Learning to Fight - Episode 16

Learning to Fight Podcast — Conversations in Combat Skill

After a year-long hiatus, the Primal MMA Coaching Podcast is back—Rebranded, and refocused as the Learning to Fight Podcast: Conversations in Combat Skill.

Your hosts are:

Adam Singer — Co-owner and head coach at SBG Athens, BJJ black belt, long-time MMA coach, with years of developing novice to elite level fighters. Student of Matt Thornton and SBG's philosophy of 'aliveness'.
Scott Sievewright — Co-Owner at Primal MKE, MMA skills coach and obsessive student of how humans learn to move and fight. 

Together, we dive deep into the art and science of coaching, training, and skill development in combat sports.
 Expect honest conversations about MMA, striking, grappling, practice design, contemporary research, traditional approaches, ecological dynamics, and the messy realities of learning under pressure.

No gurus. No dogma. Just two coaches trying to understand fighting a little better each week.

Same curiosity. New lens.
Learn how to learn.
Find your own style.
Thrive on the mats—and in the cage.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Mr. Singer, good morning. Good morning, sir. How are you? I'm good. You're just about to tell me about your weekend.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Well first off, I I saw Project Hail Mary. Did you see that yet? Never heard of it. What is it? A movie? Yeah, you like science fiction movies? No. Okay. Well then don't go see it. But if you like science fiction movies like the ones we had when we were kids, like E.T. or Close Encounters, or you just you want to go to the movie theater and not feel bad at all. Like you just want to enjoy yourself, this movie was amazing. So that's why it's futuristic sci-fi stuff. It's not futuristic. I mean, it's no, it's not futuristic. It's probably stuff we're capable of probably right now as human beings, but it's just uh I don't want to I don't want to give anything away, but it is not uh it is a great movie that you could watch with your kids, and your kids would enjoy it, and you would enjoy it. Maybe not you, but a normal, normal people that like sci-fi.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Probably not me. I'm very particular with my movies. I watched Casino this weekend again. I'm in a classic.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

That's a great movie.

unknown 1:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Um and then I we had our belt ceremony on Sunday. So in in our gym, we give colored BJJ belts out about three times a year. And everyone that gets a new colored belt grapples everyone that comes to the belt ceremony. It's not a test, it's just it's an Iron Man, but it's sort of like a celebration. So we have loud music on and people all circled around, and everyone that's getting their belt goes in the middle. Um, we had about 102 or 105 people on the mat. So we gave about 12 belts, so everyone grappled, you know, 80-ish people. Um, so it's it's a lot of fun. So that's what we that's what we did. I think that's sort of unique to uh SPG, but you know, the the way we treat it and how important it is to our culture is sort of is um maybe unique to SPG Athens.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Yeah, do you do um a lot of I actually jumping jumping all over the place here already? Someone did you see the reel someone posted today, he was talking about like the um maybe it wasn't a meta-analysis, but he's he was talking about what actual effective coaching was, and it always came down to the variables uh culture and communication way more than the the the accolades and the experience and what you've done and blah blah blah. I need to send that to you, but anyway, um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Well, I'll tell you, did you see there was a big clip this week, um, and it's a coaching thing. There was a big clip this week from a women's basketball tournament, and it was a coach and her player, and the coach was obviously very animating. The coach was tapping her on the chest and just and you know, people that have never played sports, you know, they they see that and they start complaining. They start, you know, why is she yelling at a player or or this or that? And but people that have coached and could, you know, see what she was saying and see the player's reaction were like, that is good coaching. And the player came out later and was like, I want to be coached. That's what I want. And I thought it was really cool to see. Now, I know I'm sure that coach and that player have a relationship. I'm sure that coach and that player know how each other needs to be communicated with. Um, but I just thought it was a good example of what you're talking about. Like each player probably wants to or needs to be communicated with differently, right? I mean, we've had I'm sure we've both had fighters where if you yell at them, they just shut down. And we have other fighters that like they don't even hear you until you start yelling at them. I have this um in my coaching course, I have this, I I stole this concept from a guy called shit and ice cream. And the concept is when you coach young men or young when you coach young people, um, some of them grew up with too much ice cream and they need a little bit of shit in their lives. And some of them have grown up with just total shit shows and they need a little ice cream. And I've really I've always liked that just as the idea of the coach has to figure out how to communicate with each athlete. And last night we had we had an accident on the mat um because of some I'll call it careless behavior on the part of two people running into two other people. And but I yelled, I I and I rarely yell. And I just fucking went off. But I didn't go off on the people that caused the accident, I went off on the room, right? Because I don't want to single out the people that cause the accident know exactly who I'm talking to, but I I need the room to understand that lesson that the care of everyone else and your partner is more important than your you know, your one rep here. So communication. Yeah. I think your our relationships with our athletes, the way we communicate with them, the culture that that the environment, all those non-parsable things, they're they are so much more important than anything else. You you show me a coach that can communicate and create relationships with our athletes. Their methodology probably doesn't matter as much as anything else.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

Right. I think this is pretty important. And uh I had a couple of guys fight this weekend. Um we've spoken about warm-ups before. I've still no fucking idea what we're doing in a warm-up. I don't think you can have an idea. Get your body kind of ready, gas them up a little bit, get a little bit of place bar in, tell them how fast and hard they look, and uh set them off. But the it the the everyone's different. And I'm starting to I'm enjoying reading the energy and see how people are, even between flights, the same individual or flighter is completely different.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

