions , actions taken Gotcha Okay .

Jeff Moyer 41:24

And then , as far as maybe some constraints right that you got the so well , there's two different types of strengths right the environment , the task , and then the individual . With some of the individual stuff , like especially with because I've mentioned , I've heard you mention in your podcast you get a lot of like white belts and a lot of people walking in or people that might just practice one to two times a week . I mean now you got teachers rolling in or whatever you know do what . From a from a constraints perspective , I mean they got range of motion issues , they got some specific limitations . I mean , how do we take into consideration your practices for that ? Do you guys now ? Do you guys work on that stuff or you give them homework to do outside of that ?

Greg Souders 42:09

Well , yeah , so now we're talking about a generalized program . We need to make this point . This is very , very important . A generalized program should be designed or scaled low enough that anyone can go in and operate under the constraints present . Anyone can go in and operate under the constraints present . It shouldn't be scaled in such a way that anyone walking in the limiting factor or some type of rate limiter wouldn't be able to engage in practice .

Greg Souders 42:33

So if somebody walks in who's very , very , very out of shape , I would speak to them personally hey , look , this is going to be brutal for you . If you , every time you need to catch your breath , your muscles get sore , feel free to step off to the side and re-engage . You know when you're feeling up to it . Because for that person , they're going to be using the next six weeks to even get in shape , to even perform a practice . So tactics and mechanics and strategies means nothing to them , because they can't breathe for six minutes straight . So their constraint is just use the practice to get into shape so they can really engage in a practice .

Greg Souders 43:07

Of course , I would always lead them . Hey , maybe you want to start walking for 30 minutes a day . Maybe you want to maybe add in a strength training program to help speed this process along . But without this capacity to train for an hour it's going to be very difficult to maximize the hour . But again , the class is a jiu-jitsu class and so we're using the jiu-jitsu experience to try to fill all the holes that we can um . For each individual walking in , there will be some stragglers and there will need some specific attention to be given . But again , I can't . I won't know that until I face the people walking in now , how about for the higher level guys ?

Jeff Moyer 43:43

do you , guys and girls , do you do , do assessments uh of them before or after you know , uh , when they're on the mat , to make sure that uh , joint range motion is good , that they have certain capacities to to compete , or anything like that ? Or is it kind of just built into the system , or how's that ?

Greg Souders 44:00

Kind of all of the above . It's built into the system . Of course , we're all operating under the same task constraints . Generally , we have one day a week where the student gets to choose all their rounds . So they're not prescribed by me , they're prescribed by themselves . They get to determine them and the partner , what they want to be working on . And then we have this Thursday , friday , saturday and Sunday . So only three days of the week are constrained by me and then Thursday they get to choose their own situations . Friday it's all live rounds . Saturday it's all live rounds , with an hour of choose your own constraints , and then Sunday it's all live rounds .

Greg Souders 44:33

So there's tons of space at our gym for people to explore on their own and to take maybe something I've told them to work on . They can take that and work on in these private hours that they get extra mat time . But yeah , I work on . Uh , they can take that and work on in in these private hours that they get extra mat time . Um , but yeah , I work with individuals . I create , like I said , I create the class design , but I talk to everybody at individual level based on what I think they might need or where I think their focus might need to go .

Jeff Moyer 44:58

Gotcha . And then for the higher level guys , you know when they compete , you watch their you , you , you record them and then do you do like a an analysis of their performance and then you kind of work you know what I mean that week or that month or whatever , until their next competition based off of that , or yeah .

Greg Souders 45:13

Yep , so I'm not really working with any individuals like specific , like this is what you're going to be doing for the next six weeks . I would like to do more of that , Um , but I'm I'm allowing the general class to do most of it . So I typically use the higher performers as the main catalyst for how I'm designing practice . So I've been heavily focused on DeAndre Gavin , Sid Noah , my higher performers and I've been constraining based on their needs and letting everyone else benefit from their needs . So this isn't optimized , of course . This is just what I'm using now , because I'm dealing with a lot of people at once , Gotcha .

