Ecological Lacrosse Podcast - Ep. 1 With Brian Kelly

Jamie Monroe here. I'm excited to introduce this new show called the Ecological Lacrosse Podcast. The goal of this podcast is to help coaches of all levels learn to apply modern skill acquisition concepts to their teams in a cutting edge. but practical way. In this podcast, we will discuss lacrosse in the context of principles of play and through the lens of ecological dynamics and a constraints-led approach. I guarantee adopting an ecological approach to your coaching.

will not only help you win more games but it will create the best possible experience for your players and it will change your life How's it going, everybody? Welcome to the Ecological Lacrosse Podcast, and I'm very excited to have my first guest. Brian Kelly, head coach at St. Margaret's Episcopal School, former head coach at Whittier, and just a great guy, great coach. Really fired up to have you on the show, man.

Thank you for having me, Jamie. This is exciting. I love the new podcast direction here. I think it's going to be helpful for a lot of people. I think you've done unbelievable stuff in the lacrosse world. You've been a great mentor to me. So to get to be on here and... and chat with you is an honor. So thanks for having me. Love it. So fired up you're here. All right. What has been the most impactful thing that you've...

evolved into in your lacrosse coaching over the last six months, two years, five years? I feel like I'm always evolving. I feel like that's just something that drives me. I think I've always been... someone willing to think outside the box. And, you know, as we kind of go through the conversation, I've thought a lot about why that is like a lot of my experience with sport has been different. You know, I think.

My experience around Canadians and in-box lacrosse has probably been the biggest driver of me landing in the ecodynamic space, in the CLA space, just trying to figure out. things I intuitively were noticing about the players that played that game and trying to figure out how to harness that. Why do they play like that? How can I use that to help the players that I coach get to higher levels of skill?

Give me some examples of what you mean by how Canadians play and what you've actually learned and how it applies to, you know, your coaching philosophy and how you develop players' skill acquisition. Yeah, well, I mean, I just, you know, I think, you know, obviously, you know, I went to Whittier.

you know, early two thousands, you know, I think, you know, I don't know how many people know Doug Locker, but I think Doug Locker was one of like the greatest visionaries in lacrosse recruiting. I mean, it was doing the same thing you were doing at Denver early on. Right. Like there was, it was probably a.

you know, less than a hundred Canadians playing NCAA lacrosse in 2000. And we have 15 of them at Whittier, you know, you know, right. So it's like a crazy percentage, right. And you're like, you notice that. They play differently. Their skills are different. They think quicker. Phenomenal in ground ball play.

You start to pick up all these things, and again, it just led me into a deep dive of what's actually happening in the box game that's leading to these players playing so differently than we do as Americans who play field lacrosse. Right. And so give me some specifics about what you notice and then how you've applied that to your team's even current day. Well, I think, you know, like, you know, like the IQ piece of it.

You know, obviously, you know, I think that, you know, when we play a lot of field lacrosse, you know, athleticism can kind of rule the day, right? There's a lot of space in it. You know, you can run by people and, you know, I don't think you get... as challenged in a two-man sense, a cutting and feeding sense.

So I just thought that from the stick skills and the finishing ability and all that stuff that I think we immediately think of when we think of Canadians, really just that ability to anticipate and create offenses in small places. I totally agree. I play to the... the MILL for the Boston Blazers for one year when I was about 25. And I got so much better at lacrosse. I couldn't really continue my career because I was coaching at Yale at the time.

But it blew me away as to how much better it was. And now, you know, current day, and I'm so into ecological dynamics and the constraints-led approach, Fox Lacrosse is... Probably one of the best examples, the most tangible examples of why constraints are so powerful when people think of box.

They think of the small nets and they think of the boards in the glass as it constricting the space, but truly it is the small nets that create a tighter defense that is harder to attack. And therefore you can't just clear space and go one-on-one.

It becomes more of a picking and feeding game. I love that one. Actually, I learned that from you at some point because I was like everybody else. And I love when I have a meeting with parents or a group of coaches and I'll ask the question, you know, what makes the space Titanbox across? 10 times out of 10, everyone's like, oh, the boards. And it's not. Again, when you really start to peel apart the layers of that game...

And we kind of went back and forth. I mean, you said it more eloquently than me, like it illustrates the power of constraints. And I was kind of trying to say that box lacrosse was an accidental example of the power of a constraints led approach for field. it's incredible I mean if there were 6x6 nets in a box like you might play in some leagues in the US

The defense has to come out and play you farther, and then you really can clear space and dodge an alley and shoot it. Definition of a quality shot changing that drives something. Yeah, totally. And so because you can't just clear space and dodge one-on-one, you have to bring players together. to clear space and that's the end game and that creates more context for a dodger that's still doing one-on-one it's still a dodge it's just a dodge with a potential switch and it

creates, you know, more of that two-man game just creates more IQ. The IQ you're talking about is just because, you know, you have to do the same thing off-ball. And then all of a sudden, you know, naturally you've got actions going on.

What about the whole one-handed thing? The fact that so many people believe you have to be two-handed, which I'll say it would be ideal to be something that you could play as a lefty or a righty. But why is it that... Canadians can be so one-handed on the side, and why does it work, and why is it all they need, actually? Yeah, I mean, it is funny I'm with you. There are people that are...

are so attached to the two-handed thing. And I mean, you need to use your offhand in certain ways. You know, obviously, you know, you got to be able to move the ball sometimes with your offhand. You got to be able to use your offhand enough to get back to your strong hand.

But it's just funny. We'll take young players and we'll spend all this time trying to make them equal right-handed and left-handed, but you'll watch the best players in the world play, and most of them are all one-handed. I think some of the things that we decide we need to do with young players...

is like so counter to what we actually see at the highest levels of the game of what's actually happening yeah i mean back to my statement of in an ideal world you would be you would be able to be equal but then again if you're playing you can only play on one side at a time

And so if you don't have someone who's equal, they can be incredibly effective getting their strong hand. And you still have to be able to go left and right, but you can. You can split underneath and get your strong hand. You can go topside and get your strong hand. You can roll back to your strong hand. You can pop away to your strong hand.

