#195 Elton Wells: Systems Thinking and CLA for Striking/MMA, Retrospectives, and Coaching

Elton Wells is the owner and head coach at Ambush Muay Thai. We chat about his system for striking, CLA for striking/mma, the retrospectives he does with his team and much more. Hope you enjoy this conversation!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Hello? Hey Elton, it's Josh from 1-800 VJJ help. Welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Hey, thanks for having me. I'm uh I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Yeah, I'm super excited to have you. Uh I've heard of you uh from Simple Man podcast. You know, Damien talks about his striking coach, and just like I was like, oh, it'd be awesome to have Elton one day talk about we're gonna talk about your striking system, kind of curriculum design. You also do CLA for striking, which is unique. And then you do uh what we call retrospectives in the software world where uh you reflect after practice. And so it's just really cool to see how you think about before, during, and after practice. But for uh before we dive in, maybe for people don't know you, uh, can you give maybe brief intro who you are and and uh what you do these days?

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Yeah, so um my gym is ambush muay thai. We have we have four locations in Texas. We have two in Austin, two in San Antonio. Uh I I I was the founder of the program, and then I'm I'm the the owner and head coach of the gym now. Uh my gym focuses on Muay Thai, but actually I personally these days are I'm focusing more on MMA. And so that's where I'm working with Damien and Jackson and you know some of the guys from Simple Man.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Awesome. So uh yeah, let's dive into it. The striking system and curriculum design. I don't know how deep we we want to go on it, but maybe if you can describe like your thinking around how you architect that.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Yeah, so uh, you know, actually it's funny. Um, you know, we're talking about a striking system, but there's a lot of there's actually a lot of jujitsu influence where where a lot of my perspective, where I would say it started, was uh when John Danaher was on Joe Rogan. And you know, if you listen to you know Danaher on podcast, you know, he'll he'll talk about um when he met Dean Lister and how he can do Dean Lister for a short time. But you know, there's like one conversation where I think Dean Lister was teaching like Achilles Locks or something like that, and he he asked him about it, and he said, you know, Dean Lister said, like, why would you ignore 50% of the body? And he was he said that was just eye-opening for him. It's like, like, why why would you? And so my my moment like that was when was when Danaher was on Joe Rogan and he was talking, there's this like eight eight minute segment where he's talking about jujitsu as a four-step system, which um if you haven't seen it or if the audience hasn't seen it, like I definitely recommend that that you look it up. If you just if you just look for Danaher and four-step system, you'll find like just a clip of it. But um, just to kind of like brief briefly summarize it, it's like step one, uh take him down to the ground. Like why to the ground? Well, it's because explosive power comes from the legs, the hips, the core. So we want to get them to the down the ground to take away that explosive power. Step two, it's like, well, you have them on the ground now, but you still have legs in front of you. The legs can still be dangerous, they can kick you, they can sweep you, they can um I guess leg entangle you and leg lock you. So it's we gotta we gotta pass the legs. Then step three being uh work through a series of pins uh that you know the way he describes it is graded by the ability to strike. So, you know, he mentions like when you look at uh like scoring for pins. And unfortunately, I cannot describe this. I'm not I'm not a jiu-jitsu guy, but uh from the way I remember it, you know, he's like, well, you know, side control versus mouth versus back bound all have different point values. Um, you know, you could look at it as like the ability to control, but you could also look at it as like the ability to strike in that position. And then finally, step four is submission. And to me, that was just that was just really eye-opening because up to that point, the way I'd always seen martial arts taught and striking taught was kind of um you know very technique and combo centric. You know, you kind of come in, like, here are the techniques of the day, we're gonna run through some sequences, you know, some some some combinations. Maybe if we hit pads, maybe we spar a little bit. And and that's fine, you know. I think that that that works really well. But you know, when you look at that four-step system, you know, it's like what if you look at it, if you generalize it, if you look at it you know more abstractly, like what are what are we really talking about? You could look at it, you know, maybe through the lens of time. It's like the stages of the match. Um, I mean, you could look at it in terms of uh like grouping actions. So it's like, okay, it's like step one was takedowns, and step two was you know, guards and pass, and number step three was pins and escapes. And um, but you know, the the the point is is that it was the first time that I'd really thought about organizing around something other than technique and other than combos. And so basically that just led me to answer to asking new questions and then trying to look at things through you know like a different lens. And then uh, you know, some years later it's just it's really led to a different perspective, you know. So wow.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

So uh is there is it too much detail to go into your striking system and how you design curriculum, or like would that take up a whole hour or or do you want to describe a little bit of it?

SPEAKER_00 5:31

It would probably take up many hours, but uh yeah, we can we can we can kind of hit the we can kind of hit the high points. Cool. Um and actually it might be easier. I mean, I can kind of you know give some some broad strokes. Um I know you know we want to talk about CLA, and so uh because like it it does in my mind like it all does end up connecting, you know, uh in my opinion, as it should. Um but actually like let me ask you, like when you what in in the context of the jujitsu, when you when you hear the word system, like what does that mean to you? Like what do you what do you expect when if somebody says they have a system, like what what do you expect to to get from that that you don't that you don't see from the non-system approach?

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Wow, it's a good question. Um maybe uh an element of it is like an interconnectedness. Um then I don't know where my why my head goes, maybe there's just a connotation, but when I hear system, I always think like if then I I I don't know why I hear I just think that a lot. Maybe it's just the the connotation behind the word. But um Oh, I guess another is uh I don't know if exhaustive is the right word or thoroughness. That's another I guess aspect of system that I think of. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

So maybe maybe a different perspective, because I think you you you said you're you're in software, right? I work in software, but um on the marketing side.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

So not technical. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Okay. Uh because where my view of it is is influenced by my experience in software. So like when you when you think of like what a system is in software, what is that? And then how does that compare and contrast to what you were just describing in terms of jujitsu?

