The Jiu Jitsu Anti-Handbook

Greg Souders’ Ecological Jiu Jitsu Ideas Explained by a Regular Guy

Ryan Ingram

Copyright © 2025 by Ryan Ingram

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

Introduction

My name is Ryan and I’m just a regular guy who’s been training Jiu Jitsu for the past four years and completely fell in love with the sport. Before this, I was a classroom teacher for several years, working with elementary and middle school students. These days, I work for a company that builds curricular tools for special education teachers, so I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how people learn and how we can teach them more effectively.

When I came across Greg Souders and his work around the ecological approach to Jiu Jitsu, I was instantly hooked. I also happened to be sitting on my butt recovering from a torn Achilles tendon, which gave me way too much time, enough to organize all the notes I’d taken into something that started to look like this book. It just made sense to me. I dove in head first. I read Rob Gray’s How We Learn to Move, a bunch of white papers, and probably watched or listened to every interview Greg’s ever done.

Over the last year and a half, as Greg’s ideas have gotten more attention, it’s become clear that there’s a divide between traditional “information processing” coaching methods and this newer “ecological dynamics” approach. And honestly, I didn’t understand why people were so resistant. To me, as someone with a teaching background, a love for sports, and a passion for learning, at minimum, Greg’s framework felt like the most accurate and honest way to describe what’s really happening in Jiu Jitsu.

A lot of the criticism I’ve seen aimed at Greg hasn’t been about his ideas, it’s been personal. And that’s a shame, because what he’s talking about is based on years of research in other sports and movement science. I believe what he’s doing is incredibly important for the future of Jiu Jitsu.

So this little book is my way of translating Greg’s ideas into regular language. I’m not trying to add anything new, I’m just trying to take the best and most important parts of what he’s said and make them easier to understand for people who might be new to this way of thinking.

I want to be very clear: I didn’t get Greg’s permission to write this. It’s possible I’ve misunderstood or misrepresented some things. This is just my take after about 18 months of studying his work closely. If you want to check anything I say here, I encourage you to go straight to the source, there are tons of free interviews and talks online where you can hear Greg explain everything for himself.

What this book is not: it’s not a step-by-step guide for designing CLA games, and it’s not a collection of plug-and-play drills.

What this book is: a plain-English breakdown of the core concepts behind Greg’s ecological approach, applied to Jiu Jitsu. It’s an attempt to zoom out and look at the game as a whole, to understand its basic objectives, and to give people, no matter their rank or role, a conceptual framework for thinking about what we’re actually doing when we train.

Whether you’re a coach, a white belt, a competitor, or just a curious student of the game, this book is for you.

There’s no gatekeeping here. Just an honest attempt to understand the game better.

Section 1: What is Jiu Jitsu?

Jiu Jitsu is a game. And the way you win that game is by holding someone still long enough to choke them or break one of their limbs. That’s it. Everything else, the techniques, the strategies, the grips, they’re all just different ways to reach that goal or avoid being on the receiving end of it.

Greg boils this down in a way that really helps clarify what matters: we’re trying to create unevenness. If you can use more of your body against less of theirs, your whole body against one of their arms, for example, you’re going to have a better shot at finishing the match.

Seeing Jiu Jitsu through this lens helps coaches and students focus on what actually matters in a roll. Instead of getting hung up on memorizing techniques, we can start asking better questions: Did I immobilize them? Did I control the center? Did I isolate a limb or the neck?

Section 2: Global Invariants

Greg talks about “global invariants” , the big-picture truths that guide how we move and why. These are the things that are always present in effective Jiu Jitsu, no matter your style, build, or belt.

The main invariant is simple: Immobilization comes first. If you want to choke someone or break a limb, you’ve got to stop them from moving first. From there, strangulation or breaking is just a matter of time and mechanics.

These invariants help us make sense of what works and what doesn’t. Instead of trying to memorize hundreds of techniques, we look at what they all have in common. Whether it’s a triangle, a rear naked choke, or a guillotine, they all involve the same thing: isolating the head and neck, and applying pressure. That’s the invariant.

As coaches, this helps us teach principles instead of moves. And that makes our students more adaptable, creative, and effective.

Section 3: Making and Maintaining Connection

This is one of the most immediately useful concepts for coaches and practitioners.

