Learning to Fight - Mladen Jovanovic PhD - Episode 24

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 0:04

All right. Well, hello, Rory Singer, standing in for Adam Singer today, and we have a special guest, an increasingly good friend of ours in the coaching space. It's uh Dr. Meladen Yovanovich. How did it do?

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Thanks. Thanks. Uh uh, that's the first time someone introduced me as a doctor, but uh thanks. Well, PhD doctor.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

You earned it, you earned it. Okay, so Mlad, tell us a little bit about yourself, how you're involved with the sport and your bit your background in history. And you and please remember to mention your books.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Yeah, uh, so I I guess you want me to be mainly focused on uh combat sports or just sports in general?

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Probably put it in the con. I mean, you can go wherever you want to go. Speak freely, my boy. Just um we obviously want to map this on a fight at some stage.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

So, yeah, um, I was always interested in combat sports since uh Jean-Claude Van Damme Blood Sport, right? Since since the late 80s, early 90s, and uh always was interested in training methodology, how they train and and things like that. And uh eventually in high school, I started doing Brazilian jiu-jitsu in Croatia and Pula. Uh our coach was Mike Bencic, who was uh studying BJJ in Philadelphia, if memory serves me well. So he's one of the first guys to bring BJJ and Valetudo to Croatia. That's 1997, if memory serves me well. And I was a high school kid. I I didn't know what we are getting into, right? So I was uh you know interested in karate and things like that, but ended up doing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. So back then I was more like I was a nerd, I still am a nerd, so I was doing uh programming uh IT stuff. Um I was quite good, but I don't know how in instead of studying engineering, I ended up studying uh sports science. So graduated in Belgrade in a faculty of sports, and I stated I wasn't really interested in working in as a physical education PE. Um so here we have you decide which one, you know, do you want to kind of specialize sports? You want to work as a physical education teacher, or back in the day we actually managed to create a new curriculum for strength conditioning coaches or physical preparation coaches. So we are the first generation here. Uh all the physical preparation coaches kind of graduated at the faculty. So and then we started like doing the internships like uh I started in a basketball, doing internships as a strength condition coach very young. And then I ended up in football somehow. Uh, ended up also in in volleyball. So I tried different sports, and combat sports were not quite paid as a strength condition coach to work in uh strength in in combat sports. So there that that that was put on a big burner, if that makes sense. So I ended up ended up working as a strength condition coach and sports scientist in in football. I was in um in Hammerby for two years uh in Stockholm, that's 2012, 2013. Uh, I was actually with the American coach uh Greg Berhalter, who was a national team selector for uh team USA. Um so he's one of the first American coaches, actually, he is the first American coach who coached a professional team in Europe. So I was working with him. Um but before that I was I was in in Boston doing an internship at Mike Boyle um for um half a year, something like that. And then ended up in Aspire Academy as a football physiologist, and then eventually ended up as a strength edition coach and data scientist for Port Adelaide Football Club in Adelaide, Australia, which is uh Australian football. And then I was back in in Serbia, that's 2016, something like that. So since then I started a company here, complementary training. I had a quite successful blog and eventually became a membership site, complementarytraining.com. And uh in it, I I started publishing some of the tools that I developed. I mentioned previously I was uh pretty good in programming, so I ended up building some stuff of uh tools like uh strength card builder and hit builder, which are used in in team sports. I think even like in a Premier League and or in soccer in USA, you know, coaches use that these tools to create workouts, set up the drills for conditioning and things like that. So but recently uh I was corresponding with uh Nemanja Miloshic, who's our head uh MMA coach over the years. And I during that time when I was in Sweden, he trained actually in Sweden, and I helped him with strength conditioning a little bit. But over the years, I've been bombarding him with uh uh with the skill acquisition literature, right? Um, and he became one of the most successful coaches here in this region. Um and actually I was involved with uh skill acquisition since 2008. Um, there's uh actually interview with uh on a complementary training uh site, interview with uh one of the kind of founders of the constraint-led approach, uh Keith Davis. That's 2010. And I was always interested in in you know skill acquisition and methodology, and ended up around 2008-ish, I stumbled on on Straight Last Gym, right? The alignness principle. And then later on on a crazy monkey by Rodney King. And then that pretty much was quite aligned with the stuff I was reading on uh uh on a constraint-led approach. So over the years I've been you know working and bombarding Nemania for with with this stuff. And luckily I stumbled on on the on the group of coaches of you guys recently, and um the constraint-led approach actually gained traction online with uh Echo, particularly in the BJJ, and luckily in combat in striking sports. So um, and since since then, again, I was helping Nemanja Milosevic to kind of organize everything, methodology, and again, it's still work in progress, uh, as you notice in uh in our WhatsApp group. Um, I'm trying to wrestle with the stuff that that you guys are wrestling with, like try to create some type of uh tools or methodologies to help the coaches to actually design better practices, if that makes sense. So that's like a long story compared compressed. Well, it had to be kind of long because you you've been everywhere, huh?

SPEAKER_01 5:41

You've done everything so far. So that's great. Um, yeah, being all around. Yeah, good. Um, so you mentioned skill acquisition here a few times and applying it to MMA. I have my core problem. I think I kind of shared that with Rory and whatnot, but what what do you see as being the central problem of effective MMA training and preparation?

SPEAKER_02 6:03

I I think that we have these ideologies and the people tend to switch one ideology with another. So you guys are already familiar with the technique dominant style or traditional style, where the coaches assume there's like ideal technique or isolated technical move that needs to be practiced, isolated, and then somehow it gains transfer to the combat chaos. So that's like let's call it a traditional approach or information processing approach, where you actually drill um a particular solution with unopposed opponent until it's you know you gain like motor stereotype, as it's called. So that's one ideology. And then the other will be echo, saying that you know, you don't need to do any, there's no ideal technique, there's no nothing, you just need to put some person in a chaos, and then eventually the technique emerges. And I think these two are like uh extreme positions that we need to kind of combine intelligently or wisely, because I think both are right in a way, one more or less, but uh I think we can you know take some of it from from both perspectives. So I'm not I'm not kind of extreme in a viewpoint. I'm trying to figure out okay, um, maybe with some of the athletes we do need to kind of drill with the unopposed practice if that makes sense, rather than doing everything ecological. So um I think the coaches fall for some type of um a story, a narrative, or theoretical narrative, and and they you know they they uh they assume it's uh it's a it's a complete truth about everything. So they they take it as as the religion or ideology. And changing it, changing it, or accepting you are wrong, or accepting you know there's might be a different way, might be problematic for some of the coaches, particularly more experienced coaches. So I I guess the taking the uh the the beginner's mind, the Zen mind, the beginner's mind, the Bruce Lee saying for particularly for experienced coaches uh is uh problematic, but also a potential solution. So I think revisiting some of the theories that someone has is um I think it's a major, major problem that we need to work with. Uh again, revisiting theoretical perspective, but also giving coaches uh practical tools to get the job done and and help them so sort out the you know more practical problems that they stumble on in practice. And we can talk about that a little bit more if if you want to.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Yeah, that certainly resonates with me when maybe getting to too extreme on the one side, because I was maybe a little bit zealous. I I feel I rationalize that by saying, okay, I don't want to mix both. I'm really gonna give this a try and be adhere to the principles as much as possible. But I think I'm softening some of the uh my ideas now that there's a time and a place, and there's always what what's what we're trying to do, right? We're trying to help people. So it's a reminder of me not to be too dogmatic. Rory, what you got?

SPEAKER_00 8:47

I guess my sort of trying to put a the question in my brain together. You mentioned I I know I know Adam, you know, just we've talked about the traditional, and he thinks that you know the traditional approach is the approach that you're sort of describing, lad, and that you know, there is IP and there is uh constraints-led, uh, and that then there is the constraints-led approach or you know, the ecological dynamics that the environment shapes how we put practice designs together and his ideas, and what we're trying to do is just make things as alive as possible. And there are certainly ways to do that better and worse, especially for a beginner. But I guess my my question as you were saying that, you know, you're trying to still are there's no ways to put these traditional approaches in with something that are in a sense somewhat opposed to one another. What why do you s believe that we still need some of that? And then how much of that do you prescribe if I believe we're all on the same page, we're all in a group, you know, we talk about these things, that the environment shapes that the environment and the athlete are one. You know, it is the environment, the athlete is in it, the opponent's in it, and that's supposed to shape our skill acquisition. Why do you need the one? And how much of that would you prescribe uh if they are in a sense opposed to one another?

SPEAKER_02 10:11

So from a that high-level perspective, the theoretical perspective, I think they are opposed. Like two theories cannot be true at the same time. So that that's something that we also read uh and it's been promoting in a C CLA uh books, particularly uh, what's his name? Uh damn, I forgot uh the name of the book. No, uh the the more practical foo. Rob Rob Gray? Yeah, Rob Grey actually wrote that you cannot have these two theories coexisting at the same time, which I I tend to agree with. The thing is that the the the methodologies, something that's lower level, something more practical, that actually it's done in practice. I think these things can coexist. So uh you can you, I mean, I'm we are all three here, like we are CLA guys, right? So we think that you know skills, something that emerges with the interaction between environment, task, and and the athlete, right? Uh so that's our theoretical framework. But I think some some of the uh practices uh that actually come from traditional perspective can be understood from CLA theory. So I think that's the kind of a way to solve that conundrum. So the the apparent like that would be like more uh academic uh dick swinging. You know, this theory is right, this theory is wrong. But as as coaches, you know, I think some of the practices that that you know that that are under these different theoretical umbrellas can coexist and can be understood from uh particular CLA, for example, some type of uh unopposed practice, uh pod work or or heavy bag work can be seen as unopposed practice that are actually working on some type of the needed substances or needed traits that that are underlying uh skill, or can be also used as some type of a differential learning to maybe explore some type of uh movement solutions that you cannot freely explore when you have opposed practice. Would be you'll be penalized, if that makes sense. So, again, I think some of these practices, particularly unopposed or technique work, can be seen and can be also understood from a CLA perspective or ecological perspective, as really, really constrained stuff, where again you are working on either exploratory stuff, trying different, you know, different solutions, particularly from um differential learning perspective, to kind of unlock you know some of your modern solutions, or maybe some type of um figuring out if you if you are unable to have any type of action capability to actually manifest that in a opposed practice, or actually working on some type of physics, let's call it physical stuff or substance stuff. So, for example, uh I like to use the the analogy of the the the big rocks and the jar. You guys are all familiar with with that. You know, if you need if you have a big jar and you need to fill that jar with uh big rocks and pebbles and sand, you put the big big rocks first, right? And then you have a room to put to fit the the pebbles and the sand. So the big rock is is uh opposed practice, the ally practice and opposed practice and uh CLA stuff, echo stuff. But once you have those big rocks, you can still put some uh pebbles and sands inside. So, for example, if if our practice like 80% of uh sparring like, for example, the the shoulder taps or sparring to the body and things like that, I'm I'm I'm checking it like, okay, what's the what I'm developing with that practice and what's what's missing, what I need to supplement or complement. So for example, you are hardly gonna land very, very hard punches in those types of practices. So I think supplementing that with more unopposed practice on a heavy bag or a pad can be helpful to develop some type of um robustness, for example, being able to land or actually receive hard punch. So is it CLA? Uh probably not, but I think it's more can be understood from that perspective, like developing a substance that's needed or that's needed, but it's not targeted or developed much with uh with the echo practice.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Yeah. No, I don't disagree there. I think uh but I think overall is even the the staunchest CLA coaches all admit you know there's there's capacities that we can do out of context, yeah. Whether it'd be in the weight room and stuff. And I just see as padwork being an extension of that. And you're right, okay. I've come over uh way over shot and I'm softening, not because of less conviction and in this side of the spectrum here, but like you said, the theories are incomparable, but there's an enormous uh uh common ground. And I think one of the characterizations of CLA is we just fuck around or we don't tell our students anything, or we'll just let them figure it out. Um, that's that's a misrepresentation. And I think we do it the other way, right? We just uh imagine people shimping up and down the lines and a coach pontificating for a few minutes over all the details. Um, I think what I'm comfortable saying now is it's more of a rebalancing, a reprioritization of of how we're breaking up practice. So as we still, as coaches, we're still telling people things, we're still showing people things, but that just doesn't have quite the same value as the actual interaction. That's where I'm coming back to.

