Faris Benlamkadem on ecological training and his ADCC preparation

Charles and Eoghan are joined by IBJJF world champion and ADCC competitor Faris Benlamkadem, who talks through a training camp in America spent working with coaches using a constraints-led, "ecological" approach to jiu jitsu. Faris explains he had been dealing with a knee bursitis problem for months before the camp, and describes how his training picked up once it cleared and he received his ADCC invite.

The bulk of the conversation covers how that ecological method is structured in practice: sessions built around short games, roughly ten minutes each, that progressively narrow the goal, for example moving from simply making a connection, to breaking an opponent down from that connection, to controlling them once they are down. Faris and Eoghan also discuss adapting this for beginners, agreeing that giving newer students very specific, limited tasks (such as a guard passer only needing to get two hooks in) stops sessions turning into uncontrolled scrambling.

Faris says the biggest shift for him has been mental: rather than freestyling in matches and reacting off instinct, he now goes in with a set of tasks for each position, standing, on top and on bottom, which gives him a clearer game plan regardless of opponent. He credits the same camp with a marked improvement in his wrestling and hand fighting, and the conversation moves into a broader discussion of the current competitive meta, including the growing importance of wrestling and guard passing, and the merits and flaws of scoring rules in sub-only formats where guard pullers can be hard to penalise.

On ADCC itself, Faris talks about his final week of preparation, including double training sessions, and says he is more focused on the calibre of opponent and the moments a match can produce than looking for an easy path through the bracket. He also touches on a possible rematch and a potential path to a final against Marlon, and reflects on why a short