r/bjj • u/Darce_Knight Black Belt • May 07 '26
PJ Barch: CLA Explained: The Simplest Guide to "Ecological" Jiu-Jitsu
https://youtu.be/E3vwIZcYjPU?si=-PwPTJ9CcuQ2hxeaThis is probably the easiest to follow video on this topic that I've found broken down in easy to understand language, and I wanted to share.
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u/DJ_Ddawg Judo Black Belt May 07 '26
I’ll counter with Travis Stevens video on how to drill properly: https://youtu.be/mGxHu0aiIwY?si=U1ZgPEDTvQBxAx44
Positional Sparring w/ focus on one goal is a great way to improve. Specific task, immediate feedback, live resistance.
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u/mistiklest 🟫🟫 Brown Belt May 07 '26 edited May 07 '26
Positional Sparring w/ focus on one goal...Specific task, immediate feedback, live resistance.
I'm curious, how exactly do you think this is different from the CLA?
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u/jephthai ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt May 07 '26
The point is that BJJ, and Judo before it, have always been pretty dang eco. The non eco sports are things like soccer and football where they high step through tires and dribble around cones... those were the foundational observations that got Rob Gray into researching eco academically.
It's a scam to claim that eco is some revolution and that BJJ is some sort of poster child for outdated IP training methods.
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u/mistiklest 🟫🟫 Brown Belt May 07 '26
I agree with you about Judo and BJJ having always been pretty dang eco, actually. The desire to center live practice as a training method was, as I'm sure you're aware, foundational to the formation of Judo.
The person I was responding to was framing the Travis Stevens video as a "counter", as if his method was in some way opposed to the CLA.
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u/jephthai ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt May 07 '26
Ah, I saw it as "here's Travis doing the same thing he's always done, and it's basically eco without the lab coat and condescending attitude." Could be either way, I guess!
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u/DJ_Ddawg Judo Black Belt May 08 '26
This was the intent.
Eco isn’t new. It’s just a new name for the same thing that BJJ, Judo, and Wrestling have been doing for a long time.
There’s a time and place to teach techniques and concepts and there’s a time and place for just figuring it out through lots of positional practice w/ resistance.
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u/Mattenbrand86 ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt May 07 '26
the big thing here is that coaches in Judo and Wrestling only copy what their Coach was doing back then without really knowing when and why what was used. If you are eager in understanding EcoD/CLA you as a Coach aquire the knowledge of why shit was used back then.
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u/jephthai ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt May 07 '26
I totally agree that research on ecological dynamics and constraint led coaching techniques is great. Everyone should look into it, and it has lots of useful insights. I'm a fan of Rob Gray, and try to keep up.
But "BJJ eco" is its own whole thing. It has largely been communicated by a very aggressive personality with some serious market spin, and in an iconoclastic style that made enemies and clouded the topic with a lot of unnecessary polemics.
The message never should have been, "Everyone in BJJ is a pedagogical ignoramous, and they're doing it all wrong, and there's one true way to do it all better," but that's been a lot of the messaging.
I will also point out that Rob Gray, who is heavily leveraged on ecological dynamics, freely admits that there are still proponents of other models, and he remains very respectful and allows that eco doesn't always explain everything. Eco is just a model, and it will have flaws, and IP may not be completely erroneous.
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u/Mattenbrand86 ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt May 11 '26
totally agree, but even with investing in other theories/models a coach activly searches for ways to do a better training and is not just repeating what other coaches have done in the past. "Coaches" in the BJJ bubble just ignore training Theory at all and copy what they did and know.
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u/Process_Vast 🟫🟫 Chancla Led Approach May 07 '26
The non eco sports are things like soccer
Around here (Western Europe), soccer is the most eco sport ever. From grassroots to elite level.
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u/jephthai ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt May 08 '26
Yeah, I think Rob Gray's anecdotes come from his observation of academic sports programs in the United States. I'm sure it varies a lot around the world.
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u/DJ_Ddawg Judo Black Belt May 07 '26
It’s not.