Jeff Moyer 45:54

Now you mentioned in another podcast that durability is a limiting factor for a lot of athletes . So again , how do you manage stress and recovery with those guys , because I remember you talk about a lot of frequency being being a big thing for your guys .

Greg Souders 46:13

Yeah . So we use a high frequency training and I let the guys determine their own volume after four to eight hours . So we have about depending on in season . So if we're not competing you have a bare minimum four hours you have to get through throughout the week and four hours of training is recoverable from almost anybody . It doesn't really require much but regular sleep , regular hydration or regular diet . You can really get through .

Greg Souders 46:36

Once we start tapping into around the eight hours a week of physical training , that's when more focused bouts of recovery need to be understood , like are you really maximizing not only sleep but you resting throughout the day ? Are you taking little naps ? Are you sitting quietly somewhere where you're not you know , consuming content or anything ? Are you getting the right amount of electrolytes , for example ? Are you eating carbohydrates around training time or soon after ? Are you meeting your protein demands ? So again , we start talking about recovery more seriously as they start to reach the 8 to 12-hour mark and then , once we're at the 8 to 12-hour a week mark , they get to determine how much extra they do . So if they're hitting those 8 hours and 12 hours and they're like coach , I'm smoked , I need to take two days . They can take two days , they're not required to practice .

Jeff Moyer 47:22

I was introduced back in the day with joel joel jameson using hrv and omega wave with all that shit . Do you guys use any kind of monitoring system like that ?

Greg Souders 47:30

we do . Uh , we have a few of the guys on some metrics , so basically anytime we these are the competitors only because they're the only ones that are going to be tapping into this level of recovery . But basically we look at heart rate variability resting heart rate first thing in the morning , co2 tolerance and dead hang time , so we can look at what the hands are doing , like , what's happening through the hands . So we use those four metrics objective metrics to determine whether the athletes are recovering from practice . Now , they're just guidelines , they're not hard rules . We look at trends over time . So everyone or let's say Romero , noah and DeAndre right now are using those metrics and I have access to them . So I look at them , see

How Constraints-Led Approach Works

Greg Souders 48:13

how they're trending over time and determine whether or not we should practice or how we should practice .

Jeff Moyer 48:17

Dead hang time , meaning they're just hanging from a pull-up bar . Yep , they're not using like a gomiometer , okay .

Greg Souders 48:22

No , no , just we have the whatever you called it gomiometer . Okay , no , no , just we have one . We have the whatever you called it gomiometer . Yeah , yeah , we have .

Jeff Moyer 48:27

We don't know or the grip , grip on everything , yeah , um gotcha . And then like if they're what , 30 seconds off from their previous times or something like that . You know today's not the day yep .

Greg Souders 48:37

So if their numbers start to dip low , um , and we have to look at them all , we can't just look at one , because one isn't a good measure of anything . Yeah , look how they're all trending , uh , and then like , all right , we're taking this morning off , or maybe this morning we're using no closed connections , or we're going to do all short time or we do a long time , or we're going to stagger partners like , uh , it's small guy versus big guy . I mean , there's a lot of different ways we can manage intensity and volume .

Jeff Moyer 49:01

Gotcha gotcha , yeah , I heard one of your arguments about that too . Um , that guy , um , anyways , yeah , we'll move on from that now . Uh , ecological approach right , they believe they can't separate perception from from action . Um , is there in your opinion any , at least in the sport of jujitsu , anything that you could ever separate to then build back in Cause I've also heard you in a podcast talk about Ido Portal and he's believe he's a big believer in that isolate , integrate , improvise kind of mentality . So just curious .