The game starts with connection. You can’t control what you haven’t touched. That connection might be a grip, a hook, a body lock,  anything that physically links you to your partner. That’s the starting point for applying force, manipulating posture, and controlling movement.

But making connection is just the start. The real skill is maintaining it, especially while both players are moving, resisting, and trying to change the situation. If you make a good grip but let go when things shift, it’s worthless. If you get chest-to-chest but can’t keep it, you’ll never finish the pass.

Greg also brings up distance. Connection gives you the ability to manage distance,  to close it when you’re attacking (think body lock passing) or create it when you’re defending (think framing from guard). That constant back-and-forth,  managing distance through connection,  is the heartbeat of the sport.

Section 4: Managing Distance

Distance is everything in Jiu Jitsu. Whether you’re standing, passing, or playing guard, the fight is always about space. Whoever controls the space controls the fight.

If you’re the one trying to pin, pass, or submit,  your job is to take away space. You want to get so close they can’t move. Think about closing the gap during a takedown, or smashing in tight from half guard.

If you’re defending,  on bottom, or trying to recover guard,  you need to create space. You want to keep the other person from locking you down. Think about using frames, shrimps, or hooks to keep them off you.

Greg emphasizes that distance is never static. Every grip or shift in weight changes it. That’s why he teaches connection and distance management together,  they’re part of the same process. You connect so you can manipulate distance.

For coaches, this is a key thing to look for during live training: Is your student trying to manage the space? Or are they just reacting? Teaching them to be intentional with distance,  whether gaining or removing it,  will make their Jiu Jitsu smarter and more effective.

Section 5: Segmentation, Destabilization, and Isolation

Once you’ve connected and started managing distance, the next phase is breaking down your opponent’s structure,  and Greg gives us three tools to do it: Segmentation, Destabilization, and Isolation.

Segmentation means you don’t try to tackle the whole body at once. Instead, you peel it back in layers,  feet, then knees, then hips; or hands, then elbows, then shoulders. This is especially useful for guard passing or breaking grips.

Destabilization is making your partner fall or lose structure. You can destabilize their base (like tipping them off balance in guard) or their limbs (like bending an arm so it can’t push). It’s what turns static contact into progress.

Isolation is locking down a part of the body so it’s removed from the system. If you isolate a shoulder and wrist, you can break the arm. If you isolate the neck, you can strangle. Isolation is what turns control into submission.

These three concepts work together. First you segment, then you destabilize, then you isolate. Understanding this sequence gives students a roadmap through every exchange,  and helps coaches build smarter positional games and progressions.

Section 6: Standing Engagement

Before either player hits the ground, Jiu Jitsu starts with the standing phase,  and the goal is the same as always: immobilize to strangle or break. That doesn’t change. What does change is how we start to build that control.

Greg simplifies standing into this basic idea: attack the periphery to get to the center. In the standing phase, that usually means using your hands to control the head and arms,  or using leg attacks to off-balance them or shoot in. You're either hand fighting to set up grips or trying to get around their defenses to access the hips and torso.

Even in takedown-heavy grappling like wrestling or judo, this holds true. You can’t just grab someone’s hips out of nowhere,  you have to fight through the outer layers first. That might mean snapping the head down, clearing arms, or timing a level change to beat their legs.

Greg calls this “hand fighting” but it’s really layer peeling,  the same segmentation idea applied to standing. You’re just doing it from a distance and trying to close that gap. If you can get to center mass and maintain connection, you can start to impose control before you even hit the mat.

For coaches, this means training stand-up shouldn't just be about takedown mechanics. It should be about learning to win the fight to get to the torso, maintain connection, and bring the other player into a position where groundwork can start on your terms.

Section 7: Guarded Engagement

In the guarded phase, one player is on bottom using their legs to manage distance and maintain connection. The other is on top trying to pass. Greg breaks this into simple roles:

Bottom player = trying to destabilize

Top player = trying to segment

If you're on bottom, the main problem is you're carrying weight. Over time, that gets exhausting. So your job is to off-balance the top player,  make them post their hands on the mat, stumble, or fall. That gives you space, time, and openings. You use your feet and knees to make connections and apply pressure back into them, trying to mess with their balance or posture.

If you're on top, your job is to break down the layers of defense,  segmenting through the feet, then knees, then hips,  without getting off-balanced or losing control. You’re working your way from the outside in, just like we talked about earlier.