Yeah, I I have no idea. I don't think you can standardize a warm-up. Um what I try and do with my guys is before we do our hard sparring on on Tuesday nights, before we do our MMA focused sparring on Tuesday nights, which is sort of the most representative, the most specific training we get, um I every Tuesday night I go through a different, let's call it a warm-up. But it's really just it's just some drilling, some developmental drilling, let's say. So um, but I go through like, you know, about 30 minutes of that, five, five-minute rounds, six, five-minute rounds. Um, and I guide it sometimes, and sometimes I don't. And part of that is just to help them, you know, it's development time, obviously, it's flight time, but part of it is also to help guide them with trying to figure out what they like to do before they spar, what they feel they need to do, to help them develop their own ideas on warmups. But you know as well as I do, sometimes you show up backstage and there's no mat. And so, you know, now you're not gonna warm up grappling, and you're in the middle of a huge room, and so now you're not gonna warm up the cage. So it's like you can't necessarily even have, or you feel shitty, or you feel better, or you feel sometimes I gotta tell guys, hey, I think you warmed up enough. And sometimes I'll walk over and be like, Hey, you good? You sure? They're like, Yeah, I'm I'm good. So like everything else, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Yeah, it's always pretty random. This is a nice show we're at this week. Warm up warm up area was uh a little on the smaller side, but it was Ignite, um, pretty established shop in in Minnesota. I had two different, completely different kids go in. One was Angel, he's um he's our teens coach. So I think he carries a ton of unnecessary, puts a ton of unnecessary expectations on himself, right? Because he's leading his teens group and he's he's young and um I don't have that stress because I'm not competing. Um and I could tell I I knew he had all the the the skill set. He was giving up about a six inches in height and at least like three feet in uh uh in in range. I knew he had the skills to win, um, but I wasn't sure you know how who was going to show up there. And he got in, he had a c he he took a he took a clean shot like to the dome uh early on, but he he he didn't fluster and he eventually got what he was going in to do. Got packed got close to the guy, got him down and armbarred him in the in the first first round. Uh but hugely emotional after. I don't want to embarrass him, but he was uh hugely emotional. And it felt like just this fucking release valve had gone off. Um I'm glad you know uh both of my guys, um Mitch won a the ignite um amateur title. Um whatever you think about amateur titles, they're they're good for amateurs. No, they're called they're good for them. Yeah, yeah. And he had a he had a smart fight. It was really close, it was a split decision actually. I if it went the other way, I wouldn't have complained. I thought he did through uh I thought he landed the more effective shots. Mitch does this thing, um, we call him the puzzle, right? This is the guy I spoke about. He's no fast, but he's he's quick, he's well attuned. Uh I imagine the other guy threw twice as many strikes, but landed half as many, if that makes sense. Um and then they they grapple and they're both they're you know, some good grappling exchanges. So anyway, two very, very different individuals.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

So ignoring, and I think you and I probably we don't put too much stock in winning and losing because I think most we don't put too much stock in winning and losing, and and something that that when I watch fights, I pay a lot of attention to all the things that could have gone wrong, right? Because especially if they win, right? If my fighter wins, that's when I want to break my foot off in their ass. That's when I want to point out that you know all all that it could have easily gone the other way. It always can easily go the other way. But so I watch the fights and I come out with a catalog of these things that that could have gone the other way, and those are the things that I want to make sure we keep working on. Those are the things that I see as deficits. Even if they win, it doesn't matter to me. Those are deficits, and some other guy is going to take advantage of those. So what do you do post if you do anything, what do you do post-fight to adjust that for them or or guide them or nudge them or intervention or whatever you want to call it?

SPEAKER_01 9:24

No, uh our fights are always dictating our next week's practice pretty much. Um so we did uh because Angel's had three fights now. He's actually he's won two by armbar, lost one by arm bar, all unfortunately. Okay. And uh so we did the kind of we we played um from where Angel got the arm bar from just with uh double bicep control and went from there. So we're playing around with that because arm bars, I I don't know about you, Adam, but arm bars aren't a thing I go for a lot. So it tends to this isn't it right, but it tends to I I tend to probably uh centered my tactics and strategies and what we spend a lot of time on a little bit on my own game, which which probably isn't but there's probably a little bit of that, right? My uh my what I see effective at MMA, especially this um at this amateur level while they're striking um you know continuing to develop. My uh what I think is effective at MMA is getting a hold of motherfucker and putting them on the ground, beat them up a bit, and submitting them, right? Right. So I I I have to say we kind of pushed the team towards that. Spent a lot of time doing that. And then with Mitch, he was in a he went for a shot, uh guy sprawled, good sprawl, and he ended up in a kind of a front headlock position. Uh he had a a hold of the single, but they were they were down, and um his opponent had this he was like going for some kind of ninja choke in that. Now we play this um position a lot, and I was thinking uh um Mitch was gonna just gate a roll out of it and create a scramble, but he didn't. And it was a third round of five, and he was just really, really kind of cool and chilling. And instead of barking from uh I knew he was I knew he was scheming summoning, and I wasn't sure what he was feeling, and that lasted almost two minutes. I was surprised he never got stood up. Anyway, all that's to say is um afterwards we spoke about it. Mitch just said, yeah, he was it was a third round and he didn't feel in too much danger, but he felt there was a bit of threat on his neck, and if he went went to move abruptly, he might have got caught in something. So it was uh it was a good sensible uh fight, and they both came out unhurt, which is my well Mitch hurt his foot, but that was all caught his foot kicking. So I'm delighted. I'll take uh I'll take uh uh a loss rather than uh them getting hurt, you know.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

So what would what would the week's practice look like if uh Angel had or one of whoever had a more of a strike fight? What if what would practice look like if your guy that was in more of a strike fight had gotten beat up a bit?