SPEAKER_02 15:03

Yeah, I agree with that. Also, one thing to keep in mind I I like a few statements, is that um coach isn't coaching is not only skill acquisition, there's other stuff that needs to be in in place, right? And additionally, uh I like the uh Kevin Sakor's example, he wrote a book called Constraint. Um he comes from a Russian System background, I think, and but he's also you know someone who's you know leaving the leaving the combat sports as well. So and he he gave one interesting analogy. So if you go to the shooting ground, right, you need to learn to shoot or uh tactical stuff, right? And they're not gonna let you discover the the trigger, how you call it the control, trigger control, or not pointing the gun to people, right? Uh because it's gonna be very costly. So I think from a traditional perspective, you will definitely make a prescriptive instructions what not to do. So it's more negative. Don't point you know gun to people and things like that. So trigger control and stuff like that. Keep your you know, index finger off the trigger, you know, thing things like that. So I think some of these stuff uh needs to needs to have direct instruction in MMA. For example, uh, particularly if you have a large group of people training at the same time, there needs to be some type of uh direct instructions what not to do. So, for example, don't jump guard, don't uh uh you know again you can do that in a match, but if you if you are in a group of a lot of people, jumping guards or or um just jumping on someone's knees or things like that can be you know can create injuries, right? So I think some some of these stuff needs to be directly instructed uh for the sake of protecting the participants. Everything else can can be exploratory.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

I don't see those, but I don't see that, I don't see that as IP. So I see that as setting up safety constraints, and every every drill, everything we do in a room has a safety constraint, and and even if my students have heard it time and time again, I'm gonna repeat the same things. We don't sit on knees, we put people down safely, uh, things of that nature, they fall before you fall. So I don't look at that as traditional coaching. I look at that as setting up a safe practice environment. When I think of traditional coaching, and you mentioned heavy bag and capacity, I think capacity is is if we understand that the heavy bag and even maybe some of the pad work is more about capacity, then that's different than heavy bag and pad work being more about skill acquisition. So I see those as being, again, those being two separate things. Safety always. But to me, you you have to tell them the safety things, but we're not talking about skill acquisition with safety. We're just talking about how can we do this so that no one gets maimed and we can do this every day and everyone's still here tomorrow. So I think the I think that what I what I see is you know the the difference is that the the the CLA and the IP are the traditional being the one on one side and the CLA on the other is that there's this emphasis in a lot of places because I I still see the stripping, Scotty. I I still see the 25 minutes of coaching in a in a in a 45 two-minute hour class and it's coach-centric instead of athlete-centric. So I see that people are still very invested in the bag and the technique and the pad work as helping skill acquisition. And I'm still not so sure. Again, I'm still I'm not trying to be dogmatic, but I'm still not sure if those things are helping us in the skill acquisition because my punches and my footwork and all of that. Some might even say the power shot that I throw is all going to be predicated on that environment and the other person. So capacity hitting something hard is probably necessary. So I know how to make a good fist and land with the knuckles. So, but again, to me, that almost harkens back to safety that when I talk to a student and I'm like, hey, just try and hit with these two knuckles instead of this one, because this one breaks and that little piggy ain't going to market anymore. So things of that nature, again, I don't see it as being a part of a traditional approach. I just see that as if you do it this way, however, you do it this way, but end at this sort of look, you'll be, you'll be safe. And then I still want to put that back into the opposed practice at some level of constraint so that we don't hurt each other, but that I need everybody there. At least I need that other person there to be a part of that environment with me.

SPEAKER_02 19:16

Yeah, I I wholeheartedly agree with that. So that's the that's exactly the thing I was referring to. So the stuff that we actually do bottom up, like uh on a practice, doesn't necessarily imply that we believe in two theories at the same time, if that makes sense. So I think I won't I won't call it the traditional perspective, I would call it the direct instruction. So direct instruction and demonstration for the sake of protecting someone or or developing a capacity. So again, and I wholeheartedly agree with you about the people still doing that stuff because it looks like you know the the army stuff, you know, everybody's you you observe the room and then you see everybody's like doing something and but they are not learning. So so yeah, I completely agree with that.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

So I'm writing down a bunch of notes here. I'm trying to stay on track, but that's a challenge for me. You mentioned uh being unsure, Rory. I think this is what I'm where I'm starting to come around to, right? Is that we have the principles of uh CLA and ECOD that we're always you know actively exploring and learning through direct engagement with the world, right? And what all I'm all what I'm prepared to say now is if we're not doing that, then it's unclear to me. I used to I used to be very much guilty of saying it's a fucking waste of time, but now I'm saying it's unclear to me what that effect has. And I think once you once you break the system apart, the fighter-fighter system or the fighter environment relationship, whatever you want to call it, and you're doing something else. What I'm prepared to say now is it's unclear to me what effect it's having. So I've softened my stance here a little bit. Um does that uh but again, as as a as pragmatic, when I'm scrutinizing my own practice, of course I'm still using some prescription and showing stuff and telling stuff, and people are really stuck. I'm gonna I'm gonna take them out of that just now, just for a couple of rehearsals. But you and on jump to all other places, you're talking about the shrimping and the quantification and the long the road drilling, you're not you're still seeing that. I'm not hearing much of that though. There's this tendency now, and it might be then it might be true, there's this tendency now to kind of kind of wash that away and say, well, we do a little bit of this, and we do a little bit of that, but we'll get right to the the the good stuff right away. But what I'm seeing and what I'm experiencing when maybe I visit other gyms is is not what the general narratives become. So it's really muddy now because traditional coaches are saying, well, it's kind of always re already been doing that, and I don't think they're always being completely honest about half of their practices. And it's fine. I mean, again, we're all trying to figure this out, right? Uh but again, I'm glad back there. It's just unclear to me if you're not doing the thing, what effect is there?

SPEAKER_02 21:36

So we're asking Rory or me? I'm asking you, you're the guest. Okay, so uh I mean we we see we see a trend as you stated that people to to redefine skills. So I think uh there's nothing there's a saying like there's nothing more practical than a good theory, right? So coaches like tend to bitch about uh theoretical perspectives, like uh that's only theory, but they refer to hypotheses, right? Theory is something that you that's a story. That's running back in your head that explains the causal mechanisms of the stuff. So we do this because of that. So even if you don't acknowledge that you have a theory, you're still using theory, similar with eight atheists, right? So they say they don't believe in God, but they act as there is God. So again, without making this like a big stretch. But I think that uh we do need to re-educate some of the coaches uh slowly about what the actual skill is, uh, and then uh how do how do we safely organize the sessions to to actually develop that skill? And I think one of the major uh uh conundrums and and uh very common topic in skill acquisition is the trade-off between learning and performing. So learning when you do these echo drills, the performance doesn't look very neat, doesn't look very clean. So uh there are a lot of errors. It doesn't look technically in a book, you know, uh good, if that makes sense. So the coach is like, oh fucking hell, what I'm doing here, probably. And maybe the the athletes are even questioning themselves. Like, this coach is doesn't explain me anything, doesn't demonstrate me anything, particularly if also the athletes come from a traditional background, like what's being done in elementary school and other coaching practices. So they might say, you know, this guy doesn't know his stuff because he doesn't demonstrate anything to me, he just asks me to kind of spar all the time. So, and there our colleague Daniel Kokora, when he switched to CLA, he said he lost 50% of clients. Because yeah, so people come not only to become fighters, they also come to have this uh fighter lifestyle, right? To to kind of do a cardio kickboxing and and think they are fighters, right? Not everyone training in in in uh in combat clubs is actually looking to become a fighter. So that's something also we need to wrestle with as a as a coaches and also uh owners of uh clubs, how to you know how to deal with that. So and again, it's a work in progress. I don't have a solution to that. Uh again, but definitely doing uh CLA stuff is more fun, right? Because you're more engaged or solving the stuff. But some of some again, some of the athletes, again, it's not only coaches' problems, some of the athletes expect uh for you to demo. I'm gonna give you an example of me coaching my ex-girlfriend in the gym, so you know, doing back squats and stuff like that. She always expected me to correct every freaking repetition. And I'm like, you know, it takes years to develop a perfect pattern, so just freaking relax and you know, you're good enough if that makes sense. You're not gonna get injured, your low back position is sound, your knees is sound, that's what I'm looking at. Everything else is gonna emerge through practice. So you cannot capture perfect you know movement right off the bat. So, and and I think some of these mindsets need to be sorted out with with the athletes as well. You know, what's the practice, what's skill, how skill is developed, what they should expect. You know, there should be and it comes back to this idea uh conundrum between performance and learning. So the idea behind the um hell, what's the name of that framework? Um, you need to find the right balance between performance and and learning. So sometimes the you know, if the performance is great, you're not pretty much learning anything, you're just rehearsing. Again, that has some type that can be used occasionally in in practice. Uh and if if you throw someone in a in a too challenging constraint or or a drill, then the performance will be really, really shitty. And also the learning will be shitty. So, for example, if you if you bring um a beginner to a MMA class and you know you you go full sparring immediately, the the poor lad is not gonna learn anything, it's just gonna cover and it's gonna be in a stress and panic mode, right? So it's not gonna be learning. So we need to find this right balance between finding the right challenge for a particular individual in a group. So I think, again, theoretically that's all sound, but when you have a mixed group of people, you have athletes who want to be fighters, you have athletes who want to be recreational fighters, they want to sweat, you know, lose some body fat, but they want to do it, do it with you know combat sports rather than lifting weights or jogging. As a practitioner, so we also need to juggle these. I call it a bottom-up perspective rather than top-down, you know, theory, principles and stuff. We need to also juggle, you know, the the stuff in front of us, like the different different types of people in the gym, setting up the good uh good environment, and what they need to expect from a practice. And what you what actually skill uh looks like, you know, they need to accept that they're gonna be struggling, but you know, we need to figure out the best progression and regression in some of the drills that we designed, or games, let's call it, that it's challenging enough for the different levels of of people in the in the facility.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