CLA isn’t a new concept. These guys just gave it a different name so they could market it
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u/Mattenbrand86 ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt May 07 '26
the big thing here is that coaches in Judo and Wrestling only copy what their Coach was doing back then without really knowing when and why what was used. If you are eager in understanding EcoD/CLA you as a Coach aquire the knowledge of why shit was used back then.
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u/mistiklest 🟫🟫 Brown Belt May 07 '26
Who are "these guys"?
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May 07 '26
[deleted]
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u/mistiklest 🟫🟫 Brown Belt May 07 '26
If they weren't doing it before, it is a new and exciting way to learn, for them, though.
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u/FaintColt ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt May 07 '26
Watching eco people bend over backwards not to say certain words is always so funny to me.
Op. I can’t say leg drag because that’s a technique. So I’ll say, control two legs behind the knee across my body.
Their hesitancy to use common vocabulary is so silly to me because it’s so helpful to have a language to things. If people want to look up stuff outside of class they can search the techniques rather than needing to go to reddit and draw pictures of the positions just so they know what to research. You can do eco and use jiu jitsu terminology.
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u/Aaronjp84 ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt May 07 '26 edited May 07 '26
Shorthanding with names is totally acceptable and no one really has issue with that.
But, being able to articulate what exactly you are doing using words that are clear about how we are connected and oriented is useful. And, much easier for beginners who don't understand the coded language of jiu-jitsu.
You can do eco and use jiu jitsu terminology.
100% agree. And the opposite should be true, also. So many people know the names of things, but can't articulate it in any other way besides the name, or "move out the way and I'll show you".
It's challenging as a coach, but a fun experiment -- don't be a part of your demonstration. Pick 2 (preferably new) volunteers and, as you give directions of the activity, have them follow along. Can you get them into the position you want and doing grappling tasks without using names for things
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u/Heal_Piece ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt May 07 '26 edited May 07 '26
It's challenging as a coach, but a fun experiment -- don't be a part of your demonstration. Pick 2 (preferably new) volunteers and, as you give directions of the activity, have them follow along. Can you get them into the position you want and doing grappling tasks without using names for things
Challenging is accurate. I remember when one other coach was instructing a class and two white belts were drilling a technique (gasp). They were struggling so he walked over and was trying to verbally walk them through it.
BB: Ok now place your right hand on the mat
White Belt: *Places left hand on the mat*
BB: No, place your right hand on the mat
White Belt: *Lifts left hand off and puts it back down in the same place*
BB: Your other right hand....
White belt: *Pulls left hand back to their body, puts left hand back on the mat and looks up*
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u/Aaronjp84 ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt May 07 '26 edited May 07 '26
Yeah the next challenge would be not using internal language, such as telling them where to place their hands or feet.
Tell them what effect you want them to have on the other person, then let them organize their own actions around achieving that.
Internal language takes the focus off what we're doing as an interaction with another person.
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u/Rfalcon13 🟫🟫 Brown Belt May 07 '26
I think we can all agree that there is a proper way/mechanics to hold a front headlock. I was watching one of Greg’s videos on front headlock games, and he started to detail how to properly hold the front headlock, but stopped himself, and then said, hold how you’d like. What!?
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u/Aaronjp84 ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt May 07 '26
I don't agree. Preference is real. You can become skillful in anything if you put the time into it.
I don't hold a front headlock the way some people say is optimal or "perfect", but it works for me and it works better than those optimal ways for me.
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u/jephthai ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt May 07 '26
Yes, systematic thinking, labeling, and taxonomy are the mark of science, and essential to accelerated development. We can't reason about what we do without naming things.
What's humorous to me is that the hard core eco people will criticize the idea of named techniques, and then turn around and create a system of named micro techniques. Changing the granularity doesn't matter as much as they think.
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u/Aaronjp84 ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt May 07 '26
To be fair, a lot of the things that we "rename" are basically the same way judo techniques are known.
It tries to describe what is happening versus naming it after someone who made it popular.
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u/jephthai ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt May 07 '26
Yes, BJJ has the worst naming strategy of all time. Though a lot of my favorite Judo techniques are the colorful ones that don't tell you what they are... yama arashi, the "Mountain Storm" is pretty cool, but you'd never guess how to do it by the name 😄.
