Grapple Hut Huddle, April 2023
Eric starts to lose his mind as he talks about jiu jitsu and curriculum.
THE NEWS
It was announced this past month by the US Anti-Doping Agency that Micael Galvao, 19, tested positive for prohibited substances following the IBJJF World Jiu Jitsu Championships in 2022. Upon reviewing of the case, USADA determined the prohibited substances taken by Galvao were caused by a medication prescribed to him in a therapeutic dose under the direction of a physician. Galvao was found to not have applied for a temporary use exemption and as such was given a one-year period of ineligibility beginning on July 22, 2022.
Dr Rehan Muttalib, a practicing medical doctor and a jiu jitsu competitor commented that this case seems more like he was being supplied the steroids found in his system starting at around the age of 15 or 16 given the information that came out about his usage. To Muttalib, this is “pretty much child abuse.”
Youtube channel MorePlatesMoreDates also weighed in on the situation as found below:
I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to steroids so forgive me for keeping it short with this news summary. From what I can gather, Mica and his dad claim he needed the steroids as part of a medical condition however Muttalib and MPMD both think that is either a lie or at best not necessarily what the steroid he was given addresses.
GOING CRAZY ABOUT CURRICULUM
For this month, I wanted to not put focus on technique as I have, much like the Adeptus Mechanicus of Warhammer 40,000, gone insane and started to replace parts that are deemed weak and heretical in favor of something I have become fanatical about worshiping. Rather than using machines, I’m more so talking about curriculum. To date I’ve read 18 chapters or articles about the theories and concept of curriculum.
Praise the Omnissiah.
Let’s talk about curriculum. There’s a misconception that a curriculum is simply the material you are being taught for a specific subject. This is, in most circles these days, pretty much regarded as naive. Curriculum is a whole lot of parts, influences, etc. that are always pushing and pulling on each other and what is or isn’t considered a curriculum is always changing.
As I see it, there are problems and challenges with BJJ education. This isn’t just my own perspective, the likes of John Danaher have spoken about it, as well as a slew of high level coaches and competitors. However, what none of them seem to focus on is applying educational theories to BJJ. That’s what I’m hoping to introduce here.
So right now as we talk about curriculum and how it relates to the gentle art of systematically replacing our bodies with machines to serve our deity jiu jitsu there are three main areas I’ll talk about today with a few I’ll just gloss over. These concepts also can apply to really any form of learning but I’ll be applying them to jiu jitsu as that’s my immediate area of sport/exercise. These are:
Intended Curriculum
Enacted Curriculum
Experienced Curriculum
Typically, curriculum is designed around six main needs that are identified. These are; normative needs, comparative needs, felt needs, expressed needs, anticipated/future needs, and critical needs. To simplify what these needs are let’s apply them to jiu jitsu with an example.
Normative needs - new rule changes created by IBJJF.
Comparative needs - how do you fare against people at the same level of competition as you?
Felt needs - your sees your performance and thinks you’re better suited to pursue X or Y line of learning.
Expressed needs - you go on to find the types of learning as stated by the felt need.
Future needs - predicting what the next level of meta in competition will be.
Critical needs - you realize there’s a huge hole in your game and you must address it.
Intended Curriculum
An intended curriculum is, simply put, “what is meant to be learned as decided by those with the power to dictate the criteria.” This can be as broad as a government goal for students, or as a standardized learning requirements. In effect, the intended curriculum is what the plan is meant to be and what the learner or student is meant to learn. In context with jiu jitsu or combat sports, it is what you’re expected to learn and know. Right now as you read this, think to yourself “do I actually know what my coach’s intended curriculum for the belt above mine is?" now ask yourself, “does my coach actually know what the intended curriculum for that progression is?”
There are numerous anecdotal stories about how a jiu jitsu coach shows up and doesn’t really have a plan or lesson. This would be an example of not having an intended curriculum available. This has, for the most part, been a thing of the past and more people are recognizing that there is a need for a structured training curriculum and series of goals for the students to be attaining. This can be incredibly granular by defining key learning outcomes for the different levels to qualify moving up to the next rank, or more generic goals. Regardless, each training session does require an intended curriculum and associated pedagogy for the stated learning outcomes to come through. In a sport with limited structure as a worldwide level for such a thing, jiu jitsu coaches then must take up the responsibility of designing curriculum to suit their own intended purposes.