So we would we would call that we would call that scale. Again, if you have a room because all almost all except for one set of classes throughout the week, which we call foundations, I think. Scotty has something similar. It's a beginner, it's we don't call it, it's not like an onboarding class, it's a class that I people go to even after they move into uh a second tier. We have three tiers. So even when they move into that second tier where there's still there's still no face contact for them, chest and shoulders, but it is a class that will also have my fighters in it. And sometimes those people will train with my civilians. Uh you know, we have women in that class, uh, who do jujitsu N MMA, and we you you build this environment where people understand what scaling is. So it's like, hey, if you're brand new to this and you know who you are, uh, you know, you're just gonna stay here. This might be the end of your rep, or this might be the only thing you're trying to accomplish, focus on, see what's available. Uh and then if you know, if you're if you're one of my fighters, then you know, take it a little further and play it out a little bit more. Uh still trying to get them to focus their attention on certain things and see certain affordances. We don't use those words in the room. This is obviously stuff we we say to each other, the navel gazing or the dick swinging, as you said earlier, which I like better. Uh but that room is it's an all-levels class. And then there's only one class where someone has agreed to be punched in the face. And then they go through an onboarding with me, still. Uh, we do a sparring orientation, we understand what we're trying to create, the environment, how we're gonna train. And then if someone who's can face punch goes with someone who can't be face punched, then they go to the chest and shoulders. Again, there's still, I don't, I don't, I don't think there's much difference between those three inches. I mean, some people think there's some difference between three inches, but there's not. We're back to deck swinging over here. What's that? We're back to deck swinging. Exactly. So we we are constantly in the room explaining to people, not constantly, but there's a lot of opportunities in the room or in the Matt chats to say this is what we're doing, this is why we're doing it, because like I said, people are coming from from middle, from age age five all the way up, they've been spoon-fed and spoon-fed. We I've only ever lost one student, and that was a kid whose parents were so overbearing that I tried to save that child but couldn't from their parent. And they left because I wasn't teaching their child enough stuff, uh, even though she was getting better in the room all the time. So it's it's an effort for sure to explain to your students like this is why we're doing this, this is what's happening, and and and then hopefully over they they can do some self-actualization and say, oh yeah, I am getting better. And oh yeah, every now and again I have a question, it does get answered. But then that allows me for you know 99 or more percent of the class to be like alive and and and as representative as possible. And I know Scotty and Adam will have their discussions about penwork and stuff, but outside of skill, I don't think you know there's any skill develop development to be had there, action capacities maybe, but uh it's up to us, like I said, as a coach, to make sure our students understand why we do what we do and why this is overall going to be better. You might suffer a little bit in the short run, but in the long run, you're gonna actually know how to do the thing you came here to learn.

SPEAKER_02 29:21

Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, it we need to have some type of uh theoretical education of the of the students as well, like uh knowledge about, not only knowledge of gets from the two different types of knowing, is knowledge of comes from actual sparring and performing, being embedded in a in a problem, and knowledge about comes from us telling them the you know what's expected, what are the rules, how to scale, as you mentioned. Um, I also like the idea about um uh scaling yourself. Like you, if you like if if I'm more advanced fighter and I'm sparring with with someone who's beginner, that that's a tricky one. And I think these are the problems that we need to help coaches solve, not only you know theory, but you know, how do I how do I design, how do I modify the the games, or probleming as I like to call them, rather than drills, when I have these this type of uh discrepancy between skill levels. And I I think um I think theoretically educating some of the some of the athletes that they need to work on their weaknesses rather than playing on their strengths, particularly particularly on the skill level, is like, okay, I can beat the shit out of this guy, right? With my front jab. So what else can I develop with this oke, with uh with me with my opponent, that's actually helping me to develop skill. So I need to I need to put some type of a constraint on myself, restrain myself, maybe just you know, maybe just in throwing counters, like or counters to the body, or something like that. So I think that needs to be uh told to create this type of a culture, like, okay, I'm I can decide to beat a shit out of the someone who's beginner, or I can make this guy you know learn, but I also can make myself learn to work on my weaknesses. Maybe I switch the stance or or something like that. So I think these these types of talks with the athletes and also particularly the reflective practice after the session, something that I spoke with with the Adam, is useful. Like, okay, what what are you actually working on? Uh so they need to be kind of more involved in uh in a designing the the skill. So as a coach, you set the scene, right? You set the the the the the the training blocks for periods, but they also need to co co-design themselves within those blocks. So we need to put the responsibility of them to actually understand what the skill is and micromanage themselves, right? Okay, what I can be doing with with this guy because you know every time I throw up a jab, I he he catch the jab, right? So I'm like, okay, maybe I just continue throwing jabs, right? And I'm not developing anything if that makes sense. So again, if it's a sparring session, that's completely fine. You you're you want to work on your strengths, but from a skill perspective, skill acquisition, you want to work on your uh weaknesses. So and to do so, you need to handicap yourself uh voluntarily, uh consciously uh you know, handicap yourself to avoid using your strengths and punishing your opponent. So you want to so that's why you you are kind of coming back to this conundrum or like a trade-off between performance and learning. So you need to trade off your performance, looking really good as a fighter. You need to trade off that for shittier performance, but developing some type of uh skill. So I think these are some of the theoretical constructs and concepts that need to be explained to the athletes to get the right mindset for skill acquisition rather than you know just beating shit out of each other.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

Yeah, I agree. I think that's a cultural thing too. And it's you know, we talk about coaching and it's coach this and coach that and coaching next thing, but um, I'm I'm gonna jump around a wee bit here, unsurprisingly. Um, that's what I've tried to develop in my culture. Earlier on, you could just kind of see, you know, if I was putting one of my more experienced people against one of my lesser, you can kind of see the eyes roll. Uh, and I keep reminding them exactly what you're saying. Use this opportunity, use this opportunity where you're gonna be able to do more things and be more creative. And uh tell them all the time if if if you think you're going with a shitty training partner, you're probably the shitty training partner, you know. And and and and it it is a tough sell. Um, I've never had a great success bringing people with experienced training somewhere else. I think for newer people, they get on board with this pretty quick. Uh if they hang around long enough, they're gonna start developing this competence, this sense of competency because there's new people coming in, they're like, oh shit. No, I'm the one winning most of the exchanges. But you point in a minute, you you mentioned on the your framework here the challenge point, which which I use a lot. That's becoming fuzzy to me, Bladin. If I think about certain of my certain athletes of mine, they're just they have such a high tolerance for failure and frustration, and they're just gonna keep dogging it out, and they're making tremendous improvements, and others are just so discouraged right away. So it's hard. I don't think that I think each and every person has a specific challenge point, and that even within that challenge point, that changes from day to day and what they're doing and what their interests are. So I love the challenge point. I use it all the time, but I'm like, I'm I'm I'm not sure I'm any closer to the bullseye.

SPEAKER_02 34:02

Ah that that's uh that's life, that's the beauty of the profession, right? If you have everything sorted out, it will be freaking boring. So it's good that we have problems ourselves that we are working on as coaches. So take you know, look at it from that perspective. Like we we don't have it sorted out, and that's really good. Life is not sorted out, otherwise, we'll be just you know, this is uh Chat GPT script, just follow it. So, as a coach, we constantly have these problems, and that's why it's interesting to be a coach because we don't have everything sorted out. If you think about it, that's what brings us to coaching. Like, okay, these are the problems that I stumble with. How do I solve it? So I think from that perspective, it's it's kind of more motivating than demotivating. So uh it's kind of more irrational perspective, that makes sense. So, but I think that can be brought back to the culture. So, for example, as soon as you get the blue belt in BJJ, you're like, I'm not tapping to fucking white belts anymore. You know, you you you you you lose that beginner mind, if that makes sense. So you're like it looks like okay, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna um uh suffer my performance because I'm gonna look silly if I'm a blue belt and I tap out to a new guy in class, right? So again, that that's a mindset that needs to be changed, if that makes sense. So, like, and I would say like the the more experienced someone is, that might be harder to change, particularly if they come from more performance-dominating club or or something like that, rather than this beginner perspective. Like, I don't see anything wrong, you know, being tapped by uh by a you know white belt and you are uh the purple belt. But as we all know, that's uh really problematic, right? In the in the clubs with with the athletes. Like imagine a purple belt, you spend like five years coaching training, and there's like a guy training for like a two months, and he taps you out, and then all the other all the other guys are like you know, mocking. So I think that's what I say. Coaching is not only skill acquisition, it's also setting up the the good culture in the club about that stuff. Like, what are the expectations, what's the difference between different types of practices. In some practices, you do you want to actually demonstrate your strengths, you want to tap people out. And in some type of practices, which is more exploratory, more skill acquisition, you need to be um you need to be exchanging your performance for skill acquisition. So again, if you are if you're sparring with uh someone weaker than you, you need to handicap yourself in a way that that's creating a challenge for you. So you are getting rid of your strengths, and now the the sparring with someone who's weaker than you becomes challenging for you because you handicapped your strengths, right? You you you remove your weapons, your your go-to stuff. So if you if you finish everyone on uh you know kimura, you then you might say, okay, I'm not allowed to finish someone, a beginner on Kimura. I need to I need to you know get a you know mount position or finish from a mount or finish from a side or something like that. So I think that that needs to be hammered into their heads, yeah. Like you know, every practice, and then also like having like a coach to the athlete talk, something like that. So I again I don't have a solution. I've seen it in football, I've seen it everywhere. It's a it's a couple of problems.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

Well, have a solution for the the different colored belts, just get rid of them. Um as we've done. Um but to your point, here's something I uh it picks up on your performance versus practice, right? So I've just my my my team are training a little earlier in the days and my usual MMA spaces, I'm bringing on like a new cohort, so I'm bringing it down to more of a foundational level. So we're doing a ton of shoot box iterations, and that can be light to the head or the shoulders or whatever. But I want them constantly shooting. So sometimes I'll say I'll put them in a small space, I'll say you have to shoot, or you have to shoot so many times. But there's especially at this stage, I saw explaining the other night that with some of the athletes, there's can be an avoidance, avoidance to shoot and avoidance to get shot on. And I keep saying them. This is practice. You I don't give a shit how ugly the shot is, keep making the shots and let yourself get shot on because you can see this when neither side are wanting to commit, they're just so far away from each other because they don't want to lose the game. So I I totally agree when athletes can start internalizing somewhat that we're here at practice, and failure is is every bit as important as the successes. I think we can encourage them to take more chances, and out of these chances, they're going to get more experience and more reps of that experience, and that's where the development comes from. So there's a lot of this avoidance, um, and I've done it myself. And again, it comes back to the nature of the person, you know, the the traits and the personality and the dispositions of the athletes themselves. But you can well you can see it when someone's engaged and they're not too worried about winning every single game and and they're happy to put themselves in tough positions. I mean, the the difference in development rates is is profound.