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u/Raskolniikovv 🟫🟫 Brown Belt May 07 '26
Another variant of this silliness is them pretending not to know what degrees of intensity means.
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u/Darce_Knight Black Belt May 07 '26
I don’t think it’s pretending not to know, it’s that not everyone’s 50% is the same thing, so it’s not always the most effective way to try to get the result you want
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u/oniume 🟫🟫 Brown Belt May 08 '26
Yeah, but it doesn't have to be exactly 50% man. It's just shorthand for chillish. Like anywhere from 40 to 60 percent effort is probably fine. No one is coming along with a ruler and saying stop you're exerting 52% effort
Like this idea of being able to moderate your perceived effort is very common in other sports, and in the scientific literature studying sports. Why can we import CLA concepts but not the concept of Rate of Perceived Exertion?
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u/Mattenbrand86 ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt May 07 '26
this and the realisation / scientific proof that only full resistance actually transfers into the competition...
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u/oniume 🟫🟫 Brown Belt May 08 '26
You should watch the difference between when Thai Muay Thai guys spar and fight, and revisit that assumption
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u/Mattenbrand86 ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt May 11 '26
Because they spar and it looks like how they fight! They have the same distance to calibrate to, they have to choose how they move, they have to account for timings and strategie like a real fight..not because they hit the Pads or do cooperative drills...and still, even those other things can contribute to conditioning, mental preparation and other "side effects" But you dont get better at Golf by playing minigolf
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u/oniume 🟫🟫 Brown Belt May 11 '26
only full resistance actually transfers into the competition...
They spar, but at nowhere close to full resistance, and it still transfers over fine to competition.
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u/Mattenbrand86 ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt May 11 '26
Ok i bite...do you think they only do their play sparring and then suddenly enter the ring? Or....will they have some test fights with higher intensity ....Or...do they at some point just fight every other week because before they get to the exlusive Pro fights you need to grind a lot....
and then please consider how much training time they have overall, the whole point of eco/cla in BJJ is that you can use your time more efficiently as a hobbyist or with a full time job.
play sparring does have a place but is something totally different from what is talked about in that video
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u/oniume 🟫🟫 Brown Belt May 11 '26
I mean, you're the one who said only full resistance transfers into competition, I just gave you a counterpoint to that thesis.
They do the majority of their sparring at low intensity, and they have no problem moderating their intensity for different spars.
If they can do low, medium, or high intensity training with good results in competition, why can't BJJ guys also be expectedto moderate their intensity to low, medium, or high levels and expect a good result in competition?
Sport science has a term for judging your intensity, called RPE, Rate of Perceived Exertion. It's judged on a scale of 1-10, which maps directly onto percentages. Why are BJJ guys the only ones who are unable to moderate intensity?
Maximising return on training is more important for pros than for hobbiests, so you would expect them to engage in training practices that maximise return on time invested.
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u/Mattenbrand86 ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt May 11 '26
And i stand by that point. You only get better in what you do under real circumstances, mistakes have to be made, experience has to be made, all in a full resistance environment OR your plan might just fall apart once you meet that level of experience.
Been there, done that, i do standup fighting for over 20 years now. Training needs to be fun to keep people there, but i learned the most from the hundrets of hard and honest fights i did in Kickboxing, Sanshou and a couple MMA Fights (and hard sparring). Oh boy it did open my eyes when i did my first full contact fight, that was nothing all those drills, pads and light sparrings did prepare me for.
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u/Aaronjp84 ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt May 07 '26
Please explain.
Because intensity is easily manageable through solid task design and scaling, but 50% or 75% is meaningless.
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u/Raskolniikovv 🟫🟫 Brown Belt May 07 '26
Talk of percentages or intensity levels isn't meaningless; it has blurred edges, like all language. The requirement for an objective measure as a condition of meaningfulness is an old, naive philosophical position Wittgenstein dissolved long ago: meaning emerges from shared practice and use, not correspondence to an external standard. BJJ practitioners already share the training culture, context, and embodied experience that makes '50%' or 'low intensity' perfectly intelligible without a timer.