Yeah, I mean, obviously, being able to play on your natural side wing, obviously, you had a great post about it recently, just in terms of training, a better way to be a Dodger, right? When you get in that environment. You learn just such a greater array of moves than you do if you're the poor youth lacrosse kid who's just a big, fast midfielder that plays on six-by-six goals all the time. Right.

You're on the seventh grade team, your coach really, really wants to win, and you just become the kid that splits down the alley and sticks goals all day. Next thing you know, four years later, you haven't really learned how to play the game at a really, really high level.

you know and then obviously like the analytics part of it right you know like you know getting your stick to the middle you know what parts of the field do you initiate from that most likely lead to higher value shots right it's you know it's A lot of it is on your natural side wing, either isolating or in two-man game. Obviously, we can get into other stuff later, but behind the goal is obviously another great place to initiate from. But yeah, I think there's enormous value.

to being in situations where you have to learn to play on your natural side. No doubt. I mean, that is when you think about the goal size and what a powerful constraint it is for making the space smaller and creating all of those things we just talked about, but also... It just means that you have to get to the middle and you might as well try to get to the middle with your strong hand.

Being an expert at getting to the middle is really what it's all about. And that's the principle of play that kind of gets missed. I think sometimes people worry about stick protection and stick to the outside from a stick protection perspective.

when it's like really the very best players in the world get to the middle. And it's interesting to look at pros because they tend to become more one-handed than they were in college. Now there's exceptions to this. You got to have a two-handed X guy. Totally. You have middies that can split to both hands, especially if they can shoot it on the run from distance. It can be helpful, but it's...

But there's a reason why a lot of the best players in the world are wing guys and why they're just absolute experts at getting their strong hand in the middle. I think the alley dodge, stick to the outside shot is not a bad shot in the right context. I hate it as an...

initiation shot but i think through the flow of offense like if you're getting the ball like down through up and over and and now you're dodging down the hashes versus yeah it just even then your stick to the outside isn't as big of a deal you know so i think it's It's time and place. I'm not saying that we don't ever want your best athletes split and stick to the outside and shooting on the run. When does it make the most sense for your offense?

If you can get to the middle with your body and your sticks to the outside, but you're still, you know, inside the ashes, you know, and around 10 yards. So the thing is, it's pretty easy to slide to that. And that's why people don't get it. And when you're on your wrong side, it's hard to roll back.

to your strength. So that becomes easier to sort of take away. I actually have a funny story about a kid on his wrong side. One little constraint that I like to use to incentivize sticks to the middle is... you know, just use a simple, you know, if you shoot with your sticks in the middle, we'll give you two points in our little small side of games. You know, we had a kid, he's a righty, he's a sixth grader, and, you know, he's on his wrong side, kind of dodging down the alley, and, you know,

He kind of gets the inside leverage on the defender because the defender overplays the alley and he sort of rolls back. And instead of switching to his left hand, he just like fires off like this shovel shot that, I mean, it hit the pipe. It didn't go in.

you know, on our small nets, but he immediately turned to me like, I'm so sorry, coach, I'll never do that again. You know, because somewhere along the line, like again, and this is a much deeper discussion about, you know, fundamentals and, you know, what we accept young kids doing.

over other things you know somewhere along the line he did something creative and some coach probably said well you can't do that until you're great at like this basic thing um and meanwhile i'm like that's so smart you've found a way to get your stick to the middle increase your angle

And he took a great shot. I loved it. Totally. Alex Sarama talks about shot selection as probably his number one principle of play. And I agree with that too in men's and women's lacrosse. And he said, I used to have... Gold medals, you know, a gold medal shot was in the smile. A silver medal shot was a catch and shoot three. And a bronze medal shot was a pull up in the paint.

And he said, there was no bigger impact on my players from a developmental perspective and a skill acquisition perspective than eliminating the bronze medal. Other than maybe with a couple of kids or... at the very, very end of a shot clock, maybe just to eliminate that force to them to figure out how to do it. And that's what playing on your natural side is. I mean, if there's any coaches listening to this, there's nothing more impactful than...

than getting your kids to play on their natural side and letting them intuitively get to the middle. And the amazing thing is, is they will. They'll do all the moves that you're hoping for. They'll naturally rocker. They'll naturally roll back. They'll naturally step back. They'll put together.

multiple moves. They'll start to post stuff. They'll start doing stuff that they won't be able to do on the other side where we can. And again, in a perfect world, you learn all these things. If you had the time and you had the sort of aptitude, go do it on the other side. become equal where you can make all these moves on the lefty side too. But it's one of these things where you're way better off.

Being an expert at something of getting in the middle, because that's the principle of play of scoring goals, getting in the middle and shot selection. Have you come up with anything like the lacrosse equivalent of Alex's gold, silver, bronze in terms of like a... I've read his book, obviously, and I've tried to think about, like, it would be a really catchy way to communicate to your players the priority order of shots we'd want to take in our offense.

I haven't put it down exactly where it's that specific. And I think basketball with the smile and the threes makes it pretty easy. But the things that I'll talk about are dunks, feet set, and sticks to the middle. In screenshots, I mean, those are probably the ones that I'll emphasize the most. Feet sets, you know, it's always an advantage. Just like a quarterback wants to be able to set his feet. Doesn't mean we don't want to be able to shoot in the run, we have to.

being able to get our sticks to the middle and being able to set our feet and be able to look for screenshots. And of course we want, we want donks and assisted shots as often as we can. Sure.