Greg Souders 49:34

No , I'm not . I actually I take an extremist view here and I take it philosophically , not scientifically . So I think that I think things are shifting in how we do studies , how we look at human behavior in general , and I think the science of complexity is going to shift the way we talk about and study these things here in the future . I really do . Out of all the different stuff I've read about ecological dynamics and dynamics , dynamic dynamical systems , um around complexity theory , I don't know why we think that things can be trained and put back in . I don't see how that we , just as a small example , do you know there is ?

Greg Souders 50:18

no , I'm sorry , I'm kind of talking around the subject , but I'll make my point go for it , do're good do you know that there are no examples of far transfer happening , like they say , like I or you , uh , where you train somebody's vision and then you try to put it back into a game to see if they , their skills , improve . So we do . We do eye training to make our vision more sensitive and then we have someone go hit baseballs that it doesn't transfer at all .

Jeff Moyer 50:44

I would argue that . So , because I'm big into sports vision training , so this is where I've gotten into it . Well , I've tried to with Rob and I know there's other people in the field . So I'm also a functional . Well , I specialize in neurological development and posturology and so the eyes play a large role in all that and most people don't know that they have a visual issue until it's brought to their attention . One so right off the bat , 73% of people don't have full convergence of their eyes . So that's going to set postural tone problems right off the bat , from neck rotation to all these other things .

Jeff Moyer 51:20

Two a lot of those studies . They try to go from like a Brock string to hitting a baseball and there has to be a bridge tying that . In A Brock string , for instance , looking at convergence of the eyes to get binocularity is a bridge to get stereostopsis . Stereostopsis now helps you with getting depth perception . So once we have kind of worked on that , if an athlete has those issues and then we get depth perception , then we build in depth perception drills and then we do ball chasing and and training drills like that . So I , I I do know those studies because I've , I've . I don't agree with Rob because a lot of the , in my opinion , a lot of the ecological things assume that everyone's perception is 100% and from a brain development standpoint , a postural standpoint , it's definitely not See .

Greg Souders 52:08

That's where I actually I have that problem in both sides of literature . Actually , I read with Hagen's view on Gibsonian effective psychology and I hear arguments like that made all the time . I think to even say that is to largely miss the point . To say something like , um , you know , assuming that everyone's perception is the same , no , well , I'm not . I don't know what people's level of perception is . I'm just , I'm just assuming everyone's perceiving so , like that's the one thing we're all doing , you know , whatever level . I think the mistake is to assume that there is an optimal level of perception and that it's required to do a thing that requires perceiving . If that were the case , we would have died off a long time ago . Like with , like you know , like you like the functional pattern , guys will talk about needing this posture . How come nobody in tribal africa has posture problems ?

Jeff Moyer 52:58

yeah , well , okay , so let's talk about yeah yeah , that's .

Greg Souders 53:03

That's not a like . Go and debate about like you , about tribe versus modern man , nothing like that . My only thing is to say is that effective functionality is optimal already . Okay , so if I can effectively produce an outcome , yeah , there's no , there's nothing more optimal than that I got you um what again ?

Jeff Moyer 53:30

I I would argue just a conversation , not argue , sir , I don't want to you know , I don't want to get to your , so so one posture is not forward , head rounded , spine posture is the brain strategy to overcome gravity and it is based off of the sensors of the body right . So it's actually it's a branch of neurology is what it is . So the sensors of the body are the skin of the feet . So we're talking tribal . They're all fucking barefoot . So we know the skin of the feet is probably pretty good compared to people in today , modern shoes and footwear and all the issues . Two , then , it's because we have to overcome gravity to find the horizon right . So now we have to have stable feet and then we have to have eyes that can find the horizon . And what's the study ? I think 64 of babies are born with eye misalignment right off the bat or something like that . So we already have people and I'm sure you , you , you can picture people in your head that you know that has some funky fucking eyes and some things going on .