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Oh, I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Well, so I I guess um to kind of go with the like the dictionary explanation, uh, it's it's a group of interlit, interrelated and interacting elements that work according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. And I think that you know, software systems are kind of similar. You might, there's what the system overall is supposed to do, but a lot of software is about modularization. It's like those those systems are broken down into subsystems, and those subsystems are broken down into whatever modules, components, frameworks, and you know, and so you know, you kind of modulize and you have a way of kind of you know creating things that are kind of complete into themselves into one piece, but then they they also have a way of connecting and interrelating so that they can form the unified whole. And so this all sounds great. Uh, what does that mean in terms of in terms of fighting, you know? And so if it's if it's not technique, and so uh like kind of going back to the the the four-step system, you know, I mentioned that one way to look at it is maybe temporally. It's uh it's like the stages of the fight. So I I I I tried that and got some interesting ideas, but it it didn't still it still didn't seem like the thing to like kind of organize around. Um I tried uh I tried targets, you know, it's like okay, like kind of you know identify like what are the different targets of attack and then what are all the ways of attacking those targets and kind of the same deal. It's like interesting ideas, but still, you know, it didn't really make it cohesive. You know, I tried ranges, I tried styles, I tried intentions, and and what I what I ultimately landed on is objectives. And um we can we can talk. Um it might be it might be easier to kind of talk about CLA first and then and then come back to that. But um, but but objectives is really kind of what I organize around now. It's it's the thing that I've I have found to be the most robust and the and you know, who knows, maybe maybe six months from now or a year from now I'll think differently. But I've I've this is what I've been organizing around for a while, and uh it's it's been working really well for us.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

Wow. So when did CLA come into the picture along your journey?