I want to go ahead and answer the question I asked you about the most impactful thing. And it's a hard question because there's so many things. But in my last 18 months, I'd say the most impactful thing that I've learned is I've really dialed up. my understanding of ecological dynamics and the constraints-led approach is just to create way more variability in what I'm doing. There's a reason why coaches love their favorite drills, because they create

behaviors that we really want. And these behaviors, you know, usually our favorite drills are usually contextual because they're really creating behaviors. So whether it's a double four on four double team or a Y drill or whatever it is that we love. that we'd like to come back to. And I've always understood constraints through my coaching days, but I didn't understand the value of variability as much and changing constraints more.

frequently to the extent that it's every three or four or five minutes, depending on what we're doing and the size of the group and the reps and stuff like that. When we think of this, you take your four and four double team drill and you think, well, how could I? I love this drill. I want to work on double teams. I do too. Let's figure out some different ways to do the same drill. Maybe it's a different space. Maybe we have a 10-yard restraining line and we...

primarily play behind the net as a way of doing it. Maybe we have a keep away version of it where you got to make three passes under complete pressure while we're doing this double team. If there's a pick for the ball, we're going to... be able to get a double and stay on the double. But what are some elements of variability specifically that you've done that you've found have been really impactful for you?

I think a lot of things you mentioned, I mean, you know, boundaries in space are a big one. You know, I think that, you know, for a long time, I was really good at creating exception action coupling, right? Doing a lot of good stuff. But, you know, obviously to, you know, increase reps, you want smaller numbers.

But you also have to manipulate the space as well to make sure that it's as representative as possible. You can't play three-on-two in infinite space all the time. You need to crunch the space in some ways to make it more like the demands of the game.

I know there's some controversy on how effective scoring is. constraints are. I like them in the sense when you use them to incentivize things versus you have to score a certain way to get a point for your team. I think that's really different to me than...

saying like, if, you know, we want to, even with like young kids, like, you know, if kids aren't passing the ball a lot, you know, you'll see some coaches will say like, well, we got to get three passes before we take a shot. And, you know, on the surface, you're like, great, that's going to get kids moving the ball.

It's also going to like take them away from, you know, you know, maybe smarter decisions, right? Like you'll inevitably you'll get kids. They just won't cover the ball anymore. And it's like, well, I would just go to the goal. Right. Is the rule. Whereas. I'll just do something like, you know, an assist to goal is two points, you know, so you just you don't take away the option to score any way you want, but you just start to steer them towards.

sort of the higher value outcomes or the higher efficiency shots by making those more points. I like to do that that way. Obviously, manipulating numbers of players is another really good one. I tried towards the end of last year when I got Alex's book. It was towards the end of our season, but

We tried to adapt some of those games in there. We tried to do a version of Battleship, which for the listeners is you basically have your two teams, whatever your format is. We played a lot of four-on-four because we have a small roster in a smaller space. You know, you give the players options to trigger the offense in different ways. So you're kind of getting some initial, you know, initiation variability there. The other one that was really cool was the three lives game in that book where.

time a game and we're playing by normal scoring but you can constantly emphasize within those games Things you want to see where like it could be, you know, the defense isn't talking at a certain point. You just say they lose a life. And if they lose three lives before the game's over, they lose the game regardless of the score.

I don't know if that's the best example, but I think finding little creative ways within your competitions to incentivize certain behaviors in creative ways, I think has been something that I've really tried to challenge myself with and our players with. I totally agree. And I want to go back to the scoring constraints because that is an amazing constraint. And I didn't know that it was sort of a controversial topic.

I'm recording. Yeah, I don't know if it's like, maybe controversial is not the right word, but like... So I'm trying to tell you. But as far as scoring constraints go, I've found them to be amazing. And I totally agree with you that sometimes people use a constraint where you have to do something like free passes. And I feel like the key with... scoring constraints or any constraints is they have to be relative to principles of play.

So is ball movement an important principle of play? Yes. But just passing on the perimeter and just knocking out three passes isn't really a principle of play. So if you were to say like, we have to swing the ball. before we can score, that would be a different sort of constraint than just simply making three passes. I also feel like the scoring constraints...

are so powerful because anytime you can make something competitive, it's more fun and you'll get more out of it. And if it is competitive and there is a winner and a loser, now these constraints become, the scoring constraints become so much more powerful. I mean, nobody cares about two points for an awful goal.

if you're not really keeping score. When all of a sudden you figure out how to make it competitive, then your scoring constraints have so much more value. And I think that we can experiment with... all different things and see what works. Because in the end, what we're trying to do is get a behavior that you might not have gotten otherwise and to encourage them so it's their own free will to make the decision to do something.

But I don't have a problem with saying we're playing a game to three and you have to figure out how to score off all goals. Because now they have to figure out how to score off all goals, even though they're not really allowed to dodge right now, but they still can get open. They can use tickets. It tends to lend itself to pick actions and stuff like that. So the battleship, I love that. For those of you guys that want a little more detail, I'm doing a reel actually. It comes out today on that.

Essentially, it's like a checklist scoring system. And Brian said it, but if you're doing any game and you say, I want you guys to run, you have to score off of the first team to score off these three actions, wins.

And therefore, maybe it's an off-ball pick, an on-ball pick, or maybe it's three different types of AAA ratings for your pick options. Or maybe you want to have, listen, we're going to score off of three different pick options, but they have to be in three different places on the field. Yeah, location's a big one, right?

Like, you know, you've got to score off a razor pick or, you know, you've got to not necessarily score off it, but you've got to create sort of the advantage and play through from that point. Oh, yeah. Location's another big one. Back to the whole variability concept. It's been so much fun because it forces me to be creative. And the reason why I would say in the last 18 months, I've learned more than maybe I have in the last 15 years is because...

I've literally, I'm trying to figure out a way to get players to play within principles of play. And I'm trying to think of as many different ways of doing it. And a lot of times people are like, yeah, but... You know, I like the way I'm doing it, but then you get this fool's gold piece of, and you did a Twitter post on this recently about like, you know, when we're younger coaches, we like it when, when practice looks good.

And the reason why it looks good is because you keep doing the same drills over and over again. Everybody figures out exactly how to do them. But games are so incredibly variable. And so therefore, the more variability we can create intentionally through principles of play. Maybe it's ball movement. Maybe it's reading the defense. Maybe it's taking away the middle.