SPEAKER_01 11:42

I don't know how it would meaningfully change. I think it's getting largely down there. We might if we identified something specific, like he was getting kept getting clobbered with a uh a lead hook or an overhand, we might work around that, but I think all comes down to the the reads. So you just put him in a situation where he got to see more of that thing. Yep, pretty much. Try and make that signal a bit stronger in practice.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Yeah, I agree. Which is tough, um, obviously, but um I was having a conversation with with one of my guys, and he was saying that we were talking about just the our track record the last couple years since we've been doing it. He was saying that um he was asking me why we don't see more submissions from our guys. And I s and and so it got us into an interesting talk about sort of what our pay what our principles of play are, right? And and how I focus practice and and um that if if someone wants to be a submission artist, then that is something that they will have to develop as as sort of their focus, but it's not something that I'm necessarily going to focus on when we're working as a team, if that makes sense. Like we'll play all of the normal jujitsu positions, but at the lowest levels, at the intro levels, it's going to be stand-up versus pin. And if you can pin, we strike. It's not and so this the the most submissions in in for my amateurs are gonna come from rear-naked chokes or front headlock type stuff. They are not going to come from guard bottom. They're not gonna, we're not gonna leave the mount or the cross side to throw arm bars. And if that is something that he wants to do more, he wants to be more of a submission threat, then he needs to spend more time in that game, which is in my gym, do more Bazun Jiu Jitsu. And so he he understood that. I thought it was a a good discussion about sort of I create an environment, but you, your personality, what you want, what you are hoping to achieve has to drive some of a lot of that. And I can't drive everyone to be submission masters from closed door. I mean, it's not it's not that valuable in MMA for everybody. If it's something that you like, if it's something you enjoy, then you have the opportunities in my room to pursue that. So I, you know, I set up the broad principles of play, the broad slices. If there's something that that attracts them because of their personality or their bodies or whatever, then I want that is available to them, but they have to pursue that a little bit. That's the autonomy piece, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Yep. I was um I'm still thinking about this fucking assessment I need to do, the skills assessment. You haven't finished it yet? I finished my assignment, but the framework and assessment will have to present at the end of the semester. Anyway, I'm I'm still I'm still struggling with it, but and it this is very um contrary to what we talk about. But if if we think about what we speak about in the CLA, what that is, we have this knowledge about, and we have this knowledge of. I always get these two fucking mixed up. All the job is not knowledge of is doing the thing, and knowledge about is knowing about the thing. And it occurred to me it wouldn't it wouldn't necessarily be um a bad thing if we took the various positions in grapplin or mma and you you asked the student or the learner what what's your intentions here? Because there's only three there's three or four things, three or four things, three or four general concepts or general tactics and strategies that are effective for most positions, right? Whether it be an underhoot or rotation or uh elevation or insight space, whatever, whatever that means. And use that as a bit of a metric to get at least get their um knowledge about. I think there might be some value in that. Like, do they know what at least whether they can do it or not, do they know at least what they're what where they're trying to move to? And we I take it for granted that because we play these games a lot, they're gonna know that, but I'm I'm I'm kind of taking that for granted.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

Right. So as an example, I I have a couple different rappling games that I play in MMA. In my Brazilian jujitsu classes, my grappling classes, I don't even like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu as a word, but in my grappling classes, um we we can fine or slice some things. In my MMA practices, we keep it more general. And so a game that I like to play is you start in you're you are on top, but you are not in. So you're maybe in half guard top or you maybe cross-side top. And the goal of the game is to get mounted or take the back, right? To transition to a full pin. And then so we we play a lot of that. It's you know, pin, you have to pin, and the other guy's trying to stand up. And so there's a there's I I don't make a lot of tasks, task ideas for that because those games are just part of my class and we just go, but they have some objectives, they have some intentionality. And that seems to be enough to for the MMA class to guide them a little bit. But sometimes, yeah, I think I I like your idea. You just hey, what what are you trying to do here? And I'll do that in in my personal jitsu classes all the time when I'm walking around and I see two people sort of floundering. That's the maybe the only intervention I ever actually make is I'm like, what are you trying to do here?

SPEAKER_01 16:51

Is there any positions in because I'm gonna tell you mine, but is there any positions in Grapplin where you think it's just fucking criminal to lose that position? Like going from a um dominant to uh inferior position. I've got mine in it. Fucking criminal. We play a lot, we spend a lot of time.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

Well, so in general, right, my ment my mentality is is you should take down and then stay on top and beat them to death. And anything that anything outside of that you you fucked up. So it's probably criminal to give up amounts, it's probably criminal to give up a back position, right? And I hate, and you see, I I my amateur the amateurs are the worst at this, half guard top. And you see the person on bottom just loading up to explode over. And that's one of the few times like you'll hear me as a corner man being like, big bridge, big bridge. And so maybe that's the one that that I find the most criminal or pisses me off the most, is when you go from half guard top and you let the other guy just fucking ridge up over you. How about you?

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Mine is if if if you're on someone's back trying to choke them and they're able to spin and end up on top of you, and the guard on top. That should not be happening. Right. It should not be happening. And that's happened at the heist level. I don't think Peters did that to Olivier. I've seen uh AP do this a few times in his fights. Do you remember uh you remember David Loazo?

SPEAKER_00 18:16

I remember he was uh Canadian fighter, his nickname was the Crow. And his his strategy on the ground, and I think this is a strategy a lot of the Japanese fighters used, was to let you get on their back so they could spin into your guard and they could elbow you to death. Like that was David Luazzo's game. So I I think that there are some people out there who specialize in spinning in someone's guard. But I agree with you, that should not happen. Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

It's my biggest beef.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

But it is when I play when we play any kind of games with back control, I will sometimes highlight that as a way to turn and face. You know, because most of the time they're getting off on the side, they're they're getting scraping you off, and then there's a scramble. But sometimes I will highlight, hey, if if you find a way to just spin, if they lose your upper body control and you can spin, because sometimes they don't think about that, and then you start to see some of that happen. And I want it to happen so it doesn't ever happen, if that makes sense. Yeah. Like there are there are things that have to happen or people have to be able to do so that it doesn't happen. Right. Right. You need like it'd be good if you had, especially if like if you're a gay gym that does sports jujitsu, it would be good if your environment had all the stupid metagames that people play. So that you know, you had someone who is the Spider Guard master, and you had someone who was a Baron Bolo master, and you had someone that was whatever, those are only two I can think of. Uh Lasso or whatever the fuck people play at a be. I don't like any of that shit. But it'd be good if your environment had that. So that every every few sessions, every week, whatever, you grappled one of those guys. And so it helped attune you to those things existing. And so spinning in the clothes guard, I mean spinning from back control, you'd be really surprised that the first thing that ever happens to you is in a fight.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

Alright, well, we're going back to that kind of variability that you foster lifting the whole room doing heavy lifting, right? All of it. Maybe that's uh you're familiar with Gabby Wolf's work, right? Oh yeah, yeah. So that was uh I I went in late, but my assignment went in late yesterday. It was interesting here to see if I can find it. Um so when they did a meta-analysis on this Optimal, which is all about um how we through through motivation, right? And the uh focus of attention. It was a lot of gall it it was partly pretty some pretty uh rub robust work. Uh especially around the external focus advantage. So uh just a couple of quick analysis. So of 153 experiments, over 4,000 participants confirmed that uh external focus advantage across population skill types in past types. So that's that seems to be pretty robust. But when it came to the um the motivational thing, it they analyzed like 166 experiments, only 21% actually measured motivation, only 23% of these identified uh group level uh motivational effects. So when you we have these big ideas in in motor learning and science, and we say they're uh robust in that, but see when you look at some of the critiques and some of the problems with the methodology and whatnot, the findings become weaker and weaker and weaker. And this is what I'm kind of finding when I'm doing all this this research stuff, it's it's it's very, very muddy. And you you you've spoken about the replication crisis and stuff in in science. So I'm wondering how much we can actually get from honors.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