SPEAKER_02 38:24

So that's why I think we need to differentiate between different types of practice. And I'm I'm wrestling with this topic as well. So practice to learn is a practice where you actually want to be challenged, you want to um you want to accept the mistakes, right? The mistakes are accepted, acceptable, and the punishment for mistake, rather mocking or or um or being hit is not hard. So you are you are you are free to explore and get punished for exploring. I wouldn't say punished, but awarded for exploring, right? Low consequences what I yeah, exactly. That's the word I was looking for. So low consequences for errors. So that's a practice to learn. You want to you want to try different things, you want to step into the unknown, right? And you know, you you don't want to be punished for that. So that's a practice to learn. Practice to transfer would be more costly, like the the errors you make is gonna cost you more. So naturally, you will tend to risk less. So you want to stick to your strengths rather than try to develop your weaknesses, and that's a different type of practice that's again needed. That's a periodization, right? So that's more for like fighters peeking into a match or having this type of session once in a while, so you can check what's being developed under a you know more real-life stress, right? And that way, in in those types of practices, that needs to be clearly communicated is that okay, you do not want to be in that position because you're shit in that position, right? You're gonna lose in practice to transfer. So you want to maybe get away from that by you know using your strengths. Practice to learn, you do want to be in that position because you you you want to develop in that position. So, again, different types of practices juggle with different types of costs, working on strengths or weaknesses and so forth. And and coaching is finding the right balance for a right individual and a team and so forth. So, I also think, particularly from the agile perspective, agile priorization perspective, it occasionally, once in a week or two weeks, we need to have this type of uh test sparrings where you actually want to demonstrate your strengths, right? That's gonna be useful for multiple purposes. It's gonna be useful because you you need to demonstrate what you learned under the stress, and it's gonna be very useful to you figure out what I need to be doing next, you know, as a coach or as an athlete, you know, where did you struggle with and so forth. That's gonna give you direction for a next iteration. And it's also gonna be useful because they need to be thinking they know the athlete, they know they're gonna be tested, so they're gonna stick to uh training, so they're gonna be more invested in training, if that makes sense. So imagine now we have a fight schedule in three months. I'm gonna be more strict with my diet, more strict with my you know training and stuff like that, rather than being open-ended. So I think having these designated testing sessions, which can be, again, questionable, but can be open maths or something like that. I'm not not sure I'm a big fan of open maths, but it needs to be kind of more constrained. But these can be recorded, and then you can you you know you can let the athlete actually express the the strengths, if that makes sense. So in that case, you want them to be actually demonstrating what they are good at rather than you know working on the weaknesses. So there's a time for the A game, but it's selling out every day. Definitely, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think that would be like 10% of practices because it's gonna be costly, it can be emotionally costly, not only physically. Like you know, you you get dominated or you need to get into that more fighting mode, if that makes sense, which is useful. But again, if it's all the time that what we are doing, you need to get in a kill or get killed mode. I think that's gonna be practically very drainful emotionally, not only physically, but you know, and kill or get killed is not a great mental state to actually learn stuff, right? So it's it's uh it's you're gonna stick to what you do best, and you know, you're not gonna go into the unknown to to figure out what you you know what you need to be developing and actually developing that stuff. So it's sharpening the saw versus sewing, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 42:06

Well, Rory, you've been in plenty of these rooms, right? And I don't think we would deny that they can occasionally occasionally pop out a survivor that's extremely well confident, but there's usually a graveyard of potential that probably got battered out of the sport. You want you you want anything to add to that, Rory? I mean, I heard you tell drain up the biggest ass whooping I ever took was uh when I was only a couple years in, I went down to Militic with Duke Rufus and had a few rounds with Rory Markham a week out of UFC fight, he beat the absolute shit out of me. There wasn't much learning on going on there other than I ain't going back to fucking Militic.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

No, I think I think the the the room where you know where it's like said either beaten, it's the which I I talk about these things in terms of consequences. Like if the consequence for you making a mistake is dire, where people are throwing with heavy, with you know, with malice and intent, uh, you know, then then you're not you're not gonna try anything. And there's some need for that to determine your, I guess, mental fortitude, maybe before walking into a cage, but it's still definitely not the same environment as people screaming, your family around and all those things. So it's still even hard to create that, but at least the the pressure that's put on you, the anxiety that it presents is is similar, if not exactly the same. But you're not gonna, you're not gonna, you're not gonna learn. You know, there has to be, there has to be environments where if you fuck up, you don't suffer for it, you acknowledge it, you know, you get hit still, you know, you acknowledge it and then you hopefully learn from it and you're willing to play and like I said, play with the footwork, play with slipping because you're not as good at moving your head and maybe you're really focused on trying to not just slip punches, but both slip and counter, which you know to me is like the highest uh expression of of of boxing or or fighting is my ability to you know to to counter in the middle of you doing something. Uh but you you won't do any of those things in a room where you're being killed. And we see men see, I don't see that in my So very often because we don't I like to think that we have a pretty good culture of care, but I I watch other people talk about having a need to be in rooms full of killers, you know, rooms full of killers. You hear that being such an important part of people's training camps, room full of killers. And I'm like, you've been doing this for five or more years, and you have not improved in your in your skill set at all. You're tough, but you were always tough, and that's why you've been doing this for as long as you have. You've been fighting as long as you have, but you have not improved. You're striking, you're wrestling, you're grappling is still the same. Every now and again that works for you, and every now and again it doesn't. You make for exciting fights, that's awesome. But how many people get washed? You know, I think about how many people in the early days when we were the hardcore gym, when we didn't know any better, and we were just a room full of guys beating each other up, so to say. How many people were thrown into that? And and maybe over time they could have gotten to a place where they were more comfortable, but you never gave them that opportunity. We weren't trying to be dicks, but that's just kind of how we trained a little bit more back then. Now, building people up, letting them sort of get comfortable, you know, chest and shoulders. Then there's a little head contact later on, being in a culture of care, getting hit but not being killed, being concussed, being nose broken, all those things. I don't know if everybody's ready for that right away. Some people are, and you recognize that very quickly, but some people can be later. And then when you figure all that out, you still throw them into a cage and you're like, yeah, I was wrong about all that. This just isn't, this just isn't for you. Great in a room, you're not great, you know, practice player as opposed to game player. And then sometimes the opposite, you get the the game player, but not the practice player. Uh, and and being able to figure all that out, you know, takes some time. And unfortunately, sometimes you figure that out by watching a dude, you know, get his ass handed to him and then you feel terrible about that. But some people, you know, bounce back from that, and then others are like, I'm not, this is not for me. I don't feel like putting in this time, effort, energy. If if the end result can be, then I'm gonna get my, you know, I'm gonna get beat up. And then, you know, and that's okay also, but consequences, uh, dire consequences do not make for increasing your skills at all. And I agree with that wholeheartedly. It just becomes dangerous to try and to try and get better in a room where it's either be eaten.

SPEAKER_02 46:05

I uh have a kind of note or a question also um regarding a talent. So I tend over the years I tend to say like rather than trying to identify the talent, we want to avoid screwing up the talent, if that makes sense. So, in that way, you you want to have fighters who who like to train, who like to fight, but they don't want to actually go on a match, if that makes sense. They they they're they don't have this skiller instinct, they don't like it, right? So they they enjoy uh skill acquisition, they enjoy having a hard session, but they're not interested at all in fighting. And you will lose that guy. Again, you might say, what's the use of that guy for me as a coach if he's not gonna be a fighter? But he can be a again, this might be like a touchy-filly stuff, right? So he can become a better person, maybe motivate someone else who might be a fighter and so forth. So, again, maybe we as a coaches and a club owners need to ask ourselves, like, what's what's the purpose of the club? Is it to create fighters or not? So I think this this way of not screwing the talent is the best way to develop talent. So you develop talent by not destroying talent, or not, you know, if someone who's who can be a good fighter but might be a little bit, you know, um shy, let's call it like that, might be discouraged in in participating in fighting because you know, all this you know, testosterone stuff, right? In in a traditional perspective. But maybe a question for you guys, like, and I'm actually I'm quite happy to to to to hear the stuff you are saying and in the group and so forth, because it it seems to that this perspective, particularly if you talk to about the more traditional coaches, is more like a let's call it like pulsification of the fighters, right? You know, removing this, like I'm gonna kill you, you know, perspective. And might be more touchy-filly, like more soft side of coaching, more softening of the fighters and destroying this warrior spirit. But I don't think so. Like, I I see it as like uh we're gonna get more people involved because it's not kill or get killed, they're gonna feel safe, and more likely we're gonna have talent emerging by not destroying talent, but by bringing up the baseline level much, much higher, like a baseline fighting level, more people gonna be involved because it's fun, it's enjoyable, and then more people who are real fighters gonna pop out rather than you immediately you know cutting people who are more shy or more or they don't have this killer instinct. So, how did you like did you did you got this kind of uh critique of you know, let's call it pacification of the fighters?

SPEAKER_01 48:27

Like, how did you wrestle with that? I'm still wrestling with it because in some sorry, I'm still wrestling with it a little bit because I can't solve the I can't solve the brawler problem. I can't solve the brawler problem in the gym, it seems, because it goes against my kind of ethics and my duty of care, right? So I can't have them just someone just trying to absolute swing and knock you the fuck out with every single punch. And that's what we see a lot at the amateur level of fighting. But I also have mixed results because I've got a couple of guys, they they all the guys for the most part train the same and they've all come through primal, and some are just fucking animals when they get in the cage. So I don't know how much of that is learned, I don't know how much of that is in it. Uh I don't know how much meaningfully you can change that in the room. So I'm it's unclear to me. But to your point about if we can bring more guys up and maybe not discourage them or or push them out the door too early, then we have more lottery tickets, so to speak, that will find that that kid that takes all the boxes.

SPEAKER_00 49:23

Yeah, we've we've I've always been of the mind, first of all, I when I talk to my guys who move into that warrior, we call it warrior, and those are the guys who will get hit in the face, and those are the guys who want to come on Saturday mornings, spar for 30 minutes before class or come into our Tuesday night training, which is again a higher intensity, a little bit more, a little bit more banging, although still very safe. Uh I don't care who that person is. If someone wants that level, level of intensity, then great. But when I ask them if they want to fight when we do our sparring orientation, and they're like, no, I just want, you know, just want to put this to test. I just want to test myself, I just want to train with the guys, been doing this level. I just want a little bit more. Cool. I'm like, never gonna ask you if you want to fight ever again. And I tell them, square, I just write their face, I don't care if you ever fight, I'd rather you not fight. I I don't, we don't have a fight team. We don't have fighters, we have martial artists who fight. So one of my amateurs who's very good, one day says to me, and he started a business, just graduated college, he started a business. He's like, don't really think I want to fight anymore. So my as a coach who's been doing this for 30 years as a business owner, I'm like, okay, he's he's about to tell me he's gonna leave. So I just I catch my breath. I think we're texting, and I just said, just answer this. Are you going anywhere? Are you still gonna coach with one of my coaches? Are you still gonna coach? You're still gonna train, you're still gonna be a part of this, yes or no? Oh, of course. I love it. I'm not going anywhere. I'm still gonna be there on Tuesday nights, which is where he'll be the most valuable uh, you know, to the guys who are fighting. Then I'm just like, I don't, I don't give a shit. I don't, I don't, I'm not, I'm not raising fighters. I'm trying to make, as my friend Paul Sharp once said, I'm trying to make good people more dangerous to bad people. And we happen to do that through the vehicle of combat sports, from three-year-olds learning how to roll around on the ground until, you know, my 50-year-old and six-year-old men and women who are still doing something very active and important for their well-being. And hopefully if the shit ever does hit the fan, they'll be better off than a person doing, you know, bullshit. Uh, so I don't I don't battle with that at all. I have a room on a Tuesday night, you know, Adam coaching on a Tuesday night, where half the room has never fought. Some folks in that room have fought and made and and don't fight anymore. And the the ones that never fought, most of them probably don't even want to fight anytime soon. And I'm okay with all of it. Those people are still just as important to my culture and just as important to that room because we can't be and we can't be in the gym by ourselves getting better. You know, that's how I always try and develop that that that culture of care with my kids. Like we've got to take care of each other. Because if you come here one day and it's just you, good luck getting better at this thing that we're doing. So we all need to be there. And some people serve a very big purpose of just helping people get ready. They're really good, they're really skilled. You want to train against those guys a couple of times during the month, uh, you know, like it is when it's sort of more of your A game. So I just I allow people to self-select if that's what they want. And then it's my opinion, I about this with Adam a lot, that I'm not sure there's anything you can do in the room to create an environment that is gonna get some people prepared for the cage because some people are just not mentally able to be in that environment. And even if you create it in the gym, I still think when it gets to the cage, it's still, no matter how how close you create it, outside of doing a smoker, which would not be created in that environment, that's a fight. I just don't think everyone has what it takes mentally. There's eight billion of us. We all can step in a cage and fight. It's just it's it's silly to think that that's possible. Some people are really good in the room, not good in a cage, vice versa. And some people just they're not not, we all can't be fighters. I don't know if there's anything you can do about it. You can't we can't shape this. I don't think we can shape this in the environment. The thing we do is to give someone who has confidence, maybe some more confidence, but you either you either are ready to step to the scratch or you're not. And I don't know if there's really much we can do about that. We we can ruin it in the beginning, like you said, Milano, we can ruin it in the beginning by throwing up somebody into a sparring class day one, breaking their face and being and then being like, well, fuck this. Uh that we can do, it's like parenting. If you're just a good parent and you have a good home life for your child, then they're either gonna be good or bad based on them to some degree. You can fuck it up for sure. But if you just get out of the way and just provide support and love and nurture and care, then we hope they're gonna they're likely to just be good kids. They're not gonna be the kid that maybe you want them to be because you don't have that much control over it. And if we believe that about parenting, then I just take coaching and parenting, they're they're very similar, two sides to the same coin in a sense. Not every child, not every athlete is gonna be ready or able to step into the cage, have it closed, and perform. And uh sometimes it doesn't matter how many times they do that, they're just never going to perform.