Maybe it's double teams, getting in on the backside, vision, deception. There's endless principles of play that are really, really important. And as long as we're aware of, and these principles of play are...

They're not really negotiable. We as coaches have to live and die by them. We can dial them up and down a little bit. Maybe if you have a great face-off guy and a great goalie, you can play and worry a little bit less about possession than the team that doesn't have that. At the end of the day, we still have to be able to live and die and be good at these and great at these principles of play. And they become constraints in and of themselves.

Yeah. I think that the fun thing too, is it's just such a more fun way as you go through your season to like work on the things that you're noticing you need to get better at, you know? Yeah, I think that sometimes you get caught in this trap and you get in your season and you recognize, you know, we're having trouble in this area. And I just, probably this is younger coach, he'd like spend so much time just like going over that one scenario, kind of in isolation, talking about it like.

feeling really good, like my players understand this now, you know, when really, obviously, you know, you You harness the power of the small side of game, the competitiveness in practice, and you find all these creative ways to emphasize or incentivize or de-incentivize those things through all the things we just talked about.

I think it's so interesting what you just said about when you're evaluating your team and you're trying to figure out what you're good at and what you're not good at relative to principles of play and relative to the phases of the game. You know, the game goes from transit, you know, defense to transition offense or clearing into offense, into transition defense or riding into defense.

And obviously all four of those phases of the game are incredibly important. We can practice them individually, but we also need to try to practice them in the flow. that they have, which is more challenging for you probably with a smaller roster than it was at Whittier when you had, you know, 40 guys. Yeah, I would say at my school now, that's the biggest challenge, right? You know, I have maybe 18 to 20 kids on my varsity team. Oh, and it's...

We can't really go full field. It's hard to get the full game context and practice. Obviously, just working on riding and clearing, you have to be really creative with how you do that. So, yeah, I mean, that's a big challenge trying to find ways to, you know, make practice as representative as possible with the numbers that we have. So then they can then extrapolate that out to the way the game flows.

I'm perfect at it, but it's definitely a huge challenge. One easy wave is just clear to the midline. Totally. That's one way. Yeah, we use, I mean, we use all, and we try to use it. Boring systems, like with our half-field stuff. We obviously will do a lot of our half-field stuff in two ways. It's either the offensive personnel generally versus the defensive personnel, and the defense gets... We can come up with all kinds of ways that they can get points without scoring.

I was saying that because a lot of times, me as a coach, I've been guilty of just repping six on six and not clearing it out enough. At least clear it past the restraining line. I mean, when you don't have big numbers and you need to get six on six stuff done.

If you spend too much time riding in the midline, your guys are going to be gassed. And so you have to kind of figure out that balance. You know, I mean, we definitely make clears and, you know, what we would deem is creating a fast break. Like those are all things that we'll emphasize on certain days. I mean.

Everything that we do, we use our scoreboard. It's timed. We keep score. Again, I think something as simple as our players in practice competing and being mindful of the scoreboard that's there on game day. Maybe people think it's obsessive and neurotic, but I think about that stuff. And even though we do most of our stuff on a half field, I'm always going to the other side of the field because I want the visual stuff to be different. I think about these things.

100%. I got a really cool riding clearing constraint from Six on Six that I've not tried yet because I haven't had a group to do it, but I'll explain it to you right now and tell me what you think. But basically... Turn the restraining line of your plane six on six and turn the restraining line into your midline. Okay.

So instead of having to work most of the time when we work on our clearing, if you clear to the restraining line or clear to the midline, the majority of what you're working on actually is the beginning of the clear. throwing it to an outlet, the overpass and all that kind of stuff. And it's oftentimes the midline clearing that is the hardest.

to do. And you almost have to do it completely separately. And it's hard to get into a flow of that. Meaning at some point in the clear, your goalie is going to have it at the restraining line. There may be 10 seconds left on your clearing clock. And you got to figure out what ride they're in, how we stretch people over. Are we running it over? Are we on sides? All of these elements. And I was thinking that if you just took your restraining line and you made that essentially the midline.

And you could even suck. So you could have an extra LSM out and other clearing middies that are sort of on a box area that would be even with that restraining line, which is now your midline, you can immediately get into...

a clearing setup where you drop middies back into the zones that they might be dropping back on covering middies as they go deep. They're only going to go as far as the midline itself because that would be the same distance from midline to far restrained line. And I was thinking that might be a really cool way.

to work on with a smaller team or even a college team to be able to just actually work on that part of your riding and clearing, which is oftentimes the hardest part and the least worked on, particularly with teams with a smaller roster. Yeah, I mean, well, yeah, we, I am all for every creative idea possible to work on that part of the game with a small team. I mean, we'll do, I mean, we'll chunk it. I mean, we'll do, you know, 7v6 in sort of like in between.

the restraining lines like so we'll like kind of start it from that point um in the clear and sort of wrap out the ride and clear from that point because really the reality is is even if you have enough kids to go you know, full on 10 on 10, you don't have enough to sustain the reps. So you still got to make it, you still got to put it in small segments. So I like that idea though.

I'm always trying to think of ways like, how can I make small-sided riding and clearing games that are valuable for the bigger? The other really good one is West Jenny Ride Clear. Okay. Where you basically have... Let's just say you've got a three on three plus a goalie in a space that's, you know, let's say, I don't know, 15 or 20 yards wide. And you just tell them that.

only one player on each team can go over, but you've got an extra, or maybe you let you go over. And so now all of a sudden you've got somebody stepping over and they'll have to get back before somebody could run it over. Or if you allowed in that, or if you played a four on four, maybe you say, okay, two players can go over on each team. Well, plus the goalie. So you got a five on four clearing setup, but now you have this step over.

You have to make sure that the riding team can't let anyone go deep on them. And you can have a scoring system that says a ride back is worth the goal. And a fast break is like points or whatever. And you can basically create a really cool little...