So uh I when I f I was thinking about this because I I was reading something on um whether whether this uh the top Topics not important, but he was talking about affordances. And without navel gazing, what ends up happening in all these things is that nothing is really parsable. And so when you're a scientist and you want to do an experiment, we have to get as few variables as possible. As soon as you start getting more than one or two variables, you have to use these computer programs and run analysis and analysis of the variables, ANOVA, or bring in a biostatistician, and it becomes more difficult to figure out what signals are really there, what's really causative, correlated, what all those things. And I think in our in this area where we don't parse too many things out, I don't know how you separate the variables. If the environment is so important that it is it is mutual with the animal, the environment is full of variables. Go back to nature and nurture. Okay, if nurture is a thing, show me how you're going to parse that out. And you can't.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

And I think this is a bit of a nod to the kind of complexity and uh the quality of it all, right? Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

Yeah. Yeah. So how so I maybe that's what and and that's probably on both sides of the table, right? The the traditional or information processing approach and whatever the other approach is. Maybe that's why there's such a dearth of real good evidence.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Well, and and that was what so a couple other things came out, because I talk they're they're not ex explicitly um like ecological from right, ecological uh assumptions, but um self-determination theory, which is a motivational theory, which if you make someone feel like give them some autonomy, make them feel confident, uh let have them feel like they're part of something, part of a community, they're relatable. This should drive intrinsic motivation, right? Okay. But they're saying that that that's not always necessarily the case. If you think it's some really like giving autonomy, it could be um anxiety inducing, it could be a sign of disrespect, it's some like um real traditional like eastern martial arts and whatnot. So again, it's all very, very kind of nuanced and there's ifs and buts every everywhere around. And similarly with the challenge point um framework, which we talk about, getting that sweet spot, that gory locks, not too hard, not too um um easy, that also depends too. That depends on the the tolerance and the resilience of the learner, uh where they feel so it's it's kind of wishy-washy, right? Right? What's their mood on the day? How how what's their tolerance for failure that day? And what level are they? Right. So what what what what really can we take meaningfully other than some generalizations?

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Well, I I joke that you know human beings don't love autonomy. I mean, there's a reason there's a reason we see certain types of political systems be very popular in the world. Because we just assume, because we grew up in in this environment, that people want freedom to make all the choices they want. But when you're in the jujitsu room and you're like, hey, here's freedom, there's some portion of the room who's like, I don't like this. Please tell me what to do. Right.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

I mean people and I need to be I need to be better serving these people a bit more, giving them a bit more what they need.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

Right. But if if you have a room like on a Monday, on Monday night, I think I had 50 people on the map. How do you service? And so I'm walking around and I'm like, okay, some of these people are just stubborn. So how do I help them? Some of them don't want autonomy. How do I help them? Some of them are not creative. They have not done a creative thing since they were a child. So asking them to be creative is like asking them to relax or something that's that's out there that doesn't mean anything to them. And so I've had a couple sessions in the last couple weeks where I've been, I've had a couple sessions in the last couple weeks where I've set up something that I thought was just so simple as a warm-up drill. And all these things come out. Well, like that these ideas, not creative, stubborn, not loving autonomy. And I've had to really do a good job of not just screaming at everyone. And it's my fault, I know that. Right? It's when we set an activity up and the activity fails, then that's on us. Maybe it was a communication issue, maybe it was a scaling issue, whatever it is, but I I can't scream at myself. So sometimes you got to scream at your your people.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

I guess I'm uh I'm a I'm a dreamer, I'm an idealist. Even if they don't like autonomy, I'll say you you will, you just don't know it yet.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

Oh, they don't have a choice, like I don't give them a choice. Like, which is I guess that sounds like a catch 22. You're going to get autonomy. And a lot of uh I mean my MMA practices, they are is there such a thing as guided autonomy?

SPEAKER_01 26:48

I guess it would just be uh, you know, less less feedback, less prescription. So I'll say I'll say, okay, we're gonna play this this person getsn't that we're doing the way we run practice. Is there's always a mix of autonomy, right? Yes. Effectively telling them what we want to do. So we we rob a little bit of autonomy from them because we have our expectations or the task, the the task and you know objectives, and the rest is kind of to them. Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

Their expression, how they so I'll say something like Um, I want you to start in a position on the ground against the cage, pick one that you know has shown up for you or you've seen recently or you want to experiment with. And then so I you know, I expect if I have 10 groups, I think there are some very similar stable positions on the ground against the cage, but I don't expect them all to be in the same one. And so to me, that's that's sort of a guided autonomy. And all those positions have the same intentionality person on bottom, get up, person on top, stay on top, so I don't have to reiterate that all the time. And then I'll walk around. And a lot of times that's when people ask me questions, and that's when I can sort of guide their task focus. Um, so that's sort of guided autonomy. I mean, I I like that's my favorite way to run practices. So it's not like I'm not choosing autonomy just for me or I mean or just for them. I'm choosing because I also like that as a way to run practice. I like seeing them make choices for themselves and what they want to work, even if it's within us, even if it's within a specific area.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

