Ecology is about interrelationships
In the past year I have heard much about a form of coaching called Ecological. As a retired biologist, this term initially puzzled me when used in this context. The term ecology was first coined in 1866 by a fellow named Ernst Haeckel. Haeckel introduced it in his book Generelle Morphologie der Organismen. He coined the word from Greek roots:
oikos = household, home
logos = study
So ecology literally meant “the study of the household”—by which he meant the relationships between organisms and their environment, both living and non-living.
This seems reasonable as a way to describe the importance of context in martial practice. If you coach in an ecological manner, you emphasize the relationship between the figure and the ground. The figure is the technique, and the ground is the environment within which you use that technique successfully. This makes sense.
I am aware that there is more to the theory of ecological coaching. For example, I know that it professes to be systems-based and claims to be scientific and evidence-based. I will leave a deeper dive into all of this for another day.
The proponents of ecological coaching, unfortunately, tend to pummel newcomers to the idea with extremely obtuse jargon and intellectualization. They also point disparaging fingers at any training practice that might be considered a drill—specifically, repetitive practices of techniques that are absent of context.
Their methods emphasize what they call a constraints-based approach. This means that they create scenarios, often called “games,” that are constrained to some specific part of a technique. The choice of what they limit the practice to is designed to bring out the “invariants.” Invariants are those aspects of the technique that absolutely must be present for the overall action to be successful.
This approach is being used in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with a reasonable level of success. I have also seen it used in Olympic fencing. I wonder about the relationship between this approach and the development of fundamentals. There may be a connection between fundamentals and the concept of invariants. Invariants, perhaps, are rooted in fundamentals.
Let me give an example of the method. Suppose the goal is to develop the ability to get behind an opponent in wrestling. One option is to focus on drilling an arm drag, first with a compliant opponent and then with resistance.
A constraints-based approach might instead frame this as a game in which the objective is simply to get to the outside of the opponent. The opponent could be constrained so that they are not allowed to square up—turning toward the player—after the initial movement, while remaining free to block the attempt in any way they choose. The coach would not prescribe how the blocking should occur.
This creates a situation in which the player must solve the problem presented by the opponent rather than execute a predetermined technique. In theory, this leads to a clearer understanding of the underlying problem—getting to the outside—and the solutions that emerge may or may not include an arm drag. Ecological training is therefore as much about developing adaptability to circumstances as it is about teaching a specific technique.
One Attack
I was taught how to do one attack, “ippon kumite,” as a karate student in Shotokan Karate of America. Ippon kumite is a very old form of practice that originated from kendo.
In a nutshell, this form of sparring is called designated sparring, meaning that the attacker is limited to one designated attack. Most often, this takes the form of a punch delivered with a passing step, with the intent to actually strike the opponent (you step toward the opponent and, while stepping, try to hit them). The receiver of the attack is free to use any method of avoiding the attack and must respond with a controlled counterattack.
People are given advice about the distance at which to set the initial attack, but in practice the attacker is free to choose any distance. Once the attacker sets the initial distance, the defender may not step back. If the attacker sets themselves too close, the defender is obliged to counterattack immediately if they can strike simply by reaching out or, at most, by moving the front foot slightly. If the attacker is too far from the opponent, the attack will not be effective. This provides both players with sensitivity training regarding measure—the distance between opponents. Once this initial distance is set, the attacker chooses the moment to strike and the contest ensues. The players alternate between offense and defence until the play is over.
This practice sounds a lot like a constraints-based approach, though I am aware that it is not exactly the same. For one thing, a constraints-based method would break the problem down further to identify opportunities and absolute requirements for success.
I should make a disclaimer here to avoid unnecessary confusion. Some karate groups use ippon kumite more as choreography or as a paired drill. In this form of practice, the technical elements of timing and distance are largely missing. Unless the attack is performed in earnest, with the intention of actually striking and with the defender free to respond, it is simply not the same practice.
Forms, Drills, and Sparring
When you are first introduced to a form, both its meaning and its potential usefulness are obscure. Drills are often introduced separately from the form, presumably to hone specific techniques. Sparring—especially modern forms of sparring—often bears little resemblance to either forms or drills, and this has led to a distrust in the efficacy of the first two methods of practice. The current interest in ecological coaching has arisen in this milieu of disconnect.
When you first learn a form, it is, for all intents and purposes, “dead,” meaning that it has no obvious relevance to how one actually fights. Really good forms were undoubtedly created by people who were adept fighters. They consolidated what they did into forms that acted as repositories of information for others to study, and they used these forms to reflect on their own fighting experiences in order to refine understanding.
I would also add that it is very valuable to try to create your own kata at some point in your career, based on how you fight, if only to experience what the original creator may have experienced.
Perhaps the first generation of students after the creator had an understanding of the martial character of the form. At that point, the form would still be “alive.” This may also have been true by the third generation. But subsequent generations are often disconnected from the experience of the creator. At this point, the context of the form—and even the techniques themselves—becomes veiled, and the form dies.
People sometimes defend forms by saying that they are not intended to inform sparring but instead teach principles and techniques, particularly those better suited to self-defense. Critics counter that forms rarely translate effectively into sparring, which they regard as a better indicator of real fighting ability.
Martial arts such as boxing, Muay Thai, and wrestling—arts proven to produce tough and resilient fighters—rely heavily on drilling, and formalized forms are few and far between. In particular, pad work, paired drills, and light sparring often replace hard sparring because they are far less punishing. Individual repetitive drills are often practiced at high intensity with very specific goals in mind. Bag work, for example, is a type of repetitive training that develops speed and power. Sometimes the goal of drilling is as much about developing tenacity and discipline as it is about honing a technique.
Pad work also resembles a constraints-based approach in some respects, since the feeder sets up constraints through the choice of openings they provide, allowing the practitioner to work on specific problems. The feeder, based on experience, creates scenarios they know are realistic for the player to solve.
In any martial art, sparring alone, without additional input, can lead to either sloppiness or a mindset limited by the ruleset under which the sparring occurs. Drills and technique development give students approaches they can experiment with during sparring. Drilling by itself does not train adaptability to circumstances. To teach how to really fight, people spar.
I was taught that forms, drills, and sparring are interrelated. When you first learn a form, what you are practicing is really just an image—a choreography—of the original. Almost certainly, it has been modified over time. It is common knowledge that kata in Okinawa were not uniformly taught. They were often modified to suit particular students, and the forms could vary widely from dojo to dojo. Master Funakoshi’s book Karate-dō Kyōhan was an attempt to codify several forms in print in order to stabilize kata over time.
Students were traditionally admonished to study kata deeply in order to bring them back to life. This included studying the history of the form, comparing versions, and examining other martial arts in order to uncover clues that might restore lost context.
Kata provide ideas and a way of “writing them down.” Sparring tests the efficacy of those ideas. Drills allow focused improvement of specific technical concepts. Kata are informed by sparring and drills. Kata consolidate, sparring tests, and drills refine.
And constraints-based coaching? One attack and other forms of designated sparring are ways of constraining a fight so that certain aspects of real combat become apparent. These practices lead to deep understanding of specific fundamentals. They are laboratories for continued exploration. More focused constraints-based approaches operate in much the same way.
Constraints-based approaches attempt to understand fighting from the perspective of crucial opportunities, which they call affordances. At these cruxes, specific things—invariants—must occur for a technique to succeed. By focusing on these moments, practitioners train adaptability within those constraints. I believe this is useful. I also believe that elements of this approach have existed in older training methods, even if they were not emphasized or articulated in the same way that proponents of ecological coaching do today.
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