Jeff Moyer 54:23

So , right , there is an asymmetry that's going to happen with brain development which is going to affect that . And so what I'd also say is because I just did a podcast with Dr Robert Melillo , who's the world's expert in neurological development . He believes and I think it's a little higher that over 50% of people still have retained primitive reflexes . So I don't know where that fits . This is what I've been trying to follow and find in my studies of where's that follow in the schemas versus all of this stuff . Because primitive reflexes we all have them . They're all the base things we're all born with .

Jeff Moyer 54:55

So it is a motor reflex based off of a sensory stimulation and if it's still present , it's going to cause issues . And that's where we get people with dyslexia , adhd , ocd , autism and things like that , because that's going to affect the brain development . But it's a motor response . So if you have someone with an asymmetric tonic neck reflex and you can test this , you turn their head , they're automatically going to flex one arm and extend one leg . It's going to happen unconsciously . So my point is what I'm trying to tie is I don't know where that fits in the development of motor learning , because I do listen , I'm a constraints guy , I would say majority of the time . I just from learning neurology a bit . I have seen , right , and we're going to talk about you get a lot of white belts , I would argue . Probably if especially the white belts that I see at the local places around here people have retained primary reflexes so they're going to have proprioceptive issues , so they don't really know where their body is in space and that can affect motor outcome .

Greg Souders 55:55

Right , because it's a sensory motor brain but I'd love this , so I would love to keep having this philosophical conversation . I'm very curious about this . I actually have a , I think , a reasonable argument for why all of it's wrong , but not not wrong , and no just , it's a philosophical argument , not not one that I get married to or anything .

Greg Souders 56:16

All these things seem to be ad hoc . So what I mean is and they all seem to be relational . So what we're talking about is and they all seem to be relational . So what we're talking about is let's imagine that somebody's like 50% of kids are born with this , this , I thing right . And in a human environment , a purely human environment and I'm going to say non-civilized for the point of argument where you get up your feet , touch the floor , you go find your water , you're in a tribe , you're doing what humans do , just like squirrels do what squirrels do and turtles do what turtles do , and you're in that purely human environment .

Greg Souders 56:45

Would these things still exist or would they work themselves out ? Because we need the relationship between how the schema of the system has a born-in function , but that born-in function is also embedded in a world that requires it , and so once this relationship starts to take hold , all these things that present as disorders are no longer present because they're relationally worked out . But if those relationships are no longer there , these things then persist , persist . So , for example , if we don't use our , we don't walk around barefoot , as children run around throwing things and flipping and falling and doing all this shit , we actually lose that proprio sensitive sensitivity over time and now it becomes a disorder as an adult . But it wasn't that it requires some special training . It's that we just didn't do what humans were supposed to do yeah 100 ?

Greg Souders 57:37

am I like off base or am I making no , no no 100 , no so .

Jeff Moyer 57:40

So again , it's . It's well , it's multifactorial , because a lot of these reflexes can also be retained due to the birth and the actual birth itself . So whether the mother had a c-section , use forceps , uh , got tangled in the umbilical cord , these can all affect these primitive reflexes still being integrated . But also traumatic brain injuries can bring it back , and that's what I wanted to talk about with Dr Melillo in the last podcast was how sports injuries and and primitive reflexes because you know , with I don't know if you're a football fan , but with Tua , the quarterback down in Miami , he got the concussion and all of a sudden he's in the Spencer pose , which is a primitive reflex , right . So after brain injuries , these reflexes can come back and so nonetheless you know you're right , not wrong the majority of them should all be gone , based off of how we should be barefoot on the ground , walking , crawling , doing all the shit we do .

Jeff Moyer 58:34

But modern living has affected you know this kids on technology and phones , and you know it's a . We developed the right brain first , which is the gross motor skills , and then the left brain later on , which is the fine motor skills . But now kids have phones , so we're developing backwards , so we're doing fine motor skills first , which then affects the gross motor skills , and so for me I just the only really big argument I have with the ecological side is I do believe at times you can separate and then integrate , but that's just my personal belief . But yeah , but nonetheless I'm a huge fan of this stuff and I again I could talk to you so I I'm not married to the opinion on either way .