I asked you a question last week. Um let's see if I can butcher this again. But um, I asked you a question last week, and I I remember where it came from, and it it it'll eventually map on our um easy and hard out or hard and easier, whatever you want. Um but I was saying if you've we don't see many, but if you've seen someone uh um take a dive, you ask me what what I meant by that, right? But in let's look at the movies, someone gets clopped, right, and they they fucking fall down. Or in football, they clock. It never looks real. Like there's this uncanniness to the movement that you just they just can't see. Like if you really get if you really get clobbered and knocked out, you're gonna drop like a fucking sack of potatoes, right? Or stiffen up or whatever. You can't recreate that intentionally. Like you can't you can't act that out. Right. I just don't see it. And um I was curious sometimes when we do the when we do the like w what I'm working on a lot now is just it's more part of our kind of warm-up games. You have any takedown you want, I'm not playing it until my ass starts going towards the floor. I'm looking for some kind of inside butterflies to immediately use that momentum and get the reversal. Okay. But if they don't do it with enough momentum and authenticity of the actual shot, it it's so clunky and rehearsed and unnatural and inauthentic. Right. Because they're either thinking about falling or they have to change from thinking about not falling to then falling. So that it robs this kind of um authenticity from the the move, this organized the way the body's just gonna organize. And when we interrupt that, and there's a reason I'm saying all this, because that that's that's some of the um what they think some of the mechanisms are behind the you know, the internal focus of attention in the organization, that you're actually you're constraining that organization by by by by by concentrating or focusing on it. So that was a bit of a ramble, but if you if you get what I meant. And so I was thinking like you think it when you know Apollo Creed knocked in rocking, it doesn't look real. Right. You can't they're actors and they've probably that seen a fucking bazillion times. There's just something that you can sense that it's been that it that it's just no organic, it's just no real. I think we see this in in in sport. And there's something that maps on to the idea of of thinking about what you're doing rather than just you know ex organizing and letting it have it.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

So in in your example, and I could see uh it makes sense. So in an if I was so last night one of our war games was and I call it bounce first pin. And we went easy and hard out on a takedown. So it's basically exactly what you laid out. But what I don't what I don't do is tell the person that's bouncing how to do that. And so this way they're not trying to force something that the energy didn't give them. And and and as long as I see people using the elevator hooks, as long as I see people doing different things, then I don't mess with it too much. And last night um people were getting too deep into being taken down before they started their action. So I made a I said, if your back hits the mat, you lost. I want you to shame yourself and reset. You you do not even get to continue trying to get up. You've lost. And so within a couple minutes of that, I stopped seeing people. And so next time I do that drill, that may be a cu uh a thing I add to my description. Um but this goes back to some ideas on there are some things that that only work or are only safe when people are going full speed. Right. And as soon as we change a little bit of the focus internally, externally thinking, then that's when people tend to get hurt. And so I think we have to acknowledge that maybe everything can't come out of every situation we set up because of that. And we certainly don't want to force people down roads, I think over constraining. I think we've spoken about that. And I think that that's what some of the some of the Instagram posts that I've shared recently about people attempting to the CLA or or attempting, yeah. I don't know. Can you do the CLA? You can do the CLA without understanding anything about eco. And so I'm seeing people attempting to make games based on the CLA without an understanding of eco and what it always looks like is guiding people into a very narrow space. You know, it's like starting off with, I want this to come out, how do I constrain it to come out? And to me, that I don't think you're too far away from just telling people what to do at that point. Right. Um, and I I maybe that's the first stage that new coaches will go through. But if they don't have an underpinning of of the difference between information or knowledge of, knowledge about, or how information is transmitted, or what information is, I I don't think that they will get to the place that they want to get to.

SPEAKER_01 33:08

Yeah, and I think just generally if if if the past focus is too narrow or too complex or too many steps, we're we're we're then getting back in the mind. We're then we're then thinking about it. And and we can see that. That's what that I guess that's the point I'm trying to make. Once we um focus internally and think about what our body's doing, you just can't unsee it. It just looks different. Right. The fluidity of this organ, I'm not saying it can it can't be more technically or aesthetically pleasing, I'm just saying there's a there's a flu fluidity to the movement itself that you just can't unsee.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

I agree. Yeah, I agree. And I think sometimes in in grappling, we have a tendency to start people in these very stable positions that they don't necessarily exist like that in the wild. And so it's almost like a decomposition. Now, obviously, there are stable positions that exist, um, but every starting point is not one that naturally occurs stably. I think the coach has to. What I you know, I found with my big group on Monday night that the first round of something I want to do, I give the least amount of instructions. I was just like, grab this, start here, person on bottom, you know, when this drill breaks, switch, person on top, you know, just see what happens. And I'll do that, I'll run after the first round because I don't want to guide or over-guide or over constrain. I want to see what they need. And sometimes they sometimes they don't need anything. And sometimes I walk around like, okay, now the second round, I will just reconfigure the first game to them. I've been having a lot of success with that. But they have to be that's a little bit autonomy, also, right? Because the question I hate is, you know, hey, when when do we switch or when do we I'm like, you've been doing this with me for a long time, and you're an adult, like when you when you're no longer in the drill, switch. You know, if we started in cross side and I asked you to attack the far arm or something, and you're in close guard bottom, then then you probably should have switched somewhere along the line.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

You mean flip-flop switch, reset?

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Yeah, switch, reset, start over, block positions, who's won, who lost, whatever those words are, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

Right. Yeah, it's similar with me. So, you know, when when it when it stops being interesting, when it's kind of stabilized out, then we reset. Right. Because there's often there's loads of weird fucking positions down there that we're never going to even think about or get the chance to set them up in. And as long as it's interesting and kind of uh competitive and scrambly, then then then then keep going. And if that lasts another minute and a half, great.

SPEAKER_00 35:41

Same. So so a lot of times my instructions are um if it gets weird, stop. If you feel like it gets got dangerous, stop. If it gets stable or stalemated, stop. Other than that, see see what happens. Play it.

SPEAKER_01 35:58

Uh let me ask you this. I I know I go back and forth and say I don't really like the violence or the gore that much in fighting, but um I really love to see effective elbowing. Of course, you can do that in amateurs. You said you got a couple of your guys who are now pro. Um, I don't think we see as much elbowing as uh um effective elbowing that's that's actually available there. I think, especially on the fence and that of course we do see it, but I'm surprised we don't see more of it. Do you think that's just we haven't because it's can be a challenge to maybe um do in practice that they're not kind of attracted to these the uh these kind of solutions or they're not attracted to these kind of movements? And and if so, how do how do you how do you when you're transitioning to pro, is it something you focus on? When when do you start to introduce that? How do you introduce it safely? Um I'm curious what your thoughts are on elbows uh themselves and how you try and elicit that to come out in in your in in a competition.

