Dima Murovanni, one of the sport’s most sought-after coaches, broke down his philosophy on the ecological, or constraints-led, approach to teaching Jiu-Jitsu.
Murovanni, who trains world champion Lennox Freienbichler and has worked closely with Joseph Chen and the broader B-Team roster, described his own methodology as largely rooted in this style:
Most of my practices right now is what most people would call CLA or ecological. But if I see something that I think we need to drill, I do it.
But we drill differently. Like our drilling is also ecological because I’m not showing you: “You do this, you do that, you do this…”
I’m saying: ” want you to achieve this and that with this and that.”
Murovanni explained that building training environments rather than dictating technique might sound simpler, but…
If I just create the environment where you have to do it more or less, it’s easier to force you to practice the skill.
But this is the trick. I think this is way harder than doing techniques.
That difficulty, he argued, is where most coaches struggle:
Most people that do this that I see suck at it. They suck at it.
I think for me it’s perfect because I understand what I want to achieve and I can design and I can change the design.
But people are just copying it or doing positional rounds. They don’t really understand what they do.
For Murovanni, the real measure of whether the method is being applied correctly comes down to outcomes:
In the end the question is, is it helping your athletes and your students?
If yes it’s correct, but from my understanding, from what I see, most people don’t do it properly. It’s not helping people.
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