I would say like building it up from three on three is a good way to start to get the concepts of just stepping over and coming back and who can run it over and how you can run it over without being on site, without being off site, but then to turn it into four on four. or even five on five where you're just basically going back and forth with defensive and offensive personnel, figuring out how to establish, you know, one guy has to be declared the attackman and then the middies can...

essentially follow their guys over or figure out how to zone it up and how to get back on sides. Yeah, I like it. Figure out how to step over and make a pass or how to run it over and how to get back on sides. And it's amazing to watch the communication that occurs.

between players when they start realizing that they have to get somebody back on sides or they have to be able to run it over themselves. And how tough it is at first, but then actually it's just not that hard. But again, it's that midline clearing that I think is like...

one of the most difficult and challenging and confusing parts of the game. It's not that challenging if you really get it, but they just don't rep it. I feel like from a riding perspective, you should either 10-man or deep ride. Like nothing in the middle, right? Like both put high levels of pressure on the other team in very unique ways. Yeah. All right. I want to switch gears and see if I can get your definition of ecological dynamics.

Okay. It's a big question. You don't have to spend too long. Give me like a... Yeah, yeah. Look, I'm not an expert in this. It's just something I'm really interested in. And I feel like I understand it enough to where I can practically implement it. Ecological dynamics, to me, is really just the idea that we...

perceive an environment and the things we do come out of that versus we practice things in isolation and put it back together to take into an environment. I don't know if that makes sense. And I think that how I... was coached in most sports as a kid and how i coached for a long part of my coaching career i was part of that model where you broke the game down into its sort of deconstructed parts and

You magically just hope you can put it all together and then kids are going to understand how to do it in the dynamic environment. Whereas, again, ecological dynamics to me is you worry less about breaking the game down and you focus more on... creating an environment where they intuitively learn those things that you start with teaching normally. Love it.

Yeah, ecological dynamics is the combination of two fields of study, ecological psychology and dynamical systems theory. And, you know, you can get PhDs in these things and they're being studied all over the world. And it's incredibly interesting. I've probably done this spiel a million times, but I wouldn't call myself a total expert in it either. But I'm a practicing ecological dynamics and constraints-led approach. But essentially, what it states is it explains human movement.

And that we perceive our surroundings and we act instantaneously to them and we self-organize. And the reason why it's so impactful is because... Therefore, everything we do is relative to our surroundings, which is we already know this because decision-making is the most important element of winning games. If you're not a good decision-making team, then you're not going to probably win very many games.

And the self-organization piece is incredibly important too, because it basically states that we're not top down. Our brain isn't telling us what to do. We react to the situation. And therefore, there is no one way to do something. And there's not one technique that's a one size fits all. Not only does every player play differently, but every situation is different. And that really...

It's principles of play that will dictate whether it's a good outcome or not a good outcome. So if we're talking about just completing a pass and being able to possess the ball. It's less about the technique and this concept of functional variability where we don't care how they accomplish it, but it has to be accomplished. And I think we all kind of know this because when we watch pro lacrosse players, like, oh yeah, they can do that.

I think the hardest part with this ecological dynamics framework for people is like, well, how could it possibly work for somebody that doesn't know how to play yet? And the answer is simply, all we're saying is... You got to focus on the very same principles of play you always would. But essentially, we want to do it where there's some kind of decision making. And if it's a very, very young or inexperienced player, then we're going to have to make the situation easier.

rather than harder. Maybe we reduce poles or reduce the numbers or make it uneven. And if it's a higher level of play, maybe you can add poles or add pressure or add space constraints that limit space.

I think people are just very, very hung up on the idea that things need to unfold in like a linear way. And you need to understand these very basic things in isolation before you could. Before you do that. It's funny, I've gotten into these battles on Twitter. You use the F word on Twitter, you're getting in a lot of trouble. Fundamentals is a hot topic for people.

And really, the idea of fundamentals is sort of born out of the information processing theory, which is literally, I think, the opposite of what we're talking about in ecological dynamics. And I just think it's so culturally ingrained in our sports system. that you have to do it that way, that there's just this major block for a lot of people that makes it harder to have the conversation with. Obviously, it's easy for us to have the conversation because we're doing it.

But when you're trying to explain this to somebody who maybe has never heard of ecological dynamics or a constraints-led approach, I find that people just have a really, really difficult time understanding that...

you can just play, right? And I've talked about this on Twitter the past couple of weeks. It's like, we're obsessed with this idea that you got to learn to catch first, right? And I've actually said like, If you just start thinking that catching is the last skill a kid's ever going to learn, and you just let them play in contextual situations, think about how many things they get better at.

when they're in a contextual situation, even though they can't catch and throw. They're learning to dodge. They're getting opportunities to finish on a goalie. It's the best ground ball drill you could ever do. You know, and, you know, they're learning to move without the ball. You know, so I think we are obsession with like, you got to be able to do this one thing this way before you can do other things. This holds kids back from.

being able to learn a million things as they get better at catching. Yeah. It's so true also because we just don't have enough time. There's a field study called differential learning, which is not really... CLA because there's no context and it has to do with just purely... Well, it's just another thing that's sort of under the umbrella of ecological dynamics. I think that's a good thing for the listener. Ecological dynamics is like the overarching theme. The constraints-led approach is just...

sort of one thing under that umbrella, right? Am I communicating that right? Well, I think actually DL, I don't, is not actually... under ecological dynamics because there is no perception involved but what it focuses on is is is movement solutions and like let's be honest like the movement solutions in lacrosse

of catching in particular, you said it is one of the hardest skills that there are. And you could definitely find value in learning how to catch and having in all different kinds of ways. The key with DL though, is the variability of it.

Sure. It's basically not doing the same thing over and over the way people like practice on a wall where they do 50 of these and 50 of those would be the opposite of differential learning. The idea is variability back to that concept that I said was so impactful for me. But if you start really breaking it down, it's like, okay, well, I can see some value in this, but we just don't have time to separate our...

our stick work from our decision-making because you only have, you know, if you're a youth coach, you only have like three or four hours a week of practice anyways. And so why not do a keep away drill where you're getting, you know, where you're getting your passing and catching and you've got some defenders. So you have to throw it around the stick and read.