SPEAKER_02 53:57

I think that's a healthy philosophy of a coach. So um, as a coach, I think we need to define what what meaning, what winning means to us. Like, where do we succeed as a coach, where do we fail as a coach? And unfortunately, a lot of coaches define themselves successful or winning by only creating fighters or champions, and not doing so uh can be problematic on their value as a person, if that makes sense. So they they they they say, okay, if I don't create fighters, I'm not valuable as a coach or as a human being. So that can be probably not very healthy coaching philosophy. So that's what I said. What do we what do we want to achieve as coaches? Like, do we want to create fighters or not? So I think you you need to get also Nemanya Milosevic here on the podcast. Uh, hopefully his English is gonna be okay for that. But uh he he I don't think he actually enjoys going for uh uh to the cage with fighters, like he he prefers coaching people. So I think what winning for him means is you know, as you said, improving skill or actually enjoying coaching someone, regardless if someone's gonna be a fighter or not. So he enjoys coaching complete beginners the same way he enjoys coaching high-level athletes or kids. But then at the end of the day, we also need to think about financial stuff, right? We need to get some food on the table, right? As a as a coaches, and again, this is um tends to be problematic. So as soon as this hobby of ours, let's call it hobby or or a passion, becomes job, there are some nuances that emerge, right? So you need to fight for funding or percentages and things like that. So unfortunately, some for example, again, I'm not expert in that. Uh, in in ex-Yugoslavia countries here in the Balkan, boxing clubs tend to get they are funded by local government or government, right? So you get money from sport, like a sporting or sporting um organ um union, so let's call it like that, like a Ministry of Sports or something like that. Like um, and then you get money based on the results. Did that make sense? So, or appearances on on fights or uh tournaments. So they tend to push beginners early on to appear on the fight so they get more money, or they can claim to stay paid or and survive as a club or as a coach. So I again, bottom-up perspective is like how do we wrestle with our coaching philosophy in enjoying or having a passion by coaching people, making them better fighters rather than creating champions? And how do we get paid for that stuff? So I I think that that's sometimes maybe even more to answer than answering like is CLA and technique technique uh perspective more compatible or not. So I think at the end of the day, you need to you know bring food, bring food on the table by coaching someone, and then how do you wrestle with you know how do you wrestle with your passion versus work, if that makes sense. So I don't know how you guys sorted this out. Like um I I personally sorted like I make money by selling stuff online, right? So education, products, and things like that. And coaching-wise, if I if I ever go back to coaching, I will prefer it to be unpaid, if that makes sense. So I would uh I think working pro bono, yeah, working pro bono, yeah. Sometimes like I I have this uh example from uh other coaching. It's like, would you rather work for free or being underpaid? We we all say, like, I would rather work for free because it feels like work pro bono because it feels I'm I'm I'm doing a good deed. Where if you're underpaid for stuff you do, like stuff that you spend years and years learning, then you feel like uh being cheated. So in my in my opinion, it's better to work for free than to feel like shit by being underpaid. And this brings me back to this concept of you know being passionate and versus working. Uh, for example, we have uh pretty much most of the high-level track and field coaches, for example, Charlie Francis, um Anderson, who's a close friend of mine, he's from Sweden. That they are not they are professional coaches, but their money comes from different stuff. Uh, Charlie Francis was uh I think working in the banking industry. Hokan Anderson is a firefighter, so they coach athletes purely from passion rather than you know getting paid for coaching. So again, something that that's a conundrum to be answered. Like, but particularly when you start engaging more with and and and combat sport become more professionalized. When you start working with athletes who are appearing on in UFC or other organizations, how do you get a cut? Do you get the cut? How to organize this stuff? Like, you know, so I'm I'm again, I'm I don't have a solution to that. I'm I'm interested in hearing your your perspective. Like, how do you wrestle with that stuff?

SPEAKER_01 58:33

Can I Scott? I just want to say job job your love, boys.

SPEAKER_00 58:37

I I I don't I don't wrestle with that. Uh job your love. Adam and I don't wrestle with that. Uh I said I the meant the the the framework created in the gym is that you are a student who will then go on to fight. So when one of my athletes, and I've only got now three pros, uh, you know, starting off back in the day when we had many of pros and were considered one of the top gyms. Uh I now I have three. And I don't I don't touch their money. I we I don't take coaching fees. If they if they go get management, great. Uh I don't really manage them. If they need my help, I'm there to help just because I've been in the game for a while, but I don't manage them. They can find management. I know management's gonna take a certain percentage. I'm just like, you're gonna continue to pay your membership. You are a student getting coaching. And if you get into the big show, like I said to one of my fighters, I was just like when he went pro, uh, he was one of the first to go pro in this new crop of kids we've been we've been uh working with. I said, listen, I don't want your money. This is such a small window of opportunity for you here. It could be large, could be Jim Miller and have like 900 fights in UFC, or your fucking knee could blow out, you don't even have health insurance. So who knows what's gonna happen to you? So make as much money as you possibly can. If you ever get on a card and they can fly me out, then fly me out. And guess what? If they can't, I'm still gonna figure out a way to go. If you ever make a lot of money, buy me some epinephrine because that shit's expensive. You know, like I don't I don't want your money. I don't, so except like you talk about how do you get paid? I I just I don't deal with anyone. I used to even have a management company uh, you know, that managed me and then we manage some other guys. I just you get you will get fucked at some point by one of your guys. So I just don't want to be involved in any of that. And if one of them makes a hundred thousand dollars, good. Go buy your fucking house, put a down payment on it because that could be the last fight you ever have. Or if you're gonna fight for five and five and lose, I don't really need your $50 fucking dollars if it's 10%. I don't I don't care. Again, if you ever make enough money where you can pay some of this back, then awesome. And if you can't, then you've been a member of my tribe, you've been a student of mine, you've been paying a membership to get the coaching that we agreed on in the first place. I'm good. I'm good. So I have a I have a commercial gym that also has the ability for people to become professionals, whether that's low or high level, is to be determined. Because right now they're all you know amateurs of low-level pros. So we'll see what happens. But I just removed Adam and I just removed ourselves from anything financial and not respecting it. I think it just it just makes it so much easier.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:05

So let me give you an example of how it works in in football or soccer here. So if you have a kid, like kid starts and signs, actually signs for a club, grassroots club, and then like he spends in that club for like uh five years, ten years, and ended up being sold as a slave to a bigger club, right? Like later down in a career. So the football association set up some type of a percentage fee, how how much time he spent in a given club, and and that transfer fee needs to be distributed to previous clubs. So what what we have here is that we have big clubs here fighting for young talents. Uh and again, I'm not saying that's a healthy, I'm just you know observing what's happening. So uh again, I don't have a solution. So in a way, I in a way I like the uh American system with the college-based sports rather than professional clubs like we have here. I I think that can be again, both systems have pros and cons. I'm not sure I have a solution, but it's very hard to change things here. And luckily, luckily or unluckily, combat sports are still unpaid, particularly MMA. It's becoming bigger and bigger here. So some of the agencies are popping up, as you mentioned. But for example, boxing is is amateur sports that's paid by government, like they they have some type of a budget for clubs in a given sports, and as I stated, the budget increases as you get successful. So if you want to, you know, you need to be successful first to get the budget from government. So imagine you're like a ice ice skater or something like that. It's fucking there's no ring here, right? Or hockey. So it's very hard to get money from government. So again, not sure what's the what's the you know top-down versus bottom-up perspective. Like, I'm a capitalist, particularly. Like I like, I'm like, leave me alone. I'll try to sort it out this out myself. Like, don't don't you know step on my head like as a government, leave me alone. But I think some of the sports might need a governmental help if that makes sense. For example, skiing or like you know, ice rink in a freaking Florida, not gonna happen without the governmental funding. So that needs to be some type, some some way kind of uh trying to find sorry, English word, um, needs to be the results from that funding needs to be seen, if that makes sense. So so the the the mentality of the coaches might change in that perspective. So if you if if you if you get a cut from that governmental funding as a coach, uh you might be pushing uh that uh you know kill or get kill mentality, like you might be pushing kids to perform very soon. I don't think that's kind of healthy in a way, but in some sports it's actually needed, unfortunately. So again, might be outside of this perspective, uh maybe talking as a ministry of sports or something like that. But uh again, uh we don't have that problem yet in MMA, I would say. So we have more like uh uh private clubs and things like that. So I don't know how some some of the clubs get a payment. Uh Neman Yamiloswich is very aligned with your with your philosophy. So he doesn't take any cut. So he just you know pay your membership fee, and that's it. So I'm gonna coach you anyway. I'm gonna help you with the fight. So he's very, very aligned with your perspective. Um and again, uh is that the best way for a sport to move forward? I don't know from you know from governmental perspective or not. I will I will I will prefer to stay uh small and agile, like a small club. But again, if more people are brought into your club, like how do you how do you grow without becoming cancerous, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:34