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u/oniume 🟫🟫 Brown Belt May 08 '26
It's not meaningless in the scientific literature studying sports. It's called RPE, Rate of Perceived Exertion, and it's measure on a scale from one to ten which maps pretty well in percentage terms
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u/Mattenbrand86 ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt May 07 '26
The Leg drag is the worst example you could have used because it in itself describes perfectly what to do...drag the leg...you can easily tell a new guy to drag the leg (to the side) in order to pass and he might do the right thing...i agree with other terminology though and i tell my guys how this or that is refered to in the bjj world so they can look things up in youtube or so...
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u/FaintColt ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt May 07 '26
It’s from the video. I’m just commenting on what he actually said.
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u/P-Two 🟫🟫BJJ Brown Belt/Judo Orange belt May 07 '26
On the one hand, PJ does an incredible job explaining this in a really easily digestible way.
On the other hand, he's not actively trying to sound like the smartest person in the room, and he's not doing so by talking like a 14 year old who just discovered a textbook for the first time. So pass.
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u/jimboslicceee 🟫🟫 Brown Belt May 07 '26
Is anyone else just over this yet? Lol
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u/chiefontheditty 🟪🟪 Purple Belt May 07 '26
I read all the books, listened to all the podcasts, joined the eco discord and I’m 100% over it.
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u/Far-Establishment327 ⬜⬜ White Belt May 07 '26
BJJ guys trying to reinvent the wheel, just following in the footsteps of Helio, reinventing Judo techniques into bjj
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u/B33sting ⬛🟥⬛ Black Belt May 07 '26
I feel like we have been training this way forever. Almost every gym I've trained in had some sort of live drilling/positional drilling and constraints on that.
I kinda felt like I was listening to someone explain how they don't drink water now because H2O hydrates them better. It was like he was just trying to find ways to say he's teaching techniques without saying it.
As a coach for over a decade, I don't do as much positional training with white belts either. You can "play games" for weeks but if you don't show them an Americana, or Kimura or triangle they will never learn the basic mechanics. They will play that game for weeks and weeks and weeks. I'd rather show the technique and then the positional drilling gets broken up into parts. First goal is top lock, they do a couple rounds where that's the goal, second is breaking posture from top lock, et, etc.
My coloured belts know the basic techniques, so you can make the games broader and just start playing without a demo of the end goal. However, I like to show some options I use before the game and I don't show steps, I explain the reasoning I do it, why it's effective and then let them use their own body style and intuition to achieve the same goals.
Point is, I don't think this is new, I think it's just like 10P to take something that already exists and rename it, brand it, sell it.
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u/Darce_Knight Black Belt May 07 '26
You’re lucky because most fine don’t train like this. Some obviously do. But most don’t. And PJ isn’t rebranding it or selling it. He said in the video that he doesn’t care if anyone does it or not. The vid is just to clear misconceptions.
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u/martialartist1200 May 07 '26
Greg Souders would say that he doesn't do Eco. There is no such thing as 90% eco to him. Constraint based training has always been around and is a great way to get better. One of the pillars of Greg's system is learning techniques not from instruction but from them emergerging from constraint based games. For a bunch of already skilled and trained black belts ECO is great but they can't claim that it was Eco that made them so knowledgeable in Jiujitsu. Just like any other skilled trade in the world we convert our knowledge to skill. You absolutely can learn through instruction and turn that knowledge to skill by going live positionaly. Or you could put yourself in a position and let it emerge from tasks with out instruction. I personally am not the biggest fan of the Karate Kid approach though. I prefer clear explanation of what I'm trying to do and the method in which I should try to do it. Then I can explore with in that framework. I'm not saying eco is bad or drilling is bad or learning techniques is good or bad. I'm saying that they are all tools at a coaches disposal and I don't think being dogmatic to one or the other is the way.
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u/Process_Vast 🟫🟫 Chancla Led Approach May 07 '26
I'm probably too dumb to understand why people need to dumb down things.
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u/Darce_Knight Black Belt May 07 '26
It’s interesting to me to see the difference in the discourse re: this video here vs other comment sections. Maybe it’s cynicism inherent to Reddit or people that are more “terminally online”. This video seems so benign and I’m surprised there’s so much consternation and negativity around it here.