SPEAKER_00 36:52

All right, so let me ask you a question and then I'll answer the answer that. I when I watch videos of I like to watch other gyms sparring, right? I like to just see um what's going on. And I'll see in some gyms that they have these very big elbow pads, they have knee pads, they have you know the big puffies, they have big shin pads, they're basically armored up a little bit. Um is that what's necessary to be able to work elbows and knees and things?

SPEAKER_01 37:22

Maybe personally I think you can you can train elbows without winding them, just if because you have a lot of control over that pain to coordinate your elbows.

SPEAKER_00 37:29

Then that's the that is exactly what I am currently allowing my pros to do. We had bought some elbow pads and they didn't like them. I didn't like them. And so right now, my my three pros, and I saw last night um during the cell, I, you know, in my practices, I have a self-study period where usually it's 10 to 15 minutes at the end where they just work whatever they didn't think they got to work on. And I saw two of my pros on the cage basically elbow sparring. And they were just showing them or placing them or just and I didn't I didn't say anything. I didn't, you know, because it's like with children, say don't fall, and then they never thought they could fall until you said don't fall. So I they know they shouldn't be cutting each other, so I didn't get involved and they were doing some good work. And my I think elbows might be more difficult to land than um we think they are. You have a lot of these guys who spend a lot of time in Thailand training at Tiger Muay Thai or AKA or Bang Tower, whatever the hell the names are. Don't see those guys landing a lot of elbows in MMA. Um, so maybe they're more difficult to land than we think they are. Maybe it's not necessarily a training thing because of the nature of MMA. But on the ground, I think we, you know, uh let them just show them and play with them, and I hope that'll come out a little bit. We had a couple good 12 to 6 elbows in our pro fights recently. Um, and we had some good elbows from Mount Top. So I'm just gonna let it develop and let them play with it a little bit, similar to like jump knees.

unknown 39:02

Right?

SPEAKER_00 39:03

Like, how do you train jump knees? They just do it without hurting each other. And if it's I I think they know that if it's a tool they want to develop live, then they have a responsibility of care. Spinning shit's the same way, right? I mean, you could spinning elbows, spinning back fists. I've seen spinning backfists where the person, you know, one guy moves in while the other guy's doing it and they help, they get elbowed. That that shouldn't happen with the right amount of control, but you know, shit happens. But so I I I agree with you. This I let them let them add them and play with them and control them and take care of each other, and we'll see what happens. If that's not if it doesn't evolve the way we want it to, then we'll have to make changes. And it's funny, talk you all appreciate this. I took um I took Rory and another guy to Canada to fight uh years ago. And my guy Dave uh fought Solomon Wilcox, right? That's his name. Never heard of him. He's a guy that Rory knocked out on TU F3, and he trained with Rufus. Solomon Hutchinson. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, that's all. Okay. And um it was a good fight, but Solomon took Dave down a couple times because Solomon was a good wrestler, and he attacked Dave with a lot of elbows. And so afterwards, I said to Duke, because this is, you know, it's a right, it was a smart thing to do, I said, How do you train elbows? And he said they use the pads, right? They'll have the guy on bottom with pads and moving around, and the person on top will elbow. Even back then, this is 10, this has to be 10 years ago. It didn't, it didn't fit well with me. And I and the real answer is that Solomon had so much control over Dave that just the intentionality of landing elbows from top was probably enough. Not that he hit he elbowed hand pads on the ground. And so I one of my guys who's fighting in April is going to be fighting a pretty good wrestler. Not not a world class, but there's a good chance my guy will end up on his back at some point. And I want him to be working 12 to 6 elbows from bottom of guard. But you can easily do those without landing the point. My when when we did a lot of clinch sparring with my old tie boxing coach, um, we landed a lot with the inside of our thigh when we were doing like, you know, circular knees, landed a lot with the inside of our thighs, so we weren't putting each other down with liver knees and stuff. So I think there's all kinds of ways to throw shots without we do it with punches, right? We don't sit into our punches and lay each other out. So I don't know why the other tools would necessarily be different.

SPEAKER_01 41:49

No, I don't think they are different. I just perhaps it may be an area of neglect when when these opportunities are there, we're just not picking up on your not quite sealing.

SPEAKER_00 41:57

Well, but think about the think about the UFC. So how many elbows do we see land in in a normal UFC event, right? We see we see some of these guys are getting good at using elbows defensively during striking, right? If someone's close in a distance, we're seeing guys using elbows to fill that space. That's pretty cool. I think I'd love to see that develop more. Um, we're not seeing a lot of elbows from the clinch. No, that's weird.

SPEAKER_01 42:22

I'm not seeing them. I'm seeing a lot of spinning elbows.

SPEAKER_00 42:25

Right. And I think you'll see more of those until those go away, because that's sort of a new fun meta. Um, even with the change to allow 12 to 6 elbows, we're not seeing a lot of 12 to 6 elbows. So either it's it's gotta be one of two things. Tell me if if I'm wrong here. It's either the sport doesn't afford those opportunities the way that we want it to, or we need to find a way to train them so that we can transfer them to the performance environment. The answer's probably in the middle somewhere. I think it's probably the middle problem. Problem. So, I mean, we see guys, you know, close guard top, everyone, everyone, Tito was elbowing the shit out of people 20 years ago. So you would think that that everyone would have seen that and everyone would be doing that, but they don't do it. And I don't know if that's just because of the way people train their their jujitsu or so. I'm gonna see what happens. I'm gonna let the guys play with elbows, and and then you know, that next time the pros fight, I'll have to look at opportunities where they they could have elbowed and figure out if if you know if they just didn't see it or they they weren't they didn't have the ability to elbow, and so they didn't pick up those openings or affordances. So we'll have to see. It's that's still an experiment for me.

SPEAKER_01 43:41

Yeah, maybe I'll take a couple of spectacular uh elbow beatdowns uh for you know gyms to start including a bit more. Yeah, it's just it's interesting to me. I see the opportunities there a lot. I I just don't see as many as I would have expected. And I wondered if that was that was a training thing. But maybe it is, maybe in the moment it's just doesn't work, it's not what they they perceive as being effective.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

the the best elbow people in in in the clinch are I would you know you would probably say are the ties. But I don't know if I don't know if MMA striking well I know but I don't think MMA striking and MMA clinchwork is tie striking or tie clinchwork. So I don't think we can make this one-to-one map.

unknown 44:21

Right.