So that itself can be you know it's interesting because these constraints, you know, whether it's funding or your your your funding's directly attached to results, you can see the inevitable consequences of that, right? Fucking dirty matchmaking and cheating and all this kind of stuff. So it's crazy how uh how complex it is. But I agree. So for the most part, my I I'm passionate. I want to see if we can first of all, I need to get the right guys to walk through the door. If the right guys don't walk through the door, I don't think your training methodology methodology matters that much. Um, but luckily for me, my bread and butter, and the same with uh Rory, is that I actually love teaching the beginner classes. I'm not sure if you do that, Rory, but I teach all the I lead all the foundation classes because there's nothing more rewarding to me to see the rapid development in the first couple of months in students, and then that kind of middle round. So during that coordination period, I just think it's wonderful. Like you can almost see it happen overnight, some of this development. And then they get into that kind of longer kind of control stage. So I I play around mostly both ends of foundations, which I really love, and then work among the fighters. The middle round, the middle that that middle development stage um that's obviously as important, um, but you're not quite seeing these big jumps. Uh that's generally my other coaches that lead these classes. Okay, that's okay, no, no, uh please finish your comment because I want to uh and I'm not sure how long I've got you for. I want to um talk about agile periodization. What is your bag?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:56

So I'll just jump in with uh quirk. Uh But don't uh love your job, job your love. I think it's bullshit. As soon as you start jobbing your love, then this stuff starts to emerge, right? You need to have your uh what's you know what's making you happy as a coach, like making money, making a or just enjoying working with people, making them more skillful, or just you know, being there with with the with the with the making people more prepared, if that makes sense, regardless of the results. So I think that's a healthy coaching philosophy to have. Unfortunately, sometimes it cannot bring food to your table. So we need to figure out a way to again jobbing your love with without losing your love in a process. So it's it's tricky. So again, I like to talk to coaches who who are passionate about what they do, uh, and also make you know make a living out of it. Um, or they're not only motivated by making a living, right? So you know they don't destroy their passion. So it's always good to hear you know perspectives. And I'm really happy to have you guys in in a in a group, particularly with this you know more soft perspective of skill acquisition and then combat sports, and it's it's a breath of fresh air. So I'm I'm happy to know you, and I'm happy to be involved in in a in a CLA group. So really, really appreciate the the the the knowing of you guys and uh the WhatsApp group that we have. Oh, likewise, it sounds like you're it sounds like you're ready to leave now. You're going to talk to you. Agile periodization, like it's uh quick intermezzle. So yeah, agile agile periodization is uh you know it's a work in progress. So um I stumbled accidentally on it, actually. Um I've been and the coach has been wrestling with this concept all the time. Like um, we tend to assume that the human being is uh a machine that's predictable, so the the results of our intervention coaching effects will be predictable, but eventually it's it's not, you know, things change, you know, people get injured, um, you know, you you you see stuff work or not, and so forth. So I was in Qatar actually, and I was reading a book uh called a scrum. It's it's a book about the um project management in the IT industry. And I was reading that stuff, and the the the author, um I think Sutherland it's called, uh, is talking about the uh project management philosophies, and he compared this traditional, it's called a waterfall period waterfall perspective or waterfall uh project management, tends to work very well in in complicated complicated domains, for example, building a house or building an airplane or something like that, which is more complicated but it's predictable, versus working in the i IT industry where you have the the features might change, the the needs of the users might change, and so forth. So but we are trying to put a square peg in a roundhole, right? So people have been using this waterfall method in managing IT projects, and it it failed. So they come up with this agile perspective.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:43

I'm sorry, I'm I'm curious about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:44

Can you explain what the waterfall uh waterfall is like uh stage one, then you finish, and then stage two. It's more like a linear model, yeah. Linear model is more like upfront sequential planning. So you have like a sequence that needs to be fulfilled. And I was again reading that, and I was like, fucking hell, this is how we work in in sports. Same thing. So we we suffer from this industrial age perspectives, and but real coaching is more unpredictable, so we need a different model to do so. And I'm not the first to identify the there's a great I call it archaeological work by uh uh John Kylie, he's uh Irish and he's also from Combat Sports, he's a he was a competitor in kickboxing, he's a professor in in Ireland somewhere, I think. He wrote multiple papers about this stuff, and he actually created uh a nice archaeological work pinpointing to the works from uh from industrial age called the scientific management by Frederick Taylor, or called Taylorism. Taylorism, yeah, yeah. Taylorism, which been very, very influential on Soviet scientists and Soviet um communists in designing this uh Soviet system of you know planning, uh, and that affected the coaches. And then this Soviet perspective also affected the Americans. So everything kind of revolved about this tail tailorism. So Taylorism was affecting the way we plan in in sports.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:57

Can I ask you a question about Taylorism? Uh was that was he charged with uh uh was his endeavor to kind of um system help me everybody systemize systematically? Uh yeah, that's not the word I was trying to say, but I'm not gonna try again. Um the the learning process, like for the industrial age to improve industrial productivity.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:17

I think he affected the Ford Ford production line and things like that. So we're trying to so I didn't mean to take you off track, yeah, yeah. Squeezing the you know just repetition, repetition, repetition. And I think we can maybe find some uh connections from Taylorism to the traditional perspective on scale acquisition, just banging the perfect stuff all the time, right? And again, there's another model uh um called a uh Cinefin or Kinafin model from uh Snowden. He classified different problems in in quadrant. So um we have simple problems that you know, simple stuff. You you you you you know define a problem and there's a clear solution to that. We have complicated stuff that demands some type of expertise. For example, building a house, building an airplane, building a factory, right? So that's complicated, but it it's predictable, it's linear, so it's just you know complicated sequences. And tailorism works for that stuff, like very complicated domains, this waterfall planning. So when you build a house, you you you have certain sequences that need to be fulfilled. But then you have complex domain, it's like the interaction between stuff is unpredictable. So this planning strategy doesn't work in that domain, and you also have chaotic stuff, is like which is you know much, much, much more unpredictable. For example, just you know, fire starting right now. That that that will be or a war or something like that. So the the management or planning needs to be suited for a particular problem at hand. And we have seen coaching and and um and working with athletes as complicated domains, like building a factory. So that's the effect of Taylorism of on our planning perspective and previsation when working with the athletes. There are some elements that that are very linear, but most of the stuff working with the athletes is this complex domain. And again, skill acquisition and all this CLA ecological stuff actually comes from this complex uh complex stuff, complex systems, right? And one way of me trying to sort this out was actually framing all this into the agile priorization. So rather than waterfalling, I I kind of use the stuff from the IT, IT industry, which is more complex, and then saying, okay, this makes sense to be applied to performance domain. So I I use a bunch of stuff from Scrum, Lean, and uh DevOps stuff um and apply it to planning, uh working with the athletes. So again, agile priorization is just a framework of using the agile methodologies and apply it to uh working with with the athletes. So that's like a big picture over you, right? And I can talk about it for like a two hours.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:41

No, no, well, well, well, I want you to talk about it. Um, so and that was interesting to me. I'd heard of Taylorism before and whatnot, but how you were mapping that on. And I I think I'm a little embarrassed here. I should have read more of your work. I got so much going on, but the agile to me was always like implying that we're talking about agility, but you're talking about the the the agile pieces is being able to adapt.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:02

Uh it's more like uh how do I make decisions in uncertainty when when I cannot really predict what's gonna happen. So um in science we have this right evidence-based stuff, which help us figure out what's what's what's gonna happen on the average, right? What's gonna happen on the average athlete. But when you work one-on-one with some of the people, they're gonna be they're gonna be have having something that's called heterogeneous effects, the the variable effects of training. So, you know, if you if you put this quotation mark same training on multiple individuals, they're gonna respond differently. And even myself are gonna respond differently to, again, same training. It's very hard to define what same means, depending on my context. So I might have um you know a fight with my girlfriend, sleepless nights, and then the same workout is gonna be creating different effects on me, versus if I have like a good night's sleep, well fed, well rested, so it's gonna be different. So I think and that's really, really hard to predict in advance. So I think the way we plan now is is like avoid too much planning up front, like this Taylorism perspective. Like I plan shitload, and then I just proceed with like 12 weeks plan. So the the better way would be this agile priorization perspective. Like I plan as little as possible, like plan a little bit, and I balance, explore, exploit. So I explore what's gonna happen, and then I watch when I get some a little bit bigger picture, then I might grab on some stuff. So one example would be if I go to a new club, football club or soccer club, I don't know immediately what I need to be as a coach. I need to probe the system with some type of exploratory phase when I I throw things at athletes, see how they respond, and then once I figure out something, then I can uh maybe exploit it a little bit. You guys, are you frozen or not? So I feel like I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:43

No, no, no, no, I'm listening. I'm I'm enjoying what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:46

So so idea is to again, uh there are a few principles under the agile priorization. One of them is balancing the explore exploit processes. Uh and that tends to work with the with the domains that are not very well defined or uncertain. So you need to you always need to have this exploratory stuff happening, uh exploratory processes, not only exploiting, if that makes sense. And that tends to work very well in iterative cycles. So your planning now is in Agile it's called sprints. So these are predefined period of time where you have certain sequences involved in that. So you you kind of uh plan, you you deploy, and then you test, and then you learn from that testing. So you reiterate. So again, it comes back to this idea that we occasionally need to have these testing sessions, hard testing sessions, simulation of the matches, particularly for the fighters, or might be a harder sparring for some some of the athletes who wants to be involved, so they can use that to explore what needs to be done next, if that makes sense. And you know, you cannot predict up front, you need to go through iterations.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:47

So is it fair to say you would use because again, this is something I'm I'm I'm I know is a constant um stick up my ass. Like, do I go towards harder sparring? And what is it? Is it just what's the squeeze? Is it enough? How often do I do it? But you're almost using it as a diagnostic tool.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:04

Yeah, we can we can simulate, for example, particularly for a fighters. We're gonna have they they might have declared fight or there, they might not have a fighting plan yet. But having these sparring sessions, we we we simulate a match. So we have a uh match warm-up, we record it, we have people watching, we have people cheering, and then you you you you you don't wait too long to risk, right? If that makes sense. You you want to fail early uh rather than saving these sessions later on, right? Very close to the match. So you want to you want to stress test stuff. So the athlete, again, it's not gonna be full, full match, but it can be like three times five minutes, like as is. Like approach it as it's a fight. So you have a uh you are fine-tuning all the stuff around fighting, like uh uh nutrition, like even if you need to lose weight, you might actually simulate like earlier to to figure out what are the best practices to actually get to the the weight. Um you simulate the the warm-up sequences. Uh the the instructions, the coach instructions need to be also coordinated between coach and the or the corner and the fighter. The instructions need to be clearer, needs to be more direct rather than try this, try that, you know, as as in a normal skill session. Uh the the the rest period is defined, right? You cannot have any extra instructions. So you are pretty much stress-stress stress testing. So you use that, you use that to learn, right? So you you you you test and then you say, okay, you're not gonna change the whole whole trainings based on a one fight, but it's gonna give you some maybe some insights that you didn't know. So you might say, okay, you know, you struggle with this position or you struggle with that, like may, and then that that might modify the the the next iteration. So eventually over a few iterations, you're gonna come up with something that's good enough. Hopefully that that makes sense. Again, it's it's uh I'm I'm still it's a it's a framework, but it's still in uh you know work in progress. I still have some some type of a principles and trying to fine-tune it. But overall, that's the that's the idea. It's like how do I how do I make decisions, how do I plan when I don't know what's gonna work? So I need to balance explore exploit. I need to balance some I need to use the the best evidence that I have, which is evidence-based stuff, but I don't treat it as truth. I don't treat it as it's gonna happen. I treat it like a the the the plan is just a hypothesis, it's like uh it's an experiment and it's controlled experiment. You're trying to figure out what's gonna work, what's not gonna work. And it's always like a it's always evolving, like the the athletes are changing, and and you know the conditions are changing and so forth.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:29