This structure helps coaches think clearly about what to prioritize in each role. Instead of telling a student to “pass the guard,” we can say: clear the feet, neutralize the knees, get to the hips, stay on top. And for the bottom player: off-balance them, make them post their hands, shift their weight.

It also helps create better games and constraints. You can train one segment at a time,  like “clear the knees without dropping to your knees”,  and build a student’s understanding of what guard passing or guard retention really requires.

Section 8: Pinning Concepts

Pinning isn’t just about “holding someone down.” It’s about shutting down movement in every direction while setting up the next step,  the submission.

Greg breaks it down cleanly: a strong pin must cover the hips and shoulders. That’s where all movement comes from. If you’re chest-to-chest or chest-to-back and covering those two areas, you’ve taken away their ability to rotate, post, or re-guard.

You’re solving four problems:

Extension: they push you off

Retraction: they bring their limbs back in to defend

Rotation: they turn and twist to escape

Basing: they plant on the mat to move or lift

If your pin solves all four at once, you’re in business.

And Greg makes a key point: control doesn’t always mean pressure. Sometimes a submission threat,  like a crossface that becomes a strangle,  will freeze them just as well. That’s indirect control. You’re holding them in place by making them fear what happens if they move.

For coaches, this changes how we teach pins. We’re not just saying “hold side control.” We’re asking: are you shutting down escape paths? Are you applying enough pressure to hold, or just enough threat to freeze?

Section 9: Submission Mechanics

Everything in Jiu Jitsu builds to this: submitting your opponent,  either by strangling them or breaking one of their limbs. That’s how you win the game.

Greg breaks submissions into two categories:

Strangulation: cutting off blood flow or air to the brain

Breaking: applying force through a joint beyond its range

Both types of submissions follow the same principles we’ve already talked about:

You isolate the target (neck or limb)

You immobilize it (against your body or the ground)

You apply pressure in a way that the other person can’t resist or escape

In a choke (like a rear naked or triangle), you're usually squeezing the neck from both sides to compress the arteries. You might also include an arm to help trap the head or add pressure. That’s bi-directional force,  one arm pulls while the other pushes, or both arms squeeze inward.

In a break (like an armbar or kneebar), you're pinning the limb between two points,  usually your chest and hips,  and applying pressure through the joint. A critical detail is isolating the base joint (like the shoulder or hip) while controlling the end of the lever (like the wrist or ankle). This gives you true leverage and makes the break efficient and hard to defend. The tighter the isolation and the cleaner the alignment, the more efficient the break. Breaks typically fall into two categories: torsional and straight. Torsional breaks involve twisting a joint beyond its range,  like a kimura, omoplata, or heel hook. Straight breaks involve hyperextending a joint in one direction,  like an armbar or kneebar. Recognizing the type of break you’re applying helps guide how you control the base joint and apply pressure.

For coaches, this means submissions aren’t magic tricks,  they’re mechanical problems. And that means students can troubleshoot them. If something’s not working, ask:

Is the target isolated?

Is the target immobilized?

Is the pressure applied in the right direction?

That framework helps make submission training safer, clearer, and more effective.

Section 10: Training Design & Game Construction

This is where everything comes together: how we train it.

At this point, it should be clear that Greg doesn’t believe in teaching a fixed set of moves. Instead, he builds games that are simply situations with clear rules and boundaries that guide the student to discover the underlying principles. That means less “Do this move from this position,” and more “Here’s the problem. How do you solve it?”

The goal is to make students problem solvers, not parrots.

These games are always rooted in the same global goal: immobilize, strangle, or break. Whether you’re working guard retention, pin escapes, or takedowns,  the game should lead toward one of those outcomes. If it doesn’t, it’s probably just a warm-up drill.

The primary engine behind Greg’s game design is the Constraints-Led Approach (CLA). CLA is a method of learning that reshapes behavior through three key factors: the individual (your student’s body and experience), the environment (mat space, starting conditions, or rules), and the task (the goal of the game). By adjusting any of these constraints, you nudge the student toward discovering better solutions.

For example:

Want better guard retention? Start the game with the passer already controlling the feet.

Want better grip fighting? Make it so students can only use one hand.

Want to isolate head control in pinning? Only allow strangles from top mount, no transitions allowed.

These constraints force students to adapt. They make mistakes, adjust, and find new solutions,  all within a game that keeps them focused on what matters.

