Structure … gleaning order from chaos.

I like organising stuff. Well, maybe it’s not so much that I LIKE it, but it is my natural inclination to do so.

So when I took up BJJ - it didn’t take long to notice that there were a very, very large number of jig-saw pieces to this particular puzzle. 

Very often, students are introduced to this piece, then that piece, with very little structure or planning going into how it all fits together. Then, after some time, we begin to see relationships between some for the pieces, and we begin to build sequences/pathways and eventually, ‘games’.  This is though, more often an organic rather than a deliberate and structured process.

One of the most fun projects for me - is to choose a given BJJ topic - and begin to collate, then order every thing I know about that topic into a structured an ordered design. 

I’ve done it with dozens of topics to date … and I get a lot of satisfaction from the challenge of doing so. I usually begin with the ‘seed’ idea for each topic - and then ‘branch out’ into entries, variations, applications and trouble-shooting, for example. 

Today, the ‘lions-share’ of the seminars that I teach, follow this pattern. I pick a topic - teach the basics of it - in a highly calculated order … and then build on that foundation (again, in a specific order). For me, structure and design are integral to the delivery of information in a way that saves people from having to re-invent the wheel or spend too much time down dead-end pathways. ‘Structure’ is one way we can shape order from chaos.