You made a comment today because I think it was Tobias. He he shared some of the part work he was doing, and um I think as part work goes, this is probably about as good as it gets, right? It was uh uh it wasn't prescriptive, it was very interactive, lots of movement and stuff. Um, and you the quote you used here, you said you would use it for um speaking. Peaking. Yeah, peaking. Maintenance and peaking, yeah. So you explain a little bit about that because this is I think uh correct me if I'm wrong, Rory. The standard is we're gonna have our last hard fucking spar, last practice a week out, and then taper down before that. How does that map onto what you're talking about? Maintenance and peaking.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:03

So I'll give you an example in uh in soccer, football. So uh luckily or unluckily, um, we have matches every week, sometimes multiple matches every week, and then you are constrained how you plan your session, right? You you're having competitions all the time. And uh and this microcycle between two matches have these distinct, I call it micro blocks that are common, like these are a pattern. So you have a match, you have a recovery mini block, particularly again, without going into the details of uh uh of a priorization and planning for a team sports. Uh usually the athletes who played more than 60 minutes have this mini mini recovery block. So that's like a day or two. So usually the the sessions are under that umbrella of recovery. Then they come up, then you have a next match, and then you have like a day or two before that next match, you have a taper or a peaking, and then everything that's left is developmental. So the the loads are more developmental and so forth. So this cycle tends to repeat itself, right? And that um as a beginner coach, I thought that that's a problematic, like that's very hard to develop when you have frequent competitions, but you treat competition as development as well in in football. And then I was thinking how can I apply that to combat sport that have longer season, like more time between fights. And we can we can simulate the fight, right? We can simulate this cycle. Um we have like a recovery, development, taper, fight, or a or a simulation of the match, right? And when it comes to peaking or tapering, um as stated previously, coaching is not only skill development, so sometimes you need to develop uh confidence. So um in combat sports, we tend to increase the the cost and intensities as you come to the fight, but that comes at the risk. So if you if you if you have a cut from a hard session or you get pummeled, right? That's gonna affect your confidence. So like fuck, you know, how you know I got pummeled by this guy and I have a fight and so forth. So uh again, in in that last few bits before a fight, you need to simplify things and and be very um you want to build the confidence of the fighter, and you you you want to increase the success of that fighter, right? In the drills. So you you're gonna do less and less of uh highly costly, unpredictable sparring. So the sessions might become more traditional, more like uh direct instruction. And you want to get a rest, but also you want to have this type of uh uh activation or sharpening or or peaking. So you know, maybe some type of a padwork where they increase the speed can be they feel good, right? So you want to do more feel-good workouts, yeah. And again, that might be might differ from fighter to fighter, right? So again, you don't want to some you don't want someone to get killed by sparring with uh someone who's going into a fight. So maybe some type of a pad work can be helpful, right? They they they increase the speed, they increase the the contact, they get a feeling for a punch, and so forth. So again, I don't have a clear answer to this, right? So I'm I'm again I'm experimenting with this and trying to transfer the stuff I did in uh in a in a football to combat sports. So I think this um we we need to clearly maybe define these types of practices. So in a peaking phase, as I mentioned previously, we have practice to learn, practice to transfer, practice to maintain. I think in a tapering or peaking phases, we want to have more practice to maintain and practice to increase confidence if that makes sense. So the fighter needs to be successful successful at stuff they're doing. So again, maybe maybe doing more unopposed practice can help in boosting confidence, if that makes sense, without getting the the risk of uh uh cost or getting cut or getting uh you know, maybe some load-related stuff or or or or or or or what have you. I don't know. So again, I'm I'm not saying like this is how how stuff needs to be done. I'm kind of making a hypothesis if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. We all are.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:52

I got a question. You you're as you talk about tapering, maintaining, unopposed, as we get closer. The word calibration uh popped into my head. I know it's something that uh I've spoken about with Adam. I think Adam's got to have talked about that before. You know, for instance, uh when my guys fight, they get three corners. One of those is the person that's gonna come with their mouthpiece, their gloves, and their groin guard. And my guys all warm up by fighting each other in the back. We don't hand them pants to warm up. We don't, you know, time penance, none of that. They're they they tell their opponent what they want. Sometimes Adam will have to leave the room so as to not get all anxiety and shit that someone's gonna get hurt before they go out. But my guys fight. It's up to me and Adam and some of the other coaches around to just kind of keep them on pace with, hey, you still got some time. Why don't you just tone it down for a few and then they'll get back up and they'll play some more. So the last few weeks on Tuesday nights, we had done especially well last this past Tuesday, uh, but probably up to about three or so weeks prior to. We we give them 25 minutes to warm up. Just do what you want. This is your warm-up. This is the warm-up I expect you to be having developed to go into your fight, choose your partners. And then uh my amateurs that are doing three threes do three threes. My pro who's doing three fives, there's three fives, and I got a guy who's kickboxing, he's doing three twos. They've all got their different clock, they've all got their different clocks. They choose their own, to choose the partners they want to work with. Those partners know it's not about them, it's about their training partner. Keep it safe. There are some unwritten rules that you're not gonna finish certain things in the room. You will give your partner a chance to escape them and we're gonna be safe. But they're, you know, they're they're getting after it intensely, but they have less intent, obviously, to hurt each other because we're getting near and we can't get accidents. But if we're tapering and we're maintaining and we're doing more pad work and all this, then you're gonna need more time for for that, for that calibration, because you will have spent the last few weeks having not actually done the thing that you're gonna be going to do. So how do you, how do you, you know, where where have we have given any thought to that? That your your your calibration period is now further or less, and maybe maybe that's detrimental because you haven't done the thing that you're gonna go do, you know, take fighting or football for you, whatever. Like, have you given any thought to that?

SPEAKER_02 1:25:11

Uh that's a good question, and I'm not sure I have an answer. I uh I appreciate it. I uh you know that's a valid perspective for sure. So I I tend to attack my uh my hypothesis. Like that's one way to falsify it, right? You you want to attack it from different perspectives. Um I would agree with you, so but I would say a counter question would be how do you deal with potential drawbacks? For example, getting uh uh headbuts, like you know, you try the double leg takedown or you you you try to take a takedown and then you go down, fake uh takedown or something like that, fake the entry, you lift your head and you you slam the guy, you know, just before a fight. So uh I I would I would tend to stick with you know, as you as you said, like uh keeping it, keeping it in in a chaos, uh because that's gonna happen in a match, right? But how do you how do you make sure that they don't do stupid shit? I go like this. Uh go like this. Do you see that? Yeah, great. I I call it uh Ave Maria.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:03

You know, you do the best you can, and then I think part of that's with uh proper partner pairing. It's it's it's working with someone who you know is gonna bring you the energy that you need and and push you. And and again, so you're getting you're still training, you know, your capacity, you're still working hard, you're gaining confidence, uh, and then just knowing certain safety things. Uh and you know, we don't do open, we don't do needs in open space, so that if someone's shooting, you're not needing them, things of that nature. You know, there's certainly there's that culture of care that you are constantly creating uh so that some of those things aren't happening. Some of that's on the athlete to know that you know they're not gonna shoot and then come straight up. You know, that that is a safety constraint we discussed in those shootboxing rounds where we know someone's gonna sprawl or whatever it may be. Hey, when we do this, you you know, don't come straight up. So you you're putting some some constraints on yourself in the room. We then have to hope that you've taken all those out, you know, because we're knocking people out in a cage or we're not knocking people out in the room. But yeah, that's that's that's certainly part of it uh is just fucking, you know, you don't want to be that guy calling a promoter going, my guy did this or that or stupid shit. Uh and it does happen. Um, so we just try and maintain, even though it's working harder a little bit more intensely, intently, we're still trying to be as safe as possible. But I just, you know, how much time, how much time off do you want from the thing? Uh, you know, just again, so that that that word calibration popped up in my head. I know it's something uh Adam's talked about with me before, you know, and Scotty and and read into some of the, I think Rob Raven might have touched on that in one of his last books. Uh, but yeah, just, you know, you don't you don't want to be so far removed from the the ultimate goal, which is the fight. Uh so you just gotta figure it out, you know, like I said, you just don't gotta just, it's all part of the learning process. But Scotty says it's it's all chaos, we have no fucking idea, you know, so we do the best that we can. Uh, you know, we threw away pads and and and bag work and shit of that nature for skill development because we thought that being as alive and represented as possible was the way to.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:00

go so uh but we're still it's still all it's still certainly in some respects a work in progress so yeah yeah exactly i don't i don't i don't i don't have all the answers and i i'll need more experience uh leading to a fight with the fighters to get something that i can actually recommend to someone so uh but uh in in uh in coaching literature and and um say team sports uh tapering is mainly referring to dozing so you you want to maintain some type of or even increase the intensity reduce the volume again reduce the so things need to be sharper faster so the athlete needs to be kind of recovering or recuperating um actually being able to manifest their their their best performance if that makes sense and from a skill perspective uh i would say the the the design uh and uh um the the use of uke or a training partner needs to be minimizing uh uh uh manifestation of a weaknesses if that makes sense uh to to avoid uh to avoid maybe detrimental effects on confidence so again this is from purely the theoretical stuff again sometimes you cannot control it so you you you want the fighter leading to a fight to be very successful in their uh attempts to to gain confidence and again we might have uh for example in in the um again i'm gonna speculate so you might have that there's question also like when should I stop doing a strength training before a fight and that's I think that's individual so again you you're gonna decrease the volume you're gonna maintain intensity for example the the the weight and so forth maybe decrease the number of decrease definitely the number of sets decrease the number of reps but main maintain the load but some athletes gonna cut earlier and some gain their confidence from these supplemental supplemental stuff like they know like oh I feel good you know when when I'm lifting so I again might be might be very individual so some athletes might say bitch completely the strength work some might actually do a strength work very leading to the fight or a match because they gain confidence from these uh assistance like they they feel oh fuck I'm ready because it's more quantifiable they feel you know the load they they may maybe measure velocity they see peaking and that that might be confidence boosting or confidence inducing so again coaching is not skill acquisition only we need to deal with the person and and figure out what uh maybe bring their best performance on a given day like increase the confidence but maybe avoiding putting them in a questionable positions that they might be struggling with so they they start this negative self-talk so again just just you know speculating and brainstorming with you guys so again not sure I have the do this not that perspective so you're in good company so I have a because I have a last question or I'll be here all day I popped um and it's kind of on contrary contrary to what we're talking about here we got a guy I talk about a lot Finn right he's an incredible athlete and he hurt his rib about six weeks ago and he took about four or five weeks off and he came back and the consensus in the room was he was better than ever and I used to recognize this too because I worked in the oil field for years saw our trend for two, three weeks sorry three, four weeks and then go away for a couple of weeks and then when I came back I always felt great.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:03

And when I popped that into the chat everyone else had seemed to uh experience this as well and I don't think that's very well explained from like an ecological perspective but is there like some delayed training effect that might there might be some underlying mechanism there or is it just a story we're telling ourselves and we're just excited to be back. What do you think is going on there if there's something going on there?