SPEAKER_00 9:31

Yeah, so yeah, as I was work as I was kind of working on the design of our of our striking system, and then and as this idea of objectives was coming about, you know, really what we're talking about are what's. And so, you know, you're something like CLA is is you know a methodology, is it more of a how. And so I really kind of see those things as as separate pieces. And I do think that that overall the what is more important than the how. You know, like um, I'm sure some people will disagree, but I think that you know Danaher's approach could be done CLA and he would he and he would produce world champions. I think Greg Sauders could do things, he could take his invariant framework and do things a more drilled drilling way. Um, and he would also do very well because at the end of the day, their their what's are are very strong. But um, yeah, yeah, as I as I was kind of working on this, I was really I was I was I was searching for like what is the best how? Like I feel like I has I had some good ideas on the what. Uh and I I did struggle with that for a little bit. Um, but that's when um I think it was uh in like 2024, um also from Simple Man, uh Jackson Glass. He's been with Ambush for a long time. Uh he's 18, he'll be 19 next month. Um but he started training with me when he was uh I think he was 11. So we've we've been together for a while. He's he's really, really smart. I I really believe that he's gonna be he's gonna be a superstar. And he's one of the he's uh one of Daniel's main training partners. Um he would send me, you know, we have a group chad, and then also he just sends me stuff that he finds. And uh he was actually the one who introduced me to CLA. He he had a friend that I believe trained at standard, and so he heard about it from there. And so somewhere like mid-2024, he sent me some clips and he was like, Hey, what do you think about this? Like, do you think do you think this could work for striking? And at the time I just I didn't really have enough information. I didn't really know what to search for. I didn't, I was like, ah, you know, it looks kind of cool, but I was like, I don't maybe I don't I don't know. And then later on the year he sent me some more stuff, and then then finally I kind of I found out like what what were the right search terms and you know uh ended up discovering Greg. I listened to like a ton of podcasts with Greg, you know, uh Rob Gray read his books, listened to his podcasts, and then um and then from there basically um a lot of great theory and a lot of ideas, but at the end of the day, I was you know what what what took me a little while to kind of figure out is like, okay, how do you how do you make this actionable? Like how how is this gonna translate? And initially I would look at I would look at what Greg was doing and basically try to basically try to mimic him. And it didn't really it didn't really work for me. Like, I mean obviously I think Greg is very smart and he's he's very good at what he does. Uh but number one, I think he's developed a very unique perspective based on you know his experience. And then number two is just we're different sports, you know. And um, I mean I I will kind of say right off the bat, I I do think that CLA is harder to apply in striking. And it's not because you know, like the nature of the sport, uh, it really I believe it just comes down to safety. I think that, you know, in order to like in in CLA, if you're doing like a grappling-based game, at the end of the day, like what are what are the consequences of failure, you know, versus in striking. You want to kind of play some of the same things. It's like, well, you know, failure means you're getting hit, and then you know, you can get injured, and then you know, people quit. And so I I do think that the the the safety requirements are are a little different, and that and that does that does make it more challenging. Um but um but yeah, I guess um I thought maybe like a good thing to talk about would be I guess like some of the principles of CLA that that I focused on and the things that that I that I thought were actionable, and then kind of where you know where I took it. And so um I mean I think number one, and uh I I do want to say up front, I am not I'm not a hardcore CLA guy. I know uh the CLA community maybe gets a little sensitive sometimes on you know terminology and stuff. And so if if I if I use the wrong terms, if I were I I may not check all the boxes, um, but I I think I hit the important ones, right? So uh my my summary of like I guess like the core like principles of CLA is you know in terms of like practice principles, is number one, um I guess they say like as a constrained to afford, which the way I interpret that is basically the way what you used to do things before would be kind of take a task, isolate pieces of it, kind of work on them in isolation, and then try to compose them back together. Versus I think what the CLA approach is more is like instead of like decomposing and isolating and integrating, it's more task simplification. And I was like, okay, so that that that made sense to me. Uh I think number two would be like functional variability, or sometimes you you hear the term uh like repetition without repetition. And so the way I would define that is that it's basically exploring different movement patterns um or basically different solutions to the same problem, right? And one thing I haven't really heard people talk about that I think is also really cool about this is that part of it could just be that you're you're working on variability and adaptability and you're working on solving problems in different ways. But what I really like about this is that it also leaves some room for self-expression. Like, you know, like on my MMA team, I've got you know, like like 10 guys, and they all have different games. And so what I love about you know um kind of using CLA in this context is that like the way I can give them all the same problem. The way Jackson does it, the way Damien does it, the way that Diego does it, like they're they're they're all different, you know, but but they they still solve the same problem. And so I mean, yes, part of that is variability and adaptability, but also part of it is just that what's their game, what's their style? They're spending more time in the practice working on things that connect to their game as opposed to just doing like the three or five sequences of the day and doing things that may or may not even be something that they that they would do in competition, you know. So that was something I thought was really cool. Uh, I think number three is um like intentional focus. So it's that that the focus on like external information as opposed to like internal body mechanics. And then number four is uh like represented learning design, which is basically how do we create a practice environment that more closely mimics uh like uh a competition setting, right? And so I really like that. I really I really like I thought that those are good, those are good guys. Like I could see that, I could see how that that would be that would make for a good practice and how that would transfer to to competition, right? Um now representative design I think is is a particularly interesting one because it it also kind of breaks down into a few different things. Um and so I think like number one, I I've seen it, I've seen it expressed different ways. So I'm just gonna say it my way and hopefully it's close enough. Um number one is just basically what information is available. Like uh when it comes to like visual cues and sensory cues, uh auditory situational, whatever, are they consistent between practice and competition? Right. Uh number two, I think they they call like action fidelity, which is basically the physical actions and whatever whatever skills you're using should also closely mimic what you're doing in in performance. Number three is um, I think they call like affordance landscape landscape. Uh, I've seen again, I've seen this expressed different ways, but my interpretation is that that there's an opportunity to make choices and decisions, uh, which is something that you don't get from um yeah, because I know there's a lot of criticism for static Julian, and I do think that there is some place for it. I I do think that that that you know not everything has to be full live resistance, but I do think that an important part of practice should be that you're not just following the script, that that that there are forks in the road and there are and that you do have the opportunity to make choices and because um decision quality and decision velocity are you know important skills and and it's like if you're not doing the practice time outside of sparring, you know, other than sparring, like when when do you when do you work on that, right? And then I think number four is the emotional context, which is you know, you're looking at the pressures and whatever stress that you feel during performance. Now that one I think is uh for striking in an MMA is is pretty hard. Um I think it's easier to do in grappling, uh, but but in but in striking, obviously it's that's it's pretty tough, right? Um safely. Um I mean there are definitely unsafe ways to do it, but um all right. And then I guess there are there are kind of two other big things that I took away in terms of like you know, kind of shaping my my perspective on this. Um there's one that I think a lot a lot of people talk about, which is the uh the constraint model, which is that you know your three levers for uh applying constraints are individual task and environment. I will say on that, uh I did struggle a little bit just because that's just not the way I think of fighting, but over time, and and I'll I'll talk more about this later when we kind of come back to the system. Um I think that you can you can take as long I think you can you can basically map something onto that, right? Um so I guess you know, kind of like in software, all problems can be solved by a layer of indirection. Um so I mean, you know, I I think you don't have to necessarily use that directly, but you can have something that that does fit the way that you think, and as long as it covers those things, then you still end up with something that you still end up solving the problem, right? And then uh the other big takeaway, and and I don't think this is necessarily CLA specific. I I think it often ends up being associated with CLA, um, but it's just the idea of nonlinear pedagog, law, sorry, uh nonlinear pedagogy, right? And so that is one where I thought it's definitely harder, right? I think that you know, by by by nature, like people tend to teach and learn, you know, very linearly. And I'm not I'm not exactly sure why that is. I mean, it might be just because like a lot of learning is comes from textbooks, and textbooks are going to be sequential, you know. Um, but um what I learned from part of this came from from research in CLA, but then also part of this came from like other influences, like um one of the resources that I looked at in terms of like how to better learn was like, well, how do we learn how do we learn language? Uh there's some you know, some really interesting things there because you know, like number one, I was uh I was an engineer and you know, I was working on uh towards the end of my career, I was working on AI models. And so, you know, like uh like things like ChatGBT call it there, they're called LLMs, large language models, you know, and so there is some history that that connects back to uh to language there. But uh also my my wife, Jenna, she's a PhD in special education. And so her and I kind of early on had a lot of conversations about about learning, learning of language, you know, and so I was kind of approaching it from an artificial intelligence perspective. She's approaching it from what I call uh an organic uh intelligence perspective. Um, but um there's this book that I read a while back. It's called uh Fluent Forever. And one of the ideas that you know that that it introduced early on that really stuck with me was that you know you're learning language, and it's you know if you take a class, like a lot of times it's all right, you learn your colors, now you learn your numbers, now you learn your animals, now you learn food, whatever, right? That's you're building vocabulary, but you're not speaking the language yet. And I think that you know, you can learn that way, but but how did how did we learn language, you know, how do we learn our first language? It's a lot through context. So, like that same example, it'd be like, well, I'm I'm at the park and the sky is blue and the grass is green, and I see water, and I see eating somebody eating ice cream and there's green frogs, or you know what I mean? It's like there's you're looking at things in the context of something else. And so that was another thing that I think you know kind of drew me to CLA is that a lot of it was focused on uh preserving context and learning um, you know, scaling tasks down, but not but not eliminating the context.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