Greg Souders 59:11

Like the separation , integration , I would think that has a utilitarian argument . Um , if we're facing what we call a rate limiter or a limiting factor , so if we have a thing , a capacity that's not in us , that we can't develop through the thing itself , then we would have to use interventions outside of the thing . So if somebody had a nervous disorder where they couldn't use their hands and so grappling was impossible for them , but we would have some way to expose their hands to utility that we could eventually integrate back into the grappling system , I think in that case it's absolutely , it's 100% true that we can do something like decontextualize , training on one side to develop a capacity to put back into the contextualized version of the thing . But either way , when we do that separation and integration , we still have to integrate . We cannot like .

Greg Souders 1:00:04

So , yes , transfer doesn't happen without integration . So my point is that integration is what we always start with . So when someone walks in off the street , regardless of their current capacities , grabbing , resisting , unpredictable , uncooperative bodies , is integration , so it it still does not start without it because we're not . We're always , we're always integrating , we're always taking current capacity and putting it into the game always yeah , um . So that's what I mean when I say , like I don't think there's such a thing as direct transfer . Like I said , if we're solving a limiting factor or a rate limiter , yes , solve it over here , but only if it can't be solved by the game . If we can play the game and solve it , I think we have a more powerful tool .

Jeff Moyer 1:00:44

If we can scale it , scale it appropriately no 100 and I I think integrating and scaling are the words . That to me , yes , because that's now where , again , a lot of those going back to what you said with the vision training studies , I've seen that . And there's no integration , it's they do this one thing and they expect it to transfer to that and there's no built-in process . And the gentleman I've learned sports vision training from , dr Bill Harrison , was the OG . He was the guy that was one of the founding fathers of sports vision training work in professional baseball in the 1960s . That was his whole process and that was his whole argument against a lot of these optomologists and optometrists working in baseball is they just do this one thing and expected to transfer . And he built in this transfer of training um , similar to bonder truck , right , and that was always my argument . So I've done presentations on vision training , but in the manner of bonder trucks transfer of training from general , developmental , special , preparatory to to , yeah , to competitive . So anyways , yeah oh , that's really .

Greg Souders 1:01:45

I love it . This is actually more interesting than me just rattling a bunch of shit about cla . Like I , I want to hear this stuff because I'm not an expert in any field at all . If I was an expert in anything , it would just be jiu-jitsu practice and jiu-jitsu . I'm not like I . I only use cla and I I only only use a basic understanding of the philosophy to guide it . So again , there's a learned man like yourself who studied this stuff deeply and is invested in the science , and the people who write the science .

Jeff Moyer 1:02:14

I love it because I don't get exposed to this well , I would argue , you're very well versed and especially , you're you're a pioneer because , like you said , before , no one was doing this stuff in jiu-jitsu or in the mixed martial arts world . Um , you know , so I , I I kudos to you , man , because because , like I , I think what you're doing is fantastic . Um , the way you've broken it down and you have it structured and layered and this , and that I don't know why , people don't fucking understand it . I just I don't know . I mean , we don't need to get into that .

Greg Souders 1:02:48

Yeah , actually , because it's actually a more deeper . It's a deeper point and actually allows us to have the conversation we just had is that , regardless of what science tells us and I might get heated , people might fuck me up for saying it there is a philosophy that starts it . So there is just an armchair idea that we use to go in a direction and then we collect evidence based on this armchair idea and see if it supports the armchair idea . Right

Breaking Down Movement Learning

Greg Souders 1:03:13

, the thing we just pop in our heads , right ? So that's how I did it . It's the philosophy of dynamical system , it's the philosophy of nonlinear pedagogy , it's the philosophy of non-deterministic or causality or whatever . That's what I was reading about .