You know, maybe it's a three on two or a four on two or whatever it is, depending on how easy or challenging you need it to be. It could be a five on five with full double teams if you're a high level team. But the idea being that that there is.

There are skills that you could practice with variability, but most of the time, the beauty of the CLA is that it kills like three birds with one stone. I mean, you're practicing so many different things. If you do a three on two or a four on three keep away. You're getting all your stick work. You're actually handling some pressure. Yeah. I would ask the question, right? Like if you take a bunch of young kids that don't really have a lot of experience.

right they haven't mastered catching yet and you design a practice where you're okay with the fact that they can't catch and it's this really enriching learning environment that's fun where they're playing a lot and they're getting a lot of opportunities to make decisions And on the other hand, you have a group that is working on traditional fundamentals. Which kids do you think are more likely to leave practice and go do all the stuff?

that you would do when you don't have anyone else to work with. To me, I think it's going to be the kids that are so fired up about what they did in practice that are going to be more likely to go work on their own. I don't know. Do you agree with that?

I don't disagree. I think there's a lot of really hard workers out there that might do it either way. But that study was done. And Alex Sarama cites it. And I can't cite the name of the study, but there was a study done where there was a control group of people that only worked on fundamentals and there was a control group.

people that just worked everything in small-sided game in context yeah it was it was in rob gray's rob gray put it in his most recent book it was i think it was young soccer players yeah and amazingly the players in context had fewer touches but they improved.

on whatever the metrics they were using. Yeah, so basically it was the fundamentals group was basically doing skills in isolation in soccer. It was young beginning soccer players, you know, dribbling through cones, passing through gates. And the other group was doing the small side of games. And then I think the post-test was basically

just doing what the fundamentals group was practicing and yeah and i think the results were actually the same but what was interesting is when they looked at the touches it was like half the touches for the small side of games group right so like one you're

You think about an efficiency standpoint, you can be just as good as the group that had the test before taking it with half the touches. And then I think it also gets back to sort of... the motivational factor and creating a love for the game and young players like which group do you think had more fun well clearly the group that played had more fun if the results were the same and there was a team that actually was playing in context and learning how to actually play the game

that the other team didn't. I mean, it would have been kind of funny to play a game between those two. I was talking about this yesterday. I said they should have done a second post-test where they played a small-sided game, and we all know what happened in that. I mean, exactly. That's...

You know, obviously it's tough to measure that because who knows how good the players were on each team. But that's such a good example. And it comes back to killing three birds with one stone. So back to your four on three, if you add a pick action or off ball pick action or a double team or any type of pressure. You can use constraints to teach so many different parts of the game while you're getting your throwing and catching in. And so I think it is pretty incredible.

And so ecological dynamics is something that I continue to study. I continue to read about. I mean, I go back and re-listen to Alex Sarama's podcast. I've listened to his podcasts, some of them like five or 10 times.

Just because I want to be able to totally understand it and articulate it. Well, let's talk about the constraints approach. What that is, everybody, is it's the methodology that's underpinned by...

this ecological dynamics concept that you cannot extract the perception from the action or the skill from the decision and that we're going to do it all together. There's constraints that are occurring in every single... game that's being played and the constraints would be the numbers or the time or maybe it's raining and the surface is wet or maybe you know

someone's talking smack to you or it's the defensive coverage or the offensive action or the out of bounds or the crease. All of these are constraints that are happening in a game and they're completely interwoven. And the best players are the ones that can then, you know, interact within these constraints and figure out where the advantages are on both sides of the ball. And so the CLA then...

allows us to manipulate these constraints and dream up these constraints based on principles of play. The principles of play piece, I said it earlier, I think this is the part where you can find common ground with any coach. Because principles of play aren't going anywhere, whether it's not letting people easily get to the middle or defensively, things like ball pressure or help defense. These are the principles of play that have to happen.

But instead of repping out an exact way of doing everything, we're going to kind of let them win or lose if we make it competitive or have success or not based and create these constraints that might. teach that. And that's what has been, like I said, has been so exciting for me is instead of trying to teach a way to dodge, let's figure out a way to create a constraint.

that would teach different ways to dodge. Give me some examples of different constraints you use to teach one-on-ones on both sides of the ball. Well, I mean... I think we kind of touched on it earlier, like obviously the power of learning the dodge on your natural side, you know, so you can use physical boundary constraints to make that happen, right? Like you can take your righties and, you know.

put them on their natural side and you can line cones up and take away the lefty side and start there. And then if kids are still taking poor angle shots, maybe you then further layer it. constraint in there with a point incentive that a stick to the middle goal is two points, right? So these are ways that you can just guide them to, I think guide is the key word, right? Versus tell.

You know, you find creative ways to guide them, you know, and even in the box or gym, you know, rather than using cones, like you can just put a goal like next to a wall. You know, and then play, and then the ball bounces off the wall, and there's no kind of confusion in your little, whether it's a two-on-two game, a three-on-three game, whatever it may be. You know, the ball bounces off the wall, and they just play, and you just constrain them to their natural side. So...

I think those are big ones. I'm totally with you on the value of dodging on your natural sides. Let's find ways to force kids into those situations. And then in terms of principles of play, shot selection is a big one. Incentivize the higher level shots with point values. Those are honestly the main ways that I do it. Yeah. Well, so that's why variability has been so exciting for me because I've just dreamed up a ton of different ways to create different defensive looks.

Maybe I'll line them up, square it up, and the defense can't actually, you know, maybe give a shade that allows a right-handed player to get to the middle on the sweep a little bit and not allow the defensive player to touch the... offensive player until the move is made and they jab, jab, jab, jab, and get a feel for how to jab and get a step. And then it's live. Or maybe I'll have an outside the arc constraint where they're going to do that. And now they have to somehow.

get a shot off on the run outside of an arc that's within a range that we would want them to shoot or in their abilities. Outside the arc is phenomenal. It was crazy. I had like seventh graders and we just did like a one-on-one with a picker. And a lot of them are new kids. And within like five minutes...