Wow. So uh as you were learning all this, how was your practice changing and evolving? Like what were you experimenting with and where how did it ultimately end up now? I I guess maybe like a before and after, or if you can run us through like maybe some games or yeah, how how you structure practice and design that.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Yeah, so I'm gonna be honest, it was it was pretty clunky at first, you know. Um luckily I was doing it in in private sessions. I wasn't doing it, you know, in my gym. I was doing it with with more advanced guys and you know, people who are gonna be, you know, more patient. Um another thing too is that uh when when we really started when we really started getting into it more, um I was working a lot with Jackson, Damien, and Diego. Damien and Diego were injured. So we already had a big constraint. I think uh Damien had hurt his elbow, and then I think Diego had a broken hand. So I was like, all right, well, we already have some constraints. Um we didn't want to stop working. It was already gonna be clunky, so it's like, all right, well, now's a good time to to to to try some new stuff, you know. Um so I'll also say too, like, you know, given that you know I I started it you know more privately and then I was working initially I was doing it with you know my you know the most um the most experienced, the most advanced fighters. And then uh at the same time I was also teaching an advanced kids class. And um that actually worked out really well because they they already had some prerequisite knowledge, but at the same time, it's like, well, we're playing games and they're having fun, and you know, yeah, okay. I mean, maybe, maybe it was a little clunky, but you know, um it was still it was still resonating with them. But you know, what my what my point down, what my point here is that uh a lot of um a lot of the other like podcasts I've heard where people are doing CLA is that I would say they're maybe calling like more bottom-up, you know, which is which you know, I mean you can go bottom up or you can go top down, and both are good and both have their merits. Um rather than kind of like trying to figure out how to do it with beginners and then scale it up, what I'm doing is I'm starting with more advanced guys and then I'm looking at how do I scale it down. And so where I started was you know, kind of going back to what I was saying earlier about about safety, one of the problems, and that and and I I see other people experiencing the same problem, right? Which is that all right, is you're if you're wanting to implement CLA with with beginners, again, like they don't they don't know how to punch, they don't know how to defend, but at the same time you want to keep them safe, and so you know, um people have have some some workarounds for that. Um I have not seen a great solution to that. Um I think that um it's just it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a tough problem, you know. Um but I guess my point is that kind of starting um you know at higher level, going top down, rather than focusing on tech. technique, um, I focus more on a like a tactical application. And so that that's where um that's where the objectives come in. So I guess um you know so yeah I guess again to answer your question um it started off pretty clunky. You know like I said like it started off where I was just I was just trying to like kind of mimic what Greg was doing and and I and that it just it just wasn't working for me. Again what Greg does is excellent. I'm not criticizing it at all. But yeah I just I have my own perspective, my own experience and and we are in different sports. So you know that does change things. So uh this this idea of the uh of the uh of an objective right um where this kind of came about is like I was I was working on a couple of different things independently and they just kind of ended up meeting in the in the middle so number one was for for Muay Type um I was looking for like better ways to work on like scoring concepts and so you know there there were you know there's some some different ideas around this and so I and what happens a lot is like I think it's probably the same in jujitsu you go to this tournament you got these rules or maybe judging is kind of done this way you go to another tournament is a lot of it's the same but some of it's kind of different different things are prioritized. And so what I'll what I wanted to get to is rather than saying okay depending on the promotion or depending on the tournament you know kind of looking at those separately I wanted to kind of like create like a unified scoring framework where basically what we did instead was we just we just changed how we weight the different parts of it based on where we were going to compete. Right. And so what I did was I basically looked at every promotion every tournament every anything striking related that were where they outlined the rules and especially if they if they released any judging criteria I I just read through them all I took a bunch of notes and then I started to kind of group all right well you know what what are the common pieces and then um and then what I took out of that is like what I call basically it's just like these categories of intention uh which are defense, damage, disruption, dominance right um all right now at the same time, so like that and so that was kind of one way of a of approaching organizing things. Now you know the question is going to be within each of those intentions kind of what are your what are your categories? Like what you know what what are what are what are going to be like the like kind of like the children to those right at the same time another thing I was looking at was um you know again I'm just looking for like what are what are good examples of systems by the definition that we talked about earlier. And so one of the best examples that I found is uh actually music theory. So I I play um I play classical guitar um I I would not say I'm a classical guitarist classic classical guitarists are much better than I am uh I actually play like a Latin classical um which is you know kind of like a subgenre but when you look at music theory uh which do do you do you do music at all? No?

SPEAKER_01 26:22

Okay no I played piano for like a year guitar or a couple years as a kid and guitar for like a year and gave up but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