Greg Souders 1:03:30

So I took those ideas and I tried to integrate them right away into practice design . So , for example , when I heard about invariance that our systems organize around bits of information in the environment that don't change , right , that always stay the same I was like , well , that's fascinating , because if that's true as it is for grasping , as it is for sitting , as it is for pushability and pullability , then it must be true for the human body as well . So if we do organize around invariant features and these invariant features produce invariant functions , it must be present here too . So I just looked for it . I was like , well , it might be based on these precursor conditions . These precursor conditions seem to be where the invariants sit , based on these invariant features and trying to produce these invariant functions . And so it took an idea like , okay , I can create language for this , it's not too complex .

Jeff Moyer 1:04:24

And I created language for it so I could use it to guide practice . So I'm not gonna lie . I've never heard of invariance until recently , when , uh , you've talked about it on podcasts and then rob gray talked about it in his presentation for uh um the movement seminar last year and uh , uh , is that ? Where is that different than like attractors ?

Greg Souders 1:04:37

attractor state yeah for sure , an invariant is just something that doesn't change . So if we could talk about the human body , an invariant feature would be like a wrist or an elbow or a shoulder All human bodies have this . So if I'm manipulating a human body , we know that interacting with these features produce an invariant function . So if I want to move the arm with as much force as possible , at the furthest length possible , the wrist is going to be where I would focus my attention . Right and now .

Greg Souders 1:05:06

This is just a loose way to describe it , because invariants are not actually things I could name . I could say the feature , which would be the wrist , because every human has a wrist , you know . So this is something we're going to manipulate when we're talking about manipulating bodies . And then we have the function of movability or manipulability of an arm or dragability or whatever . And if an arm is extended , we could say that it's more draggable at the wrist . That's invariant . It doesn't change from arm to arm . All arms are the most draggable at their fully extended state , at the wrist or at the farthest point from the base joint . I totally forgot what point I was making there .

Jeff Moyer 1:05:46

Well , I was comparing it what's like ? Compared to uh like an attractor state which is a common phrase used in ecological dynamics .

Greg Souders 1:05:54

Yeah , yeah , uh , an attractor state . It's just a propensity for behavior , it's information that pulls us in a direction and we've have a relationship with that , a deep relationship with it . That it's it . Uh , it's hard to get out of it , it's hard to stop doing it . Um , an example would be that they get this one that's common because we all have it .

Greg Souders 1:06:11

When someone's asked to drum a rhythm like a bop , bop , bop , bop , bop , there's usually two ways that any person starting to drum the rhythm will do it . They'll do it in phase and anti-phase , so they'll do it at the same time , with both hands hitting at the same time like or an anti-phase , but one hand's up when the other hand is down . And these are , these are , uh , just attractors that all people come with when they start , when they drum . And so if I want to change the drumming behavior , I've got to create new attractor states , so I have to get them perceiving information and acting upon information that separates them from that propensity to just drum in phase or anti-phase . I've got to get different type signatures to come out or a different tractor to to emerge gotcha now .

Jeff Moyer 1:06:53

Is that any different ? Because , uh , uh . Then what rob gray talked about is , uh , bernstein's essential variables .

Greg Souders 1:07:00

Uh , so that's familiar with that fundamental and essential , excuse me , uh , elemental and essential variables , whereas bernstein's uh idea of invariance . I think so . So there's variability in the human movement system that is functional . Um , some of that variability is essential , meaning if it doesn't exist , the movement's not going to happen , right ? But there's other types that just color it , that there are variables that just make it different , but they don't really affect its outcome in either direction .

Jeff Moyer 1:07:37

Gotcha . Yeah , that sounds so when I heard that . That , because rob talked about that and again he tied it right literally . Here's the slide on my phone .