Additionally the intended curriculum can be heavily influenced by outside factors. When applying that to jiu jitsu, it is mostly the culture of learning and the areas of focus. 10 years ago, leg locks were a very niche and limited area of concentration. However over that time the curriculum around teaching leg locks has exploded, in no small part thanks to wild success by the likes of Gordon Ryan and others at a high level set of competition. The dominant culture of jiu jitsu shifted towards adopting leg locks and thus the curriculum of gyms had to shift as well. You see this in most educational institutions that, for better or for worse, heavily rely upon Euro-American centric norms of education as that is the dominant culture. In your own home country, you see this in the form of the dominant culture dictating what shall or shall not be taught and the subcultures having to follow through.
Enacted Curriculum
An enacted curriculum is what the learners are being taught and how they’re being taught. In short, it is all the steps the teacher is taking when transferring their knowledge to the learner. Fundamentally, this is an incredibly difficult thing to enforce uniformity in across educators, resources, and so forth. This is, also, where you see a common area in misalignment which I’ll mention later.
When we think about jiu jitsu, the enacted curriculum is more or less how your coach is teaching you the techniques being focused on. What word choices are they making to describe the mechanics? What do they focus more on? What questions arise and how are they addressed? These are all important aspects that related to the transfer of the information your coach is intending to transfer to you.
Experienced Curriculum
Finally we have the experienced curriculum. Unlike the prior two forms of curriculum this one focuses specifically on the student rather than the educator.
Experienced curriculum refers to what the learner actually learns and experiences as part of their education. Think of it like this, the experience curriculum is what the student is able to internalize as a result of their interactions with the educators intended and enacted curriculum.
Let’s apply this to jiu jitsu, or really any form of sport. The experienced curriculum is the skills, techniques or any knowledge the student is able to acquire through the practice of the techniques. “Why did my first attempt at an armbar drill fail? Oh it was because the thumb wasn’t pointing up. I know I need to keep that in mind when applying it next time.” is a good example what we’re getting at. However, experienced curriculum is not just limited to the physical knowledge the student develops but can also apply to their mental and emotional skills. For example, developing composure doesn’t come from pure instruction, but from familiarity and experience in being in such a situation and not to panic the next time you’re in it.
As such, experienced curriculum can vary widely from student to student. Numerous factors affect what a student learns or is able to internalize as they are learning from their coach.
Misalignment in Curriculum
Misalignment is when the process of transferring the knowledge fails. Typically it occurs in one or both of the two main relationships in curriculum. These are the intended-enacted curriculum relationship (eg. is what was intended to be taught actually being taught?) and the enacted-experienced curriculum relationship (eg. are the students taking away the right lessons from what is being taught to them?).
Usually when there’s a misalignment in the intended-enacted curriculum relationship, it comes down to the teacher who is enacting the curriculum deviating from the intended curriculum. This occurs from the teacher’s introducing differences in their enactment as a result of reading (eg. the teacher focuses on the wrong part of what is written in the intended curriculum), evaluating (eg. the teacher determines the quality of the intended curriculum as it applies to their students), or adapting (eg. choosing to omit, replace, or create new parts of the curriculum) the intended curriculum as they teach it.
The second area of misalignment is the enacted-experienced curriculum relationship. There’s a variety of factors in this one and can stem from any of the following reasons: the diversity of learners can undermine the alignment of what is being taught (eg. not everyone is approaching the topic with the same experienced knowledge), learners may appear to learn the curriculum but actually may not even commit to said learning, and several other reasons.
It’s important to note that there is no way to create perfect alignment across all curriculum learning. Instead, it is more important (in my view) to identify where the individual learner is struggling the most with taking on the new knowledge being taught to them, and adapting your curriculum to suit their needs.
I hope this opens up some of your views and thoughts on how learning jiu jitsu can be different than what you’re experiencing now, and how you can apply some of these concepts to your own learning. Additionally, in the next installment of the Grapple Hut Huddle I’ll be discussing different forms of pedagogical approaches and how we can ascribe them to jiu jitsu, which may be interesting!