You know um okay well so at a at a high level um you look at you look at music theory and you know if you'll see kind of like what are what are the top level elements of music theory and so uh there's there's three that are universally agreed on some people will add you know maybe one or two three other things but the three at its core are melody harmony and rhythm and basically going back to the the definition of system a group of elements that interrelate and interact in music that's what they are the elements are melody harmony and rhythm under each of those three is a whole nother hierarchy of concepts but ultimately it's how you take different pieces of those three things you interrelate them you know you interact with them you connect them and then you start to get you know different expressions of music I was like that's really cool I like that you know so again the question is all right so what's the fighting equivalent of that and so I came up with the same I call it the the traps framework uh it's an acronym which is uh target rhythm action position sequence okay and so that that was actually a pretty effective model of uh of kind of you know organizing things but you kind of had the same the same question as intention which is like okay well we have these elements but all right what's what's kind of the next level down and so what I saw is that I was as I was kind of like doing one test where I was grouping things by intention or categories of intention and I was grouping also grouping by elements I started to see the same things kind of it and ultimately what it came down is like it was almost like a it was like um what do you call it in a in a spreadsheet right like where you pivot you know like you you kind of pivot the table and so really what what the kind of the objective framework is um you can almost kind of I I think of it as like a like a table or like a matrix where like the columns are action position rhythm and then the rows are the intentions defense damage disruption dominance. Now um I would be very interested interested to see somebody do this exercise in jujitsu because I I think I think it would work the exact same way you know um but anyway in this matrix it's like okay well what is what is the intersection of defense in action well that's defend right what's the intersection of damage in action that's attack what's the intersection of disruption in action yeah I w I would say that's counter. What's the intersection of dominance in action? That's control. Right. And then you just you just kind of you know and then underneath that you can start you start you can start to group things but to me this gave me like a really kind of clear picture of of of how things should be organized and how things and how things should relate. All right so now that brings us to uh objectives which um I think you know is an interesting concept on its own but if we're talking about uh like CLA and like kind of game design um I'll kind of I'll kind of approach it from that perspective. So the way that I approach like CLA style games is a lot of times it's going to be a role versus a role. What defines a role is one or more objectives and those objectives can be the same they can be different or they might even you know and I'll I'll give some examples because now I don't I'm I'm talking a lot of a lot of theory um some some of the examples will will help um but basically yeah it's just like you know each person has you know one or more objectives and basically what I find is that uh the more a beginner they are the less objectives they can handle at the same time and you have to use more constraints versus the more advanced they are the less constraints they need and they can handle more objectives at the same time. And ultimately you know what what what kind of comes out of this and this is something that I think you know is really cool in the context of striking versus jujitsu is that in jujitsu when you're when you're sparring you get to do the thing that you're trying to do in competition. Like you actually get to apply the submission because people can tap like that's your safety protocol. You can't do that in striking. Like we don't you know you you're well at least you shouldn't be knocking people out and sparring I mean it does happen from time to time but um but you know it's a it's an accident they weren't actually they weren't actually trying to do it. So that was something I was always kind of maybe a little jealous of in jujutsu is that you know like people spar but other than just kind of like you know they're they're trying things and you know yeah they're making you know they're making some contact here and there but there's really kind of no sense of like hey you know um did I actually accomplish the thing that I was trying to do or did did or did you even have any intention of what you're trying to do with objectives now we we actually kind of I get a version of that. You know like you actually have something and so now we can say like you know actually like here is an outcome that you are working towards and if you achieve that outcome then you were successful. And if you didn't then well now we can look at you know why why it wasn't. So a lot of a lot of the games that I design will be um you know again role versus role where each role is one or more objectives. And then I can kind of organize this in different ways. So like at a very simple level I might choose like a damaged objective and then what I would look at is basically what is a disruption objective that can counter that. And so now we'll play kind of a damage objective versus a disruption objective. And then you can kind of work into where well both sides have damage had both sides have both objectives. So now it's like they're they're they're both trying to apply the damage objective but they're also applying the same disruption objective to each other's damage objective. See what I mean? So all right uh maybe some examples. Um so for example um let's say we want to work on like landing like attacks uh you know and we're talking striking uh like attacks to the to the body right and so at a very simple at a you know very simple could be just like land any strike to the body we're talking about punches knees and kicks right now on the disruption side we can look at okay well whenever you're attacking the body what tends to be the things that are that are open well the thing is that if you're attacking the body you're either attacking with hands or you're attacking with legs you're attacking with punches or you're attacking with knees and and kicks. If I'm attacking with hands structurally in terms of my my position it's I'm compromising my guard because my hands are high defending but when I attack the low I'm you know so I'm I'm I'm making a compromise in in in my guard in order to attack the body right so then we look at well whenever your guard is compromised what you know what opportunities are there I would say base so I would call that a high counter right similarly if I'm attacking with legs I'm standing on one leg because I'm I'm attacking with the other I've now made a I've made I've now made some compromise to my base and so now I have to think about like well if if I'm standing on one leg and I've made some compromise to my base I've compromised my move my my mobility. Now the trade-off is that legs are strong and they can they can have powerful attacks but it's the same thing where um you know again it can give you the the high counter because you're standing on one foot. Hopefully you know your hands may or may not be high but you know especially if you don't get your head offline as you're because you're going to attack your legs you know so that would be something where um one simple thing would be like a single body strike versus a high counter. Now the thing the thing is like with this um with this objective framework is that basically you you might have like one part of it that you that you fix and then basically those other elements become your levers for and that this is what maps to the um the constraint model of in individual environment and uh task I can vary those other things. So you know at a simple level it could just be like land a simple body strike. I could also say well uh make it a body combo where you have to throw at least three strikes and then you land one I could say okay uh I could change the position. It could be in the center of the cage or I could say it's on the wall. It could even be on the ground right um you know I could I could vary it by by target.

SPEAKER_01 33:57

I could say well you know it's it's specifically the liver not just anywhere on the body you know um so like that's you know that that's kind of that's kind of one you know one example um you know where I can kind of take like one idea I can create a damage objective create a disruption of the objective to counter it and then from there kind of play with the other elements of target rhythm action position sequence to create uh different constraints and different variations of it it's really interesting because um I think Greg always talks about how like it's zero it's a zero sum game and so when you when you when uh you give one side an objective you want the other side to have an objective that is exactly at odds with it basically not in a tug of a war sense but that for example in in uh jujitsu there's like a wrestling game where he has you touch behind the knees or snap them down to their hands and one opens up the opportunity for the other like the higher the higher low and so it's interesting to see that. For beginners out there like you know we mostly have jujitsu people but I'm sure that some people are interested in striking. If I were to get a friend and go to my garage and be like this is day one or like you know we're gonna do this for a few months once a week any games or ideas that you would start people off at the foundation level?

SPEAKER_00 35:09

Somebody who's a complete beginner? Yeah so that would I think that would be challenging because you know like I said there there is that that safety concern. Like I I I have heard of other coaches that will do things like instead of striking at the head they'll they'll strike at the shoulder um which I I I do I I could see that being a good substitute where you know people can go more live and and and it would be safe personally my my problem with it is that you go back to representative design you're not going to have the same emotional feelings when somebody's throwing something at your shoulder versus your head right uh the act the action is not representative um now like I said like I don't say I don't have a better solution like I I I admit that because of the state you you have to make a compromise somewhere and so you know to them that that that could be an acceptable compromise and I think I think that would be fine. The compromise that I make that I'm sure that they would disagree with is that I do think that in order to do some you know some CLA style games like there is some prerequisite knowledge right we're not I mean some communication is happening we don't have to define what stand, push, pull, things like that means and so for now what what the way I look at it is that the actual techniques um I think it's okay to use some some uh explicit instruction to kind of on-ramp them and then and we can just kind of consider those to be prerequisite movements. Let's get them there my in my opinion get get them there quickly and then we can kind of then we can get into the the the objectives you know um so I know that wasn't a great answer.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

No no okay so let's say they do have those prerequisites uh is there like a specific objective or I guess are all those objectives considered foundational or would you start with some versus the other?

