There are no Eco Games.

This is not clickbait. Please read: There are major differences between training theory, training methodology, and training methods.

“Is this drill IP or eco?”

The answer to this question always was and always will be “neither.”

Here’s why.

Theory, Methodology, Method

Information processing and ecological dynamics are both theories of perception and learning. They explain your relationship to the environment and how that affects your internal states and vice versa. As such, they inform training methodologies, but they are not methodologies in themselves.

Or, put another way, they have clear implications for how you should train, but as theories of perception and learning, they do not constitute organized systems of how to do training.

To bridge the gap between theory and practice, developing literature-based methodologies is necessary.

methodology

noun.

a system of methods used in a particular area of study or activity.

- Oxford Dictionary

The constraints-led approach and/or nonlinear pedagogy are broad practice and coaching methodologies built out of the ecological dynamics literature.

There are many information processing-based methodologies, too, of which OPTIMAL is one.

methodology | noun

1. a body of methods, rules, and postulates employed by a discipline

2. the analysis of the principles or procedures of inquiry in a particular field

- Mariam-Webster Dictionary

A method, in martial arts, is an individual practice exercise or activity type. These include, but are not limited to, drills, repetitions, games, and sparring.

In a properly evidence-informed training approach, a methodology guides the methods you choose in a logical and (hopefully) theoretically sound way.

The original purpose of the Combat Learning Podcast

I started combat learning explicitly to talk more about methodology than methods. That’s why I chose the discussion-based audio podcast medium first as opposed to topic-based videos or instructionals.

Inevitably, you do have to talk about methods to understand how methodology governs selection and use of methods. But methodology has been more important (and interesting) in my mind for almost a decade now.

As I came to learn, however, this interest is not shared by most martial arts instructors. Not only is it not interesting, it seems to be hard to even understand.

As I understand it, my illustrious followers are built different. You are interested in this, and that’s why you’re reading. For that, I’m incredibly grateful and greatly encouraged.

My response to this is not to give up—or to fuss more about methods for extra views—but to find better ways to educate coaches on these categories of thinking and why they’re so important.

It was always about methodology.

BREAKING: CLA Didn’t Create New Methods!

…but it does constitute a new methodology.

In the process, though, overlapping methods will take on a unique flavor—because CLA’s theoretical principles entail things that other methodologies don’t.

I’ve been frustrated by the accusation that CLA is just “positional sparring with constraints” because it misses the point of the whole discourse.

Martial artists are trained to think about different styles as a collection of techniques. But the more you think about it, the more those techniques blend together, the squishier the boundaries become, and then MMA jumps on the table like a house cat and plows over all the game pieces you were studying.

The actual boundaries between different martial arts are there, but they’re harder to pinpoint because they’re harder to understand.

It’s the same thing with training methodologies. If you try to divvy up individual methods according to some arbitrary coding, you will forever pull your hair out trying to figure out what belongs to CLA/eco/IP and what doesn’t.

Here’s the reality:

Virtually all training methods favored by the constraints-led approach were first employed by non-CLA coaches and therefore preexisted the methodology.

I’ve said this before, and I’ve never tried to claim otherwise. The misunderstandings about this are from other people in the space trying to work through their own thoughts publicly before they’ve fully understood all the issues involved.

CLA does not occupy the space between static drilling and positional sparring or free sparring. CLA helps you decide which method to use, when, for what purpose, with what modifications, and why.

It was never about the training methods per se. It was about the methodology that governs the selection and usage of those methods, including the design of them.

It’s about the coaching philosophy that dictates your coaching behaviors during practice, that informs and guides how you talk, what you say, when you say it, when you’d don’t say anything, and how often.

Jiu-jitsu is the perfect example of this. The sheer breadth and particularity of positional sparring-like games did not exist before CLA hit the scene. That’s because manipulating constraints and designing representative tasks offer a framework for expanding the pre-existing positional sparring format in ways that virtually no one did before.

It also liberated hundreds of martial artists from two ubiquitous limiting beliefs about training: that beginners can’t profit from live sparring on day 1, and true skill can’t be built without static drilling and rote repetition.

There are a handful of standard positional sparring formats that almost everyone did. But the task-based game revolution only happened when a methodology provided coaches a way to understand how to use and modify positional sparring to their own advantage.

What makes the constraints-led approach different is its approach.

It’s in the name for a reason.

Principles of Learning: CLA vs Games-based Approaches

This far, we’ve seen that the theory of eco dynamics and the methodology of CLA dictate that we rely on various forms of sport-specific games to construct learning environments according to the principles of learning entailed by both.

Because CLA prefers games almost exclusively for skill learning, you could broadly and accurately call it a games-based approach when expressed in activities such as team sports and combat sports.

With that in mind, how does the constraints-led approach differ from the various games-based approaches like TGfU?

Games-based methodologies are characterized by practices that are dominantly made up of games with various levels of overlap with the target sport in question.

However, they do not necessarily exclude static drilling and any other form of uncoupled or decomposed practice. TGfU tries to keep everything embedded in games, but it has no theoretical underpinning. That means there’s no foundational reason not to start clogging up practice time with decoupled practice activities if you simply decide you’re not going to buy the TGfU design framework wholesale.

In CLA for combat sports, however, static drilling and other decomposed forms of practice are excluded as skill learning methods via the CLA principle of representative learning design and the ecological theory of direct learning.

To change or remove these principles is to categorically cease to use the constraints-led approach. You are no longer doing CLA.

It’s not about how much you do task-based games vs positional sparring vs free sparring. All of these activities are important components of CLA practice design insofar as they align with the principles of CLA, not because they are intrinsically CLA-coded in some fashion.

This is why ill-conceived divides like “eco hybrid” vs “eco purist” are literally incomprehensible. Not to mention needlessly factious.

They miss the point because the people who coin these designations never seem to understand the issues at hand to begin with.

Eco is not a description of individual training methods. Neither is IP. But if you look at how methods are selected, sequenced, employed, and why, then you can infer the methodology and the underlying theory about learning and perception.

You can be whatever you want.

You can be games-based and not worry about the eggheaded stuff from ecological dynamics. I’m legitimately glad for you that you do much more live training now, and you’re getting results, and it’s more fun.

But you’re not eco necessarily, and that’s okay. The ecological approach is a defined concept with firm boundaries.

You don’t have to be eco. It’s okay. Genuinely.

If you want to be eco, though, you have to learn about and operate on the ecological dynamics theory. Because that’s what it is.

And if you want to be CLA, you have to understand and use its principles of practice design. Because that’s what it is.

The road is easier to navigate when everyone can (a) see their lane, and

(b) stay inside it,

or (c) switch lanes without colliding with other travelers.