SPEAKER_02 1:31:21

Yeah I I experienced it myself as a as a kid training Brazilian jiu-jitsu just get off like two weeks and I come back and it's much better. I feel better like uh it might be like uh you sometimes when to to see the forest you need to get out of the trees if that makes sense so you you know you sometimes you need to pull yourself out of the situation you you you put yourself in a corner and sometimes the best thing is to get the fuck out right and rethink stuff so again might bring you this idea of a beginner mind right like beginner mind yeah beginner mind but again it's a phenomenon we all observe and I'm not sure I have a mechanism in place to explain it. So again can be some type of a neurologic neurological stuff getting a rest like getting you know resting your joints resting from physical perspective but from this skill acquisition perspective not sure what's happening so um I would say that the the athletes some type of imaginary work or like imaginative work when they're off training so they might increase this self-questioning maybe seeing a big picture from different perspective and also I think um in in um learning literature not only skill acquisition but only you know learning in as as in general uh forgetting seems to be missing link sometimes you need to forget things to actually learn better so it seems counterintuitive but that's why you need to have these periods of uh of forgetting so when you come back to the material the the brain seems to be working in the background and and then when you come back to the material you might you might approach it with some type of a priori knowledge but also fresh eyes at the same time so again uh I think in a chat I mentioned the few books that that and research actually mentioning that uh forgetting is a one of the key parts of uh memory and it seems counterintuitive but there's a research about it so it might be besides getting uh getting your body a rest uh might be that effect that's also happening from a skill perspective so again not sure that that I but we all agree that that's a a phenomenon that that seems to be happening all the time so that's called a robust phenomenon that we all observe and now we need to figure out the mechanism behind behind it or give some type of a theoretical narrative why it happens. I guess getting ahead of meskis here maybe from a DSD or a system dynamical systems perspective is that maybe it's allowing time for these like shallow attractors to level out here yeah in in in statistics and machine learning we have this uh idea of a local minimum so you when you try to optimize some stuff you you start from a certain perspective and then you try to find a local minimum so it's called a uh there's a name for it I forgot the uh descent function or something like that they try to optimize parameters find the the descent and then try the the lowest position but that doesn't actually guarantee you that you find actually the the gross uh minimum so you find the local minimum but not the global minimum so sometimes you need to random start so you you create perturbations just so you can kind of start from a different position and maybe you're gonna catch another valley if that makes sense. So maybe that can be also theoretical model to explain this uh when you when you take a break from you know from one activity and then you come back and then you have you might have a you you kind of English word perturbrate yeah right perturb the system to start from a different uh position and maybe you you find another you you you reach a ceiling and then you say okay fuck I need to go back a little bit and then you you overshoot that ceiling by just you know going back a little bit and then starting from a different perspective or position. So I don't know so different different perspectives maybe in trying to explain it. Or but I I like to like in in the agile priorization I have this uh pivot cycle I call it a pivot cycle just I did notice with uh with um um with football players is that sometimes is the the rest is not physical it needs to be mental or emotional so you want them to be removed from the arena all the stuff associated with the football maybe maybe even try train at different location for a while like change completely the atmosphere the lived experience uh or maybe try different sport and that's gonna get you back to that willingness to train so your receptiveness to to to train stimuli or as skill problems just you know being removed from that mentally uh and I think that might also be one of the explanations just being removed from it so with uh Alexander Akich like we one suggestion that I gave him like if you have two two hard training days the third day usually Wednesday can I call it a pivot day so I want him to be removed not come to the facility anymore so you know he likes cycling so I said like go for a fucking spin right one hour two hours go for a spin get yourself get your head removed from observing the same coach same same uh maths you know same facility get your head removed from that perspective and then you're gonna get you you want to come back to that place if that makes sense so it's not only physical recovery it's also emotional recovery like willingness to go back to training process if that makes sense and for for that sometimes you need to be re you know you need to see the big you you cannot see the forest from the trees right you need to be removed from the situation to kind of reorganize everything. So again might be metaphysical explanation but at least it's some type of explanation so he jobs his love on Wednesdays.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:42

Yeah um or does it job his love um I'm I'm really I'm really curious about this and I'm gonna investigate it further but it would be almost a fucking impossible sell if you had to tell an athlete why do you take the two to three weeks after your fight they'll never do that but I'm really curious what's going on there.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:59

So I'm gonna put a pin in that and that's an example after a fight you know you have some fighters who like after a fight they're immediately in the gym and some some athletes need like a cool off period just to menable normally right I mean I'll do it myself just one at the weekend back in on a Monday we celebrate that yeah yeah yeah yeah so I I I call it a pivot so it actually comes from a uh actually the term from a uh it's called a lean a lean production uh not leans sorry also agile one of the agile agile uh product management schools of thought pivoting or like when you're just pivoting your direction so and also Mike Tusher who's uh one of the great American powerlifting coaches and competitor and a coach uh he was also struggling with uh figuring out the best way to plan for powerlifters so he called it emergent strategy and it's very similar to the agile priorization we correspond two of us and uh he came up with a pivot cycle so after a picking like sometimes after a developmental block uh you have these purposely injected pivot cycles which change completely the purpose of training so you can be more playful you can explore different stuff and so forth just to kind of get get yours get yourself removed from you know from developmental stuff and maybe in some of those pivot cycles for example you do you have like Monday and Tuesday are like very CLA stuff like uh uh you spar and then you you you spar and you're in a chaos right and then Wednesday you say fuck it I just gonna you know I want to chill out a little bit do some pod work uh try some combinations on the heavy bag that can be a pivot cycle right it can be pivoting from your normal activities while still maintaining sharpness or or what have you so maybe from that perspective this unopposed practice can be also seen and utilized so you know some of the athletes me included they cannot spar every freaking day they need to be removed from that atmosphere they just need to like a meditate you know like a meditative state doing jump rope something like unopposed predictable stuff just to get their head back into the game just to prepare for a next cycle of the momental cycle of uh of uh sparring games or something like that so maybe like having like a you know leave me alone I'm just gonna try some combinations on a heavy bag um you know help me with the pads a little bit so again can be helpful from that perspective so I don't know so I think this is a whole agreed questions right especially with the striking I'm looking for the minimum effective dose of of head contact to elicit the highest amount of gains and I have no fucking idea where that is and I don't think I'll ever know where that is but that's my endeavor. So the thing is also we need to think about long term so if you have these pivot cycles you you might feel like I'm I'm losing one day but that's gonna give you more quality long term quality of those uh important sessions rather than trying to squeeze as much quality as possible in a small time and then you're gonna you're gonna lose a fight I mean lose concentration lose willingness to train lose receptiveness to actually be involved in a problem solving because if you problem solve every freaking day you you jab your love and and that becomes a problem right so sometimes you want to be removed to to regain your willingness to to be involved in a problem solving if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:06

No makes sense and I think for a long time I was a more as more is more guy and then maybe some I'm getting closer to maybe less is more or how much how much we need yeah they're interesting questions.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:15

Yeah I agree and again it's it's individual so again some of the athletes need to figure out this this uh stuff so and most of these athletes so for example my my best man he's hall of famer he's one of the most accomplished volleyball players in history uh Vladimir Gervich Olympic medal like world champion all all this stuff man he's a legend and most of these athletes have these uh hobbies outside of their main sports so for example he he likes fishing so he's a passionate fisherman so you know the volleyball and volleyball competition and preparation is very stressful emotionally so he said fuck it my pivot cycle is going for a fishing trip so uh again coaching is not only skill acquisition so we need to figure out these uh how you call it the the safety valves right so they need to have like a safety valve to get rid of all this stress right and we maybe as a coaches we need to help them out figure out what's their safety valve so for example alex Rakic he likes to go cycling so he likes to go on a bike go for a cycle that's gonna develop his aerobic base or not I don't have a freaking clue maybe it's gonna help you know develop an aerobic engine but I think it's more important this pivot cycle mentally get a relief if that makes sense so yeah makes a lot of sense and it's uh it's uh because I have guys that are you you can't fucking get them out of the gym I have a lot of guys you can't get in the gym but I've got several guys I can't get out of the gym and it's just um yeah find find that balance right Rory that's all I have today we're um I'm I'm gonna head off here shortly I could talk all day definitely on your back and I enjoy this conversation yeah same same I enjoy it I enjoy it in our WhatsApp chat so it's it's great to have coaches that I can ask questions like and and and seeing that we are on a on the same problem same path if that makes sense so and um I I I like to I like to talk to coaches who are not they don't have like um higher than though you know like I have all the answers right I like to like I I'm like a uh trying to find the right English word um and luckily also Charlie Francis was like that um he's a high level spring coach but he was always open to hear different explanations different opinions and question himself right and most of the combat sport coaches are more like uh you know I have all the answers right so it's very it's very refreshing to to meet you guys and talk to you because you're willing to question your stuff so that's that's very appreciated if that makes sense for sure I think there's a perception out there especially with the eco crowd that we've got all figured out and it's far from that and that's a part from the chat I don't see anyone making any declarative statements. We're the we're we're working through some real common problems on this chat so it's like never do any direct technique instruction. Right so yeah it's it was a pleasure uh you know let's let's catch up hopefully in a few months or something like that yep and hopefully one day in person but I'm not sure how you get to the states or whether you'd even want to come I would love to so I as I stated I was I was in Boston 2010 for like a six months and uh I wouldn't mind uh Texas barbecue here is Serbia in the World Cup this year uh fucking hell I don't know like I I I I I completely I don't watch sports if you ask me like I don't like if I see a football and uh uh how do you call it uh ice skating I'll probably switch and watch ice skating so on on a tv like I I don't um I think there's a difference between being a a sports observer and working in sports and uh I like luckily I stumbled on um friend of mine who's uh who used to work with uh he worked with the German national team when they won uh a World Cup right Darcy Norman um and Darcy Norman he said like I don't watch football like he works in football but he doesn't watch football so I'm not a fan like I'm not a football consumer I I'm a professional coach working in football so he just doesn't watch it uh but he's a SNC right strength conditioning performance manager i i do think that watching mm fights for uh mm ma coaches would be would be very uh might be very um might provide a lot of feedback right and some some maybe stuff to try and see what works and what not and and and so forth but again as I stated Nemanya Miloshvic also struggles with with going to uh fight nights with with uh with the fighters so he likes watching them uh roll and fight in a in a gym but not sure he actually enjoys or looking forward to a fight night yeah I can very much relate to that it's not my favorite part of the part of what I do and then this week I'm got a 12 hour round trip for a six minute fight so yes exactly better be one in I mean uh if if Nemanya Nemanja's English is not that bad actually but I think you should you should get this guy also talking because his system is very similar to your and he's producing world class fighters here in in Serbia and this region so and uh he he's a brain to pick more specifically about the the the design of the drill i'm more the theory guy right so uh but he's more like this is this is the shit we are doing actually in and why so he's high level coach and uh great mind to to pick i'd love to see uh be a fly on the wall uh especially this kind of eastern european old soviet bloc countries because you're a bunch of hard bastards i'll get you that yeah so yeah enjoy the rest of the day guys this was uh yeah thanks we'll talk we'll we'll we'll get you back we're gonna get a bunch of the guys on the chat on here yapping anyway all right have a good day thank you really standing okay all the best