SPEAKER_00 36:55

I think at the very least you need um you need like an attacking objective and then you need either a def a defensive or uh or disruption objective right so the the thing the thing about this too is the the thing that I love about this objective structure is that honestly I think it scales much better. So like I think that um like when you're starting from technique I think it I think it's harder to start from a how and then scale up or down. I think it's much easier to start from a what and scale up and down. So the thing is is like you have objectives objectives can scale up into strategy and then into goals it can scale down into tactics and and technique right so you know even though like we're talking we're talking games I mean I think we can also scale the way that we practice so like I mean we could even like say if we just start with something like you know I throw a kick and you you defend the kick. And so we could start off very simple I mean it you know even though that could be a game but that could also just be you know uh you're working one side one variation you're working one side any variation you're working either side any variation you're now you're adding feints and fakes and then adding some more adding some more liveless liveness. Now you're putting some probes in front of it. Now so we're kind of gradually creeping onto something that looks more realistic. In terms of like drilling structure I mean you can do you know like in in striking a lot of times we'll do like a one for one or a three and three you can still do that. You can have something where you know you each have respective roles and then you switch on an interval. You could also do something like uh I know I think Greg does this a lot where it's like uh each side has something they're working for and then once one side gets uh what they're going for you switch roles uh so I I call that switch of an objective right um another really cool one that we do and this is probably some of the best sparring that I've seen that's not hard sparring is uh we'll do some we'll do some drills sometimes where like both sides have their objectives and we actually have clickers where every time you click you get a point and then and then basically it's like you know somebody has a clicker in each hand and over the score and over the course of the round every time they see one of them get the objective they just click and then you have a score at the end. It's like I mean that's not how fights are scored but it still adds a competition element. It still gives you something that you're that you're working towards and like the pacing of these rounds tend to be much, much closer to to fightings because like they're actually they're trying to win you know interesting.

SPEAKER_01 39:14

And so how do you solve I I guess I have two questions. Maybe it relates to representativeness is one, how do you solve the intensity problem with the head strikes? And then two how do you solve for um moving people from striking to MMA where where the affordance uh is going to be there like someone has the opportunity to take you down now and you're yeah so I guess two big questions but well on on the first one yeah you know again I I guess uh for now I mean I'll you know I'll I might have to solve this problem better in the future but uh for now I'm primarily doing this with advanced students.

SPEAKER_00 39:49

I'm doing this with you know with our meme5 team and then also our our advanced kids are doing it. We haven't really introduced it to our beginners program yet. And so you know with the um one thing I'll say too is like our our kids program is mostly no head contact and um and an amateur Muay Thai for youth they can't do head contact I think until 13. Ah okay so they you know they they wear like protective vests they wear more protective gear so uh you know that that helps there. And then with the with the um the more advanced fighters the MMA team they have enough control you know they they that that's the thing I mean just like um I mean I think striking is very similar to Jiu Jitsu in this context a lot of the injuries come from lesser experienced people who don't really know how to control their bodies yet. It's the same thing in strike like a like an ambush we we don't let beginners spar initially like they you know they have to number one show that they have you know at least a fundamental base to work with but number two it it's really about can you control your body with anybody of any size? And you know and and until they can demonstrate that you know we we don't let them free spar. We do have like a spark we we call it sparring drills. I do not use the word drill the same way um it's it's not static drilling right um it's just it's just not complete live. And a lot of that is just like you know some some constrained sparring where like you're sparring with three or four weapons that that do connect and relate and but you know it takes a lot of the analysis paralysis that that beginners have whenever they they first start sparring. And then it also gives them an opportunity to demonstrate to the coaches that they have that they have uh control so they can then enter the the free sparring class. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 41:28

And then for the uh striking to MMA piece um yeah how do you balance giving them the affordances of is something hittable versus grabbable and does something that's hittable give me something that's grabbable and vice versa and when and yeah that's yeah it it actually it actually fits pretty seamlessly into into my objective framework. You know it's like okay well you're not you're not hitting but you are you are connecting right and so now connection is a is a is a is a form of action maybe it's not part of damage maybe it's part may maybe that's a disruption or maybe that's part or maybe that's a maybe that's a dominance but you know uh you know making connections uh pinning takedowns when you when you look at that matrix of action position rhythm and then the intentions those things still fit ah I see okay so it's just little levers and little tools you can put in and take out essentially wow okay very cool um tell me about your your retrospectives you know this is something you're I think you're the first coach that I've heard uh somebody talk about uh when it comes to retrospectives and I was telling you before the call I think there's so much opportunity you know a lot of thinking goes into what happens in practice that and then you have the practice and then right when practice ends there's a lot of opportunity even as simple as just having people stretch like in jiu-jitsu we just sit there and then our backs are like in the worst posture and I'm like dang why don't and everyone's talking like why don't we at least like stretch while we're talking you know there's just a lot of opportunity after practice is what I'm saying. So yeah how how did this uh idea of retrospectives come about and and what's your process?