Jeff Moyer 1:07:44

Man , I can uh , well , I don't know my phone's being fucking yeah , literally talking about it , and uh , I was talking to tyler about that because I wanted to learn more , because I've never heard those phrases . But what's very fascinating to me with bernstein is , you know , I've done a deep dive down that rabbit hole a couple times over , because a couple of his students I've been fortunate to to talk to one is natalia burke kashansky . Um , I consider her mentor of mine and she her father's work was heavily based off of that , and so that's where he came up with the uh , the principle , dynamic correspondence was based off of bernstein's work .

Greg Souders 1:08:18

So and that's the name of talk about that . Yeah , so that's actually yeah , and that's the name of my- . Can you talk about that ?

Jeff Moyer 1:08:21

Yeah , so that's actually . Yeah , that's actually the name of my business because of that . So dynamic correspondence , right , is a principle of selecting exercises that Bernstein came up with . So it's similar to we already talked about Bonner-Chuck's special developmental , special exercise continuum . So an exercise , in order to be considered a special strength exercise , have to have specific criteria , and Berkashansky got the idea from Bernstein . So this is the story .

Jeff Moyer 1:08:49

Natalia told me that Bernstein wrote about that every movement has key movements and then secondary movements . So the key movements are the force producing actions and the secondary movements , right , so the key movements are the force producing actions and the secondary movements are kind of the ones that are more veritable . Right , and he didn't use the words key movements , but that's the word Dr Yuri Vershishansky took from it and I wanted to learn more about that . The key movements because that is something that Dr Yassas has always talked about is when we work on motor skills throwing , running we work on the key movements . We don't really work on the secondary movements . We work on this key force producing actions .

Jeff Moyer 1:09:26

And so I asked , uh , professor Mark Ladish , who , who wrote the books on , uh , bernstein ? Um , he's a , he's a professor at Penn state , two hours from here and so he's been fortunate enough to jump on a couple of calls with me and talk to him about it . And he said , yeah , he remembered him talking about what . He couldn't remember the phrase , because he said Bernstein was such a fucking genius that he just used all these fancy words and no one really knew what they were about . But now when you talk about invariance and then Rob Gray talked about that I was like I wonder if that was what he was talking about .

Greg Souders 1:10:05

And that's where maybe Bernstein or Berk shansky got the idea for key movements and then created dynamic correspondence .

Greg Souders 1:10:08

That's just what came in my head , yeah , so I think honestly that , like one person starts an idea and then it just spiders into other ones , um so , I think invariance was actually used by gibson , but gibson I think that's what tyler said yeah , it could have taken the inspiration from um bernstein , because I mean , like you know , if you were to look up the history of ecological psychology as because , trying to become a thing , you'd see the same names rise over and over again you see william james , you see nikolai bernstein , you see jj gibson , you see carl newell , and it seems like this is like a path to it , that all these people influenced each other in one way or another .

Jeff Moyer 1:10:40

Gotcha , so yeah , so I don't know Just when . I heard you talk about invariance and it's come up several times now and it's one of those things . Okay , I've heard it now a couple times from some smart people . I want to know more about it . And then Rob talks about it with Bernstein's essential veritable .

Greg Souders 1:10:54

So , just Well , whether it's the right word or not to use to describe what's happening . I think it's the new idea for how we want to train a skill Is that there are conditions in games that must be met to produce specific effects . Sorry , the train went by . Let me shut my door . Hold on Negative , sorry . And so if we're not going to teach the techniques , then what do we teach to ? So we need to teach to something .

Greg Souders 1:11:22

There is a reason that some of this shit is happening . So how do we get students , uh , involved in doing this shit ? Causes the happening , right , yeah ? And so , uh , the idea that , again , no matter who's doing the behavior , there is something that's consistent across the board that all players must do to produce the behavior . And so we start there , and then we let techniques emerge as they do , person to person , moment to moment , day to day . We don't really care about , um , the aesthetic of the application , just the outcome of the application or the effect of the application . And so invariance , or the concept of invariance , gets us closer to that idea . Um , another a guy , I , because I use I use multiple words to describe invariance , so , uh , one of the ones we use to describe it as precursors or precursor conditions um another guy named cal jones who does cla for judo . He likes um precursor conditions more than he likes invariance . So it's all just different ways to talk about the same thing , I think cool .