This approach shifts the coach’s role from “instructor” to “architect.” You’re designing learning environments where understanding happens through doing. You don’t have to explain everything,  the game reveals it.

Section 11: Invariants vs. Techniques

This section is the heart of the ecological approach,  the difference between technique-focused training and principle-based learning.

Techniques are what we see: armbars, triangles, berimbolos. But they’re just one possible answer to a problem. The problem might be: “How do I isolate the neck from guard?” or “How do I disrupt a post to create imbalance?” What Greg wants us to see is that these answers are less important than the principles underneath them,  the invariants.

Invariants are the stuff that shows up no matter the position, belt level, or style. Things like:

Controlling center mass

Managing distance and connection

Isolating levers

Applying pressure through structure

These don’t change. And if you understand them, you can approach the game from a compounded objectives-based approach. That is to say that you will no longer be trying to "hit a move" you'll be trying to reach a goal and negate the other player's ability to reach theirs simultaneously regardless of how you reach the goal. That’s adaptive grappling.

Greg’s approach doesn’t assume that a "technique" like an armbar doesn't exist, it reframes the idea of doing an armbar as just a single solution under specific constraints. Once you understand the things that never change about how an arm breaks, you can apply that knowledge to consistently breaking one when you have the right conditions to do so.

For coaches, this means shifting the classroom from instruction to exploration. You’re not handing out a list of techniques. You’re guiding students to discover how to apply invariants in live scenarios.

That’s how athletes become intelligent, fluid, and hard to predict.

Section 12: Metastability and Variability

Greg encourages coaches to lean into the chaotic, in-between moments,  the places where things aren’t clean, stable, or predictable. That’s metastability,  the shifting, unstable phase between two positions.

Instead of rushing to fix or stabilize those moments, ecological Jiu Jitsu invites students to live in them. Why? Because that’s where real learning happens. That’s where athletes have to make rapid decisions, adjust on the fly, and figure things out under pressure.

Think of metastability as the scramble between guard and passing. Or the moment between escaping mount and establishing half guard. These moments are full of possibility,  and full of opportunity for adaptation.

To support this, we need variability,  constantly shifting situations, partners, and problems. That means no reps that look exactly the same. No perfect drilling environments. Instead, we want dynamic games where things go wrong, change shape, and force students to adapt in real time.

This is how ecological Jiu Jitsu builds truly resilient grapplers. Not by programming patterns, but by creating adaptive athletes who can thrive in chaos.

For coaches, the takeaway is simple: train the scramble. Train the weird. Train the ugly. That’s where real growth lives.

Conclusion

Thanks so much for picking this up and making it all the way through. I really appreciate you taking the time to read through what is essentially a collection of my raggedy thoughts after spending the last year and a half deep-diving into Greg Souders’ work.

This project has been a labor of love. I wrote it for people like me, regular folks who care deeply about learning and who want to understand what’s really going on underneath the surface of this sport we all love.

If it helped you gain a clearer understanding of the game, made you ask better questions, or sparked a deeper curiosity, then it did its job.

See you on the mats.

Glossary

Immobilization – Holding someone still so they can’t move or defend themselves.

Strangulation – Choking someone by compressing the arteries or airway so they have to tap.

Breaking – Applying pressure to a joint until it hyperextends or twists past its limit.

Connection – The physical contact you create to control someone, like grips, hooks, or body pressure.

Distance Management – Controlling how far away or close you are to your partner.

Segmentation – Breaking your opponent’s body into parts (like feet, knees, hips) and dealing with them one at a time.

Destabilization – Knocking your opponent off balance so they can’t fight back well.

Isolation – Trapping a limb or body part so it’s out of play and can’t help them escape.

Pinning – Holding someone down in a way that takes away their ability to move or escape.

Submission Mechanics – The step-by-step physical stuff that makes a choke or joint lock work.

Invariants – The things that are always true in Jiu Jitsu, no matter what move you’re doing.

Techniques – Individual moves or sequences (like armbars or sweeps) that solve a problem.

Constraints – Limits or rules you add to a drill or game to guide how someone practices.

Constraints-Led Approach (CLA) – A way to teach by shaping the environment, rules, or goal so that students learn by doing and solving problems, not by copying.

Metastability – That in-between moment where both people are fighting for control and nothing is settled yet.

Variability – The constant changes and randomness in live training that help you get better at adapting.