SPEAKER_00 43:06

Yeah so this was definitely an an inspiration from the software experience. Um you know in software there's there's different you know just like we're talking about different method methodologies of training there's different method methodologies of building software and one of the more popular ones um you know is called agile and part of agile is this is this concept of retrospective which is that on some interval you're getting your team together and you know like um it could be you know whenever you ship it could be uh you know if you're if you're doing sprints uh which you know sprints are just basically like more granular intervals of of work as opposed to like the entire uh product cycle um but you know the the idea is that you're getting your team together and you're basically answering two questions like in this last cycle what were the things that went well that we want to make sure that we continue doing and what are the things that we feel like we could do better what are the things that we want to improve in our process and so um that just I don't know it just naturally came over where it started with we would do it at the end of every fight camp. And so basically what we do is um anytime somebody had a fight or if we had a team that was doing a tournament um as quickly as possible the next week we try to get everybody together you know and everybody gathers I get on the whiteboard I divide it in half what went well what what could be better and then floor is open and and and the way I'd phrase it is like we are going to start from the moment that you said yes till the moment the the winner was announced. Between point A and point B, what were all the things that went well? And it could be anything I mean it could be training it could be sleep it could be diet it could be your strength training it could be you know um mental training whatever right anything that anything that you felt like that contributed to uh you know to something good it goes in that column and then anything that you feel like you know again I like to phrase it as what could be better not not what's bad. And then you know I just feel like so it's a more positive framing. So we would do that with uh you know with the fight camps and then I would you know I would I I have a Google drive where I just I would record them all. And then what I would do is before you know a new fight camp or a new tournament you know preparation, I'll go back and review them and then you know and then if somebody was uh if it applied to the same person, like sometimes I'll go back and remind them like, hey so remember like these are the things that went well. Make sure we're still doing that. Hey you know what like let's change this because remember that last time you did that and we identified this as something that'd be better, right? And then with the with the MMA fight team, because I got it's a it's a smaller group of guys. Um and then also too, um this is a private group, so I'm able to hold them to to higher standards. Like we have um, you know, we have practice like six days a week and those people are there almost every day, you know. And so for a while what we were doing was we would do the retrospective at the end of every practice, and then what I would do is I would um I would take those notes and then that would basically feed my planning for the next day's practice. I think we found that maybe that was a little bit too short of an interval because what that led to was um the feedback that they gave me was that is that things were just kind of changing too quickly. And so what they what they wanted was they wanted the ability to be able to kind of sit with something longer and let it let it soak, let it absorb. So we changed it to uh we do it every week now. So what we do, the the way our schedule works is we do we do kind of you know um like normal training Monday through Friday, where we're doing a lot of you know, a lot of the the style training with we know we're doing objectives. And then uh and then what I say is on Monday through Friday, you were, you know, yes, you're trying to win the game, but like this is also about exploration and skill acquisition. It's not you know, it's not all competition. Satur Saturday morning is our sparring day. Saturday, we you know we we match them up and basically we we run it like a fight sim. It's like you know, if you're if you're a boy thai guy, you're doing three minute rounds, three, you know, if you're if you're an MMA fighter, you're doing uh five minute rounds, you know, if you're doing a championship fight, you know, longer rounds. Um and then we're saying on Saturday, like you're trying not no, we're not we're not we're not sparring hard, we're not trying to knock each other out. Um, but intensity aside, they are trying to win. And then and then we do a retrospective thing to that. So basically once everybody does their rounds, we we gather in the cage so that we can all have back support, like you were mentioning, right? Um and then we just go through it person by person. They first first of all they they speak for themselves. What do they felt like what do they feel like went well that name and what do they feel like they could do better? Uh whoever their opponent or partner was, they give their perspective, and then anybody else is free to give their perspective. And then we we do that for each person on the team. Then what I do is on on Sunday, I kind of map out what we're gonna do for the next week. And uh it's it's basically a combination of the note, the retrospective notes. And then I I also have kind of like a pool of objectives that are kind of like these are the objectives that are in focus. I kind of keep them in play until I feel like people are doing well with them. Then I kick one out, bring a new one in. And so it's a combination of our the pool of objectives that we're that we're focused on over time, and then the retrospective notes is what drives our practice. Got it. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 48:12

Um, so one effect it has is the on the the practice design um from from a coach's perspective. How about from an athlete and culture perspective? Like what effect does this have on an individual and then as a group?

SPEAKER_00 48:28

I think I think it does, you know, make people you know kind of introspective and and reflect more, you know, it it and and then that that in turn kind of brings more more intention. I do think too also too by having people comment on each other, which every you know, everybody has a has a good attitude, like nobody, nobody takes any, yeah. I think everybody gets like, look, we have shared goals, we're all working, you know, we're all rowing in the same direction, right? So nobody takes it personally. Um I've I've found I've found that it that it's been it's been very good for culture. Um I think people people like to practice, they they like to practice a lot. And then um I guess the other thing I was gonna say is that when I say I take the retrospective notes and then I use that to plan the next week's practice, the way that the way that uh gets expressed is I end up creating an objective. So basically I look at the things they said feel like they could be do do better. I will design objectives that basically will expose that, create, create the objective that counters it, and then those become objectives that we practice the next week's practice.

SPEAKER_01 49:24

Wow, very cool. Um what are your thoughts on like a single practice or a session intention or focus versus like a week versus like a camp versus like a longer term goal? One thing I've been been thinking about a lot is like what is like a goal? Like you can have a goal for one practice or a week or a camp or a month or until I get the thing, like an outcome. Do you have any thoughts on like this time how to it's weird? You add time to it, and it's just like when is one thing another and and how often do I reflect on these things?