These kids were shooting around picks and sort of like faking coming over the top of the pick and like backpedaling and naturally shooting like these low high whine like this is stuff that if I tried to explicitly teach them it would take me like five siss. Yeah, you can't. And by the way, the reason why I got into ecological dynamics was because I was really meticulous about teaching kids stuff. I had a list of about 150 different...

Skills, shots, feats, deception, two-man, dodges, anything and everything you could think of that I thought that they could do, that they should be able to do. And sure enough, if you practice it enough, they could do it. But they just didn't do it enough. On their own, the transfer was what really got me going in this direction.

But back to the one-on-ones, I want to rattle off a few more for people to think about. So yeah, one-on-one plus a picker with an outside the arc is an incredible. Telling the picker's defender, I mean, telling the on-ball defender, like you have to go over the pick. Creating an outside the arc, maybe say you have to set your feet to shoot.

You know, learning how to try to do a one-on-one outside the arc where you have to set your feet to shoot is going to mean that you have to get physical with somebody to bounce off them. Line up in a post-up where there's equal pressure and you're saying, okay, you know, the defense.

has to give equal pressure to this Dodger that's going to lean on them, lean on them, lean on them. And eventually they'll figure out how to spin or rock or rip move. Or maybe just be like, all right, offense, you guys can do some hand fighting.

And you have to learn how to use, you know, if it's two hands on your stick, you have to learn how to use your arm in that equal pressure to try to get it, try to get some kind of an advantage. Sometimes we do like a cross check bait where we line them up in a post stop.

you know, let's just say around, you know, 15 yards in the houses or something like that. And we're like, defense, you have to aggressively try to cross check the crap out of this guy. And it teaches you how to step back and bait that. The best shorties are going to do that to you anyways, and learning how to beat that cross jacket to make them miss, essentially, or swim it. Just changing up, obviously, approaches and different angles. I mean, there's a million ways to do it, but...

What I'm trying to impress on everybody is it is so much fun to be creative and figure out different ways. Look at any skill you want your players to learn, then figure out what situation that seems to happen in. and then simulate the situation and see what happens. And then going from there, it's just incredibly interesting and fun, and it just creates a more adaptable player.

I mean, I think the best part of it is like, just try stuff. If it doesn't work, just stop doing it and do something else. You know, I think we're so afraid of throwing a rule out there and it bombing and it's like, whatever, you just change the rule. You know, like you got to tinker.

By the way, let's leave the conversation with this last topic because you just led me into something that I would love to chat about, which is the CLA makes coaches better so much faster because of what you just said, which is... I mean, let's be honest that making adjustments is the sign of what a great coach can do. Adjustments in a game happen because we see what our opponents are doing.

And we can tell our team this is what they're doing. And hopefully we've like practiced these types of things before so that your team kind of knows what you're talking about. But the CLA develops coaches. And I'm a product of that. I feel like I've gotten so much better as a coach being able to do this. And by the way, when I started doing this much variability, I had never felt more exposed as a coach when I was like, made it a point to be way, way, way more variable.

I was pretty good at running constraints and recognizing them and officiating them, but I wasn't really good at changing them as fast as I am now because if I didn't do my homework on the front end or in real time, I wasn't as good at figuring out how to do stuff. Your ability to see if a constraint is working. Your ability is critical. That's your adjustments. Your ability to see what your players are good at. So you adjust.

Maybe the constraint isn't working because it's too hard and you have to give more space or reduce the polls or reduce the numbers. Or maybe it's that your players aren't quite figuring something out that you want them to figure out and you have to...

immediately figure out a constraint that will make happen what you want it to happen. Let's say you're doing a double team drill and your defense just isn't getting the doubles, but it's because your offense is better than your defense and they're slipping everything. Maybe you got to tell your attackman.

You know, your middies that are setting the picks for the attack, you have to set your feet on a pick. Well, it makes it a little easier for that guy to get that double team when it's sort of wide open. Or maybe you say, sorry, guys, you can't reject. You know, you have to use this pick. Whatever. There's ways that you can. in real time recognize what's happening on the field and make an adjustment to it. And your players are learning the same thing. They're learning how to make adjustments.

by a new constraint happening every three or four or five minutes, your players become completely adept at changing conditions, which is obviously what we want. And so I was curious what your thoughts were on your end about how the CLA just... developed coaches. Yeah, I mean, I don't have an enormous amount to add that. I mean, I think that it constantly challenges you to be, that's the word I'm looking for,

Observing. Definitely observing, but you want to be really intentional, right? It forces you to really be intentional and think about what you're seeing and find ways to help your players.

Have you read Rob Gray's most recent book? No, I need to. The whole premise of the book is essentially teaching coaches how to... harness the cla as a coach like not not in terms of implementing it but how to view your progression as a coach through like an ecological approach um you know it's a book i'm gonna have to read twice i mean it's it's it's good stuff i think you really got to dive in

But what's really interesting, too, about the changing constraints, I know he's got the 70% rule. Have you heard of this? No. Basically, you want to dial your constraints in whatever it is you're working on. 70% is what he says is the magic number. If you're trying to get your players to do something, the number you're aiming for is like...

they do it 70% of the time. And if they're doing it more than 70% of the time, it's time to change the constraint to make it more difficult. If it's below 70%, that gets to your point about you might have to make the pecker set his feet. So that was a good guide in terms of, because it's really easy to say like, hey, we got to be really observant and we got to change constraints.

you know but we don't want to just do it to do it like we want to be like observing like what is happening and what's you know again what's the number we're looking for to to guide us on whether to dial up or dial down although i'll say this I think that changing constraints intentionally is the ideal, but if you're just changing constraints, it's better than not changing constraints. I would agree.

And I think it's important. And I think, I think as you get started, I think it's really important just to change constraints. Even if you're not positive what to do, just because it'll allow you to see and you'll get better at changing constraints and your players will get better at.

at that as well, whether it's just, I mean, and what is changing constraints, guys? The constraints could just be the offensive action you're asking them to do. It could be the defensive coverage. If you're playing a pick, if you're playing picks, just have them

not switch. I mean, which by the way is how it happens in a game anyways. Like every time I watch kids practice a two-on-two, they switch everything. Well, we're not going to switch a big little. You know, we're going to try to get under it or over it most of the time. I mean, that's naturally what happens. And so by saying we're going to...

have different coverages, different actions. You know, maybe we want to have, you know, quicker ball movement and you can add a constraint where you have a seven seconds on a side and you got to swing to the other side in seven seconds. You could just randomly throw those in and they would probably be pretty good for you. You mentioned something. Maybe you've done this, but we do all of our off-season training in the box. On Tuesday, we were just doing two-on-two of the feeder.

and just playing around with shot clocks and i'm kind of playing around with you know like a seven second shot clock but when you throw it to your feeder you can get a reset when it comes back or you play with like a 15 second shot clock and when the ball goes to your feet or your shot clock pauses i'm just trying to get i'm just trying to be more creative with shot clocks and you know you have x amount of time and and what was interesting is obviously what i'm trying to get out of that is like

for guys to think more about the two-man game besides the on-ball side. There's this whole other element of two-man game where you move the ball early, you continue your action, you get it back. Even if you don't get something, the ball swings and... You have natural AAA ratings, so on and so forth. By giving them the reset on the swings, I felt like it really got what I was looking for because it incentivized. They buy more time.

by swinging the ball. You can have a short clock, but if you move it, you can get it back and get another short clock. You can get it back and you get a new clock, right? And it makes you move. I was playing around with resets. I thought that was interesting. I would say like, what would you say, like there's someone listening right now

that is not doing this at all? What do you think are the most practical and least intimidating ways to just get started? Because I think the big thing that deters people, even if they can get past sort of the idea of the information processing part of it, is like... How do I do this tomorrow at practice without being an expert? I have a couple thoughts. What do you think? What I think is that if you can...

Take your favorite drills that are contextual, so meaning offense and defense, if you can take those and figure out ways to do them differently.

And also at the same time, figure out, are they too easy or are they too hard? So if you're doing a one-on-one and the attackman starts in the back corner and can sweep all the way across the top and turn it into righty alley, it's probably too much space. But if you can basically take... anything you're doing and make it different through space time coverage action starting point if you can create variability

within your favorite drills already and realize if they're too easy or too hard. I mean, I think that's so important. I mean, West Jenny, everybody loves doing it because it's just too easy though. You don't really get that much out of it from our principles of play when you just play a 302. West Jenny, it's... It's one pass, if there's a pass, and a shot. And it looks great. You feel great after your West Journey. But if you just turned your West Journey into a 4-on-3, it would be a lot better.

And if you said, all right, I like the West Jenny four on three. It's pretty fun. Start running actions within it. I mean, all you have to do is add stuff to what you're doing. And then once you add an action and be like, all right, defense, you have to go over the pick and pressure it. Now, all of a sudden, it's real pressure and they got to handle that pressure. And all of a sudden, by just taking the favorite stuff that you already do and realize that's the best stuff that you're doing.

add constraints that just create variability. And as you get better at it, like we said, you'll become more intentional and more creative. And that's the fun part about the whole thing is being able to be creative.

for your players and allow your players to be creative. And the last thing I'll leave with you is if you're gonna do some stick work, make sure it's not challenging and repetitive. Like I said, This kind of stick work I think can have some value would just be running up and down the field in a two-man or three-man situation where you got to run and throw and catch at speed and at distance.

Why? Because there is variability involved in that. And frankly, in the middle of the field, a lot of times your catch is, you know, you're open anyways. You just got to be able to run and throw and catch. And if you're really worried about overhand, use a constraint. Rather than telling them exactly what they have to do, maybe say,

You guys have to hold your hands high. Well, if you tell them to hold your hands high, you're going to probably get the kind of pass that you want. And that just becomes a constraint that you can use without worrying about exactly how anybody does something. But at the same time, you might just as well say, I want you to throw everything underhand.

Why? Because we want our players to be adaptable. So if you sort of take your stick work and say, I'm going to make it more variable where it's more challenging. And then you sort of look at, well, what about my half field stick work?

you should do your half field stick work and keep away. It's crazy not to. You can spread it out. I mean, you can do a four on three in a 20 yard box where you got to set your feet and crank passes. There's so many ways to create the stick work that you want with context in the half field. Focus on that stuff. Take the drills that you already do and just change them up. If you do a wide drill, do different setups, do different coverages, do different actions. Have your...

players do different things within it. And if you just make those changes, it's the easiest way to get started and you will see the results. And of course, when you're in season, you got to do that anyways. That's what scouting is. When you're running the other team's offense against yourself. You know, you just turn that into your drills, but that's what the CLA is all day long. You're just running what you might see differently.

Because every team plays a little bit differently. Whether it's adding a shutoff, play a small-sided game and have a shutoff on a regular basis and be like, oh, the shutoff guy has to score. There's millions of ways that will challenge. Your best player is going to get shut off. Well, how about shutting him off in practice a lot and try to get your team to figure out how to get him open?

and how to get him goals. That was a big one for us last year. We had a great team last year and had a lot of success, and we had the best player in the section. Obviously, we saw... from defensive coordinators and coaches, you know, a million different ways to try to slow him down. So we had to really be thoughtful about how we practiced all those things, dealing with him being shut off a lot.

was one that we spent a lot of time on. And ultimately by the end of the year, we had a lot of really, really good stuff to go to in this situation. It's awesome. BK, so great having you on, man. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk lacrosse, ecological dynamics, constraints. Awesome stuff, man. Good luck this year. Thanks for coming on. Yeah, thanks for having me. It's been great.