Jeff Moyer 1:12:24

Yeah , that's that . Stuff's fascinating shit , man , I love it . Yes , well , I gotta ask before I let you go , man , because I've taken enough of your time . I know you got laundry and and some stuff to do . Man , what , uh , I mean outside of jujitsu and studying the shit out of this man , like what ? Like what other passions do you have ? Do you do anything else ? I think I heard on another podcast you're a big chess guy .

Greg Souders 1:12:46

Oh , I was when I played in high school . I played to a decently high level . I got obsessed with it in ninth grade and I played to my senior year and I was lucky enough . Oh , you know , I have to be careful what I get involved in , because I'm an all or nothing type guy . I don't , I don't enjoy doing things for fun , I think I . I think deep diving is fun , I think difficulty is fun , I think challenge is fun . But the problem is is I'm I love being obsessed , so I literally do it .

Greg Souders 1:13:12

If I had one wish I I'm just saying this openly , publicly I would be so obsessed with my craft that I didn't have to engage in other aspects of living . Like I , I , I get extremely jealous of when I think of these historical figures who were able to commit every second of their their life to these things . I'm like I want that so badly . So because of that , I have to be careful what I engage in , because I will . I will fully go in , like if I , if I pick up drawing , I'll spend every ounce of free time I have drawing that's awesome . I'll forget to eat , I'll forget to clean , I'll just draw all day long .

Jeff Moyer 1:13:49

Okay .

Greg Souders 1:13:50

So I don't have many other interests . Basically I just I teach , I love grappling and I love learning about learning .

Jeff Moyer 1:13:59

I think chess plays into j , into jujitsu . No , I mean , it's just the way I've always kind of heard it described is it's human chess . You know what I mean ? It's one move leads to another move and I mean that's I don't know . My family , my kids and I , we're getting big into chess . Now we saw yeah , we saw some video on a bunch of our favorite NFL players . They , they play chess competitively and now my kids are like wanting to get into chess and so like we're getting all into chess and so , and then I heard you talk about it and I was just like , oh OK , I got to ask him about that .

Greg Souders 1:14:25

It's such a great game , man , I love it . What's interesting ? It's a war game and it's doing a similar thing as grapple right . So we have a time urgency , so I have to accomplish something in a set time . Okay , so we have the time piece . Um , we have the space idea , so I have got to occupy space around you . That makes you move less , so I've got to learn how to manage space to try to hold you still , and then I have to take away material . I have to basically remove your ability to move me and isolate things from you that you can no longer defend . So , again , there's there's I guess there's a similar like uh , strategical overlay between the two things , and so I think that's interesting . Um , but it's one's turn-based , the other one isn't , so one is continuous , one is turn-based , so just the way you describe it now .

Jeff Moyer 1:15:19

It's like , again you do such an elegant job of breaking the shit down . Now I'm like , fuck , I gotta go back through my skill stuff . I'm like I gotta break it down better because I mean you just it's , it's yeah , dude , uh I love it , but uh , greg , listen man , I don't want to take any any more of your time . Man , I could talk to you all day about this shit . I love talking to passionate people that have they're sick in the head , like me a little bit , when it comes to these fucking rabbit holes of of things wanting to get people better , and I appreciate your time . I know you're very busy and yeah , thanks , man .

Greg Souders 1:15:47

Yeah , man , you're so welcome . I actually said I never felt any rush about it . I enjoyed the conversation as it's been going . I appreciate your input and your push back on topics that . Anything that I said . That's very enjoyable for me . I would actually like to . I wish people would do that more so I could really hone in on the things I don't , I don't know anything about and where I make a mistake in speaking , because I would like to to close those gaps and become better publicly at sharing my ideas . So thank you for that .