SPEAKER_00 44:22

No, I would agree with that. You know uh most of our clinchwork in MMA is is controlling the arms. And so therefore there's less opportunities to elbow whereas the ties are trying are higher and there's more opportunities for elbows. You know you'd figure though people would see Matt Brown grab someone's head and elbow them and knock them out. You would see more of that.

SPEAKER_01 44:41

Who was the other guy that was really known for his elbows was it wasn't Kenny Florian was it it was one of the it was around that era I don't know that's my era but I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 44:50

Yeah that's what that's what he was known Tito is the one that I I think of because his his ground and pound was very elbow forward very elbow heavy and it was just yeah part of it's because if you can't get someone off you they can do a lot of shit to you it's always a thing with these saying I was going to say what are your thoughts on this uh what's the card coming up where Rhonda and Gina? Oh Jesus Christ I said to I said to my guys I said this was a great card ten years ago although 10 years ago Rhonda would have beat Gina probably in the first round i've I've never seen Gina Carano as being a high level fighter and I saw someone put up a um the number of days between this these people's last MMA fight and it was all like over a year like in Gano's last I think Angano was the most active of all them and I don't think he's fought MMA in a year. And his opponent is like two years and Carano and so ten years ago that was a pretty cool card. Will you watch it?

SPEAKER_01 45:52

Yeah man take my money I mean for the entertainment spectacle right but and this is where fighting's going I don't love it to be honest but I don't love it.

SPEAKER_00 46:03

I don't love it. I I don't it's not that I don't love it I don't like it because it we should be building the sport of MMA and Francis and Gano should be in the UFC fighting other heavyweight UFC fighters and I don't think anyone else on that card could be in the UFC and so I don't I don't understand you know in America there there's there's something called arena football which is like where guys who just are years past their prime or never have an opportunity to play in the NFL play and they play on a small field and they have a lot of running starts and they have like nets where you can catch the ball off of it. And people like it and so people will probably watch this but that's rather effort was done.

SPEAKER_01 46:55

I'm familiar a lot of these uh fighters on on their way up when they're peaking when they're hungry when they're putting on their best performances they're they're they're they're not getting paid well by the time they get to the big checks it's probably time to be hanging it up but now they're making big checks and this is just the nature of the game. It's unfortunate.

SPEAKER_00 47:12

Yeah and what's interesting is I don't know other sports when when they when their athletes get to the place where they are making big checks but not able to perform at that level they usually either get traded or cut by their team or released by their team and they either stop playing the sport or some other team takes a chance at them at a much lower price. Yeah. So if MMA had a similar makeup then you would see like somebody that was making a lot of money but no longer a contender maybe have an opportunity to make less money and less pressure in another organization. And I would still if there was another organization whatever it is and Max Holloway was fighting Saturday night versus another guy at the same place in his career people would watch that people would watch that. But I don't know if the UFC can serve both those masters you know without without being detrimental to the to the young guys. And it just seems like the UFC is just feeding in a tremendous number of young guys at nothing to see if anyone's worth anything.

SPEAKER_01 48:23

And I don't think that's great for the sport no but I don't see that changing anytime soon.

SPEAKER_00 48:28

I think that monopoly seems to be getting stronger what's it going to take to to break that or rebalance it do you think there is room for MMA to grow in this country that's unclear to me. Okay so I agree with that it's unclear to me also if there is no room for it to grow and I think the UFC seems to have acknowledged that there's very little room to grow then they are basically in a in a keep the cost low and then keep the costs low until they can find somebody who can sell tickets sell pay-per-views and they'll pay that person but the rest of the time they'll try and keep the costs down. And I gotta figure I don't know shit about business but I got to figure Paramount can't be happy with the way it's gone this first quarter. Those cards have generally been they haven't been great that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 49:22

Do you think there's a bit of fatigue I mean I've seen myself I I don't I don't watch them as much now it seems they're on every weekend it just seems to be a little bit even for me who's a big fan it just is a little you know UFC fatigue every other week.

SPEAKER_00 49:38

So I still watch but I don't necessarily watch them all live right so I'll um you know I'll look on sure dog and I'll see which fights had finishes or which fights were which fights were good and then I'll only watch those and I'll you know Paramount spices them up so you can pick the exact fights you want to watch but it is very rare for me and it used to be not rare it is very rare for me to sit down at five o'clock and watch 12 fights and that I used to do that you know that was almost a weekly thing. Dana before she made any plans on a Saturday night would say are there fights this weekend because she knew that that's that was a priority of mine and that's not now she'll ask me are there fights this week and I'll say yeah but we can still go to dinner because I'm only going to watch the main card or we could still go to a movie because I'm only going to watch the main event. So I don't think it's fatigue for me because I love MMA I think it's there's a quality issue. And the NFL you were talking about every week the NFL is starting to get to the point where they're going to play games almost every day of the week and people are people are starting to talk about other than gamblers who the hell wants to watch football every night what made football in America so huge was that that's what Sunday was and then Monday night. And then all of a sudden now there's a Thursday night game. And now they're talking about Tuesday night games and later in the season they play Saturday and I I I don't know if it's fatigue or it's just like who can who has the bandwidth I look at some of these cards and if I don't see a lot of numbers on the card or names that I know I don't have the bandwidth to I don't have the bandwidth to know who's who or who's good or what fights are going to be good so you know I'll watch them after. But I'm not gonna sit there and watch guys that aren't much better than my young pros. I'd rather go to a local show.

SPEAKER_01 51:30

When you um say there's no room for growth is that like from audience capture it's kind of capped out now yeah yeah right I mean I assume the only way a sport can grow or generate more revenue is more eyeballs.

SPEAKER_00 51:45

And I bet if someone was honestly releasing data the number of eyeballs on MMA has has decreased. ESPN doesn't allow sports to walk away if they're making them money and the fact that ESPN let the UFC walk away and then from what I understand Netflix said um well take the UFC but we only want the we only want the the the good stuff and Dana wanted the whole package to be sold Paramount Plus just needed content and so I'm not sure that that deal is going to look great for them in a few years. But the NBA the NBA is losing eyeballs right now and for the first time ever I think they reduced the salary cap which is like 50% of the revenue goes to the players 50% goes to the owners I think this is the first time they've lowered that 50% number which means that most likely I was saying for the players. Well that's yeah well obviously the owners aren't going to lose any money but that means that there are less eyeballs watching basketball. So is it also possible then that there are so many things competing for people's attention that MMA will need to figure out how to get people's eyeballs on clips or or shorts or whatever it is and not expect people right the end the NFL a lot of people I know a lot of people that watch the NFL on these uh end zone packages where they're just it's it's like ADHD on steroids they're just going from this game to this game to this game to this game and then they have four screens up of things happening and that's the way a lot of people watch the NFL now. And so MMA may need to start harnessing some of that.

SPEAKER_01 53:33

Yeah you mentioned on Paramount right they can splice it together and show just the the reduced time the wrong you can go on I can't remember what the main event was from Saturday night.

SPEAKER_00 53:42

I watched it but I'm drawing a blank here but you can go on Paramount right now and just watch the main event fight. So you don't need and that's a that's a problem too right the main event the main card started at nine o'clock so I at nine o'clock I I turned it on I hit pause and I went and did a bunch of stuff and I came back at 915 and I fast forwarded to 915 they hadn't started the first fight there's just too much bullshit between fights I've always hated that about boxing too right I get it you got to sell ads and stuff but those guys don't those guys just want to get in there and fight yeah we're the sport we're the sport and purists we have to remember it's a business it is price fighting. Right but we're the we may be the purest but you ever heard like you've ever seen a boxing match where they're like this is a fight fans fight you know like Shakur Stevens is becoming that where he's not going to sell a lot of tickets he's not gonna sell a lot of pay-per-views because he's not gonna knock people out he's not gonna batter people he's just gonna display the highest level of boxing skill there is but people don't buy that people don't watch that but fight fans will never miss Shakur Stevens fight. And so if we're getting to a point where only fight fans are watching some of these UFC fights they're in trouble. Especially the big cards and I wonder if that's going to be an issue because you used to know what the the pay-per-view cards were the big parts and so the general the normal fans just watch the pay-per-view fights right but now with Paramount we don't necessarily know what's uh what's what fans don't know what's what Adassanya fights Saturday night you know that I I didn't know that and and you make a good point although you know you that you kind of grudge paying 80 bucks or 70 bucks or whatever it added a perceived sense of value to it right yeah yeah yeah and now it's just they're they're on Saturday night Adassanya would never have fought on a free card before but Adasanya's not the main event on a pay-per-view anymore who's is who's is he fighting Joe Pfeiffer oh yeah the big strong boy yeah and I think those are the only ranked maybe there are two maybe there's a co-main is a women's a woman's fight where both fighters have numbers and I don't think anyone else on the card has numbers which means it's not a pay-per-view level fight but Adasanya would never main event a free card so now like we're in this weird place I want to watch Adesanya but I can't sit through seven hours or whatever the hell it is it'll be interesting to see what kind of Ada Sanya would get it's been a while right it's been a while I think that he is certainly over the I don't think he's a contender anymore. It's city of kickboxing kind of go over the other side of the peak kind of boil went down a simmer sure but that's because their fighters aged out right and and and uh uh Volk left yeah I think we've seen people you know Nerds has had a little bit of a comeback but they've had a bunch of guys leave I think it's you know you and I talk about that all the time it's not it's the environment it's the it's the guys it's not the coach it's not the coach's system it's not no coach is doing anything special you got a bunch of guys the right guys in the room saying it's a perfect storm yeah and so that can't last that can't last you can't it's hard to if you have a room at a at a certain level it's hard to feed guys into that and now you have this sort of strata it's hard to then sort of reload yeah I mean you see that that's every sport is like that right it's it's you it's hard to have a continued run of greatness because you can't fill in from the bottom that then take over. You almost always have a run of some kind of greatness or some high level and then you suck for a little while and then you people get fired and people leave and then you rebuild. So and it was all mostly luck to begin with right I mean Israel Alasanya had a a long career in kickboxing and he could have ended up in any gym anywhere. And if those coaches stayed out of his way and just helped him learn how to cage and grapple he'd be the same person he is right now. It's not because Braverman told him to throw 17 fakes before every punch that he's great.

SPEAKER_01 58:03

I make fun I think Bravman's a good coach alright I will try and get uh Dr.

SPEAKER_00 58:12

Gus on for next week never go back to me otherwise um do we have a l like we probably should make a list or people can help us make a list of who like we should have Greg on we should have pal on we should have uh you know some other nerds on we should Forrest should come on like we need a list of who we need on we could sort of schedule them out a little further I want to Barry Robinson take on.

SPEAKER_01 58:35

Well did they they're never having a conversation are they? Greg and Barry no I think they they they joined back and forward a little bit and then do you think anything good could have come out of that conversation?

SPEAKER_00 58:45

Nope yeah me neither me neither because what I think would happen is Barry would just end up agreeing with everything Greg said on on the debate but almost like passive aggressively like like saying Greg's not saying anything new that we've this is already always done that and and I don't think they would have a legitimate debate. It was like when Roddy had his discussion with Cal or whoever there was nothing no value came out of that yeah two different languages two different languages and I and I've realized for me a lot of it's just the easiest way to discuss it is asking the other person where they think the information comes from I think that's a good jumping off point. Not not ecological not perception not that just like because if you think the information comes from the coach and I think the information comes from the environment then now we're talking about two separate things. Right.

SPEAKER_01 59:44

All right all right see you next week my man on the way upload the uh Steve Smith one and good luck with your uh presentation and your final stuff oh yeah that's not for a couple months yet so what were you behind that? Just my uh uh a critique of frameworks I did the CLA versus and interesting the the the the main the main um the main critique of the CLA is just the the the the validity the the ecological validity of of any of these studies. I mean again it's it's almost like the questions we're asking are absurd.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:17

Yeah I'm getting a lot of that as I go down certain rabbit holes to find like you know I'm trying to drill down to see what this is all built on. And like you say it's probably turtles all the way down because as I go down then I find questions that have no answers and probably never will have answers. And so I'm like how do we how do we build things on very shaky foundations but I think the good thing is whatever the alternative approaches are all of them none of them have good they run into the same problems also complex it's complex