Why I Don't Teach BJJ the Way Most Gyms Teach BJJ
The standard model for teaching martial arts goes something like this: instructor demonstrates, students mimic, everyone drills the move 50 times, then you spar and see what sticks. It works, to a point. But it has a fundamental problem — it treats learning as information transfer. As if the knowledge lives in the demonstration, and the student just needs to copy it accurately enough times for it to sink in. That's not really how motor skills develop. And it's especially not how they develop in adults. What I use instead is called the Constraints-Led Approach. The short version: instead of saying "do it like this," I change the environment so that the right movement becomes the most natural solution. You discover the technique through the problem. Here's a practical example. Teaching someone to use their hips properly in guard work — you can explain it, show it, repeat the words "use your hips" until you're hoarse. Or you can set up a specific...