SPEAKER_00 49:57

Yeah, so um in the classes that I do at at Ambush, before I write before I write anything in my and will my outline of the class is gonna be the first thing that I write is the objective. It's like what is the objective of this class? And then basically every single thing that we do for the rest of the practice has a dotted line back to that objective. And this is something that I started doing a couple years ago, and I I just I really, really highly recommend. It makes planning practices so much easier. It it just gives you direction, it makes you it makes your classes that like that much more cohesive. And then um I've also taught this to some of the other coaches at Ambush. And some of the feedback that I get is like, you look, okay, yeah, I get it, I write it, but it's just like there's just so many different directions that it can go. Like simple solutions, add constraints. You know, and so now you know, it's like you're you're using the constraints in a you know in a different application, but it's like, hey, if it's too open, then just like just like you know, just like we can use constraints to you know constrain our two students to focus on a task, we can also apply constraints on our coaches to get them to focus on their work on their their practice designs. No. So so that's the that's kind of the the classes that ambushed. Again, like with this, with this team, these are you know uh like half of them are per are professional. Yeah, they're they they all compete, they all have they all they all have goals and they are more advanced. Like I said, like we practice six days a week, and most of them are there every single day. And those practices are two hours. For those, I usually plan three objectives per practice. And I I spend um roughly a half hour on each one. Got it. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 51:38

Um what uh it's it's so cool to hear like your your technical software system thinking background and then apply to to something uh like this. What keeps you motivated or excited, or like what are the moments that that just keep you coming back to coaching? Like what's your favorite thing about it?

SPEAKER_00 51:56

Honestly, it's it's exactly what you were just saying. Um I when when I retired from software, the thing that I really kind of the goal that I made for myself was like I had a lot of software experience, I had a lot of coaching experience, and that's that's it's just something that I saw in the other the other coaches that that I respect and I admire. Like you know, going back to to John, you know, he has this uh background in philosophy. And I think absolutely his his experience in philosophy has it has, you know, and I I think that's part of what has made him unique and his and his and his has built a unique perspective. I want to do the same thing. I have a you know a lot of technical experience, which is shaped the way that I think. And so I'm not saying that my way is is better than anybody else's, but but the what I felt like was that the more unique of a perspective and uh the more of a of a voice of my own to develop, then, then, then the better, you know. Um I used to aspire to to be John and and I was like at some point I just felt like I we just had different experiences, we're in different sports. Like I can, I can't, I I'll never be John, I'll never be Greg, I'll never be any of the great striking coaches, but they'll also never be me, you know. And so I was like, you know what, what I should do is I should I should I should lean harder into that. And um that you know, the the technical stuff, like it actually, it actually is expressed in a lot of different ways. Like right now we're talking about like systems thinking and and design, but um, you know, I've um I've also developed some other things. Like uh I've actually developed like a transcription system where I can transcribe fights and it'll and it'll generate like very rich data that I can then uh analyze. And you know, I have like a whole kind of analysis system. Uh I I've I've I've written like a visualization for the system for like, you know, how can you uh this is actually also inspired by by music, where you know, again, like what what is what is music when you when you're looking at sheet music, you're just seeing notes that you know the higher it is, the higher the pitch, the lower it is, the lower the pitch. There's rhythm and it's and it's expressed over time. Well, I can also take you know uh actions, transitions, and also kind of visualize those over time. And then, you know, um yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:55

Whoa, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 53:57

I also have uh uh there's a there's a team of guys here in Austin that are working on they're they're working on some some uh computer vision tools for for martial arts. And so I got in touch with them, and so like that that's another thing that we're doing is uh reminding some cages around the around uh uh or we're reminding some cameras around our cage at Simple Man. And uh that's the other thing we'll be doing is uh you know, how can we use computer vision to actually get some meaningful metrics out of our practices? And you know, so the the the the technical like it's expressed in in a lot of different ways. I think it's like a lot of the other sports are already doing this. It it's it's combat sports that's behind the curve. Right. And to be fair, I I know why, right? It's because there's way more money in those other sports. But I I think that especially now, you know, with um, you know, we have machine learning, we have AI, uh, yeah, we we have we have uh we have a lot more uh we have a richer tool set to work with. I think it's only a matter of time before these things become just as prevalent in combat sports as it is in in other sports. And uh to me that's exciting. Like I wanna I wanna I want to be at the forefront of that. That's that's what that that's what motivates me.

SPEAKER_01 55:01

Dang, that is awesome. I couldn't have thought of a better way to end it. Um it's I feel like for some reason I feel we covered a lot, but I still feel like we're just scratching the surface of everything. So this is awesome comics.

SPEAKER_00 55:14

I would uh I I would be happy to do it again sometime. And uh uh I did want to mention because I I know uh I've heard on your on your podcast you've mentioned uh Sherpa before, and um I'm sure you don't want to talk a lot about your application too much. I'll talk, I'll talk about it though. Um I I checked out I checked out Sherpa, I think it's pretty cool. I will say um I don't think I've seen the coolest features yet because from what I can tell, it seems like the it seems like the real coolness of it comes when you've been using it for a while and then you can start to show you trends. Uh but I think some really cool stuff uh happened with Sherpa. Uh, definitely think you guys should check it out.

SPEAKER_01 55:46

Oh man, thank you so much for that. That is a huge, uh, huge compliment. Yeah, I I still feel like it's so basic what it is now, and there I believe in the potential of it, especially like as I'm hearing more about your retrospectives and just how much there's just a lot of information we can get from from practice. Like you said, the metrics, subjective things, like there's just a lot. And if we can capture everything from everywhere, uh synthesize it and help inform us, it'd be pretty cool. So I appreciate that. Yeah, I know I always feel uh weird like pitching my own product on the on the show, but I need to get better at that. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:20

Yeah. Uh well, I I think I think it's cool. I think uh I think where you're where you're born with it, I think you know it it makes sense. You know, it's just uh very simple. It's just like, hey, what do you what's your goal for today? All right, then then you kind of do your own retrospective afterwards, and then basically the tool kind of you know work works works with that data. It's it's really interesting.

SPEAKER_01 56:36

Thank you. Yeah, if you don't have a coach like Elton who does the retros with you guys, you can try it out on your own. But yeah, thank you so much for coming on and uh thank you all for listening. We'll catch you uh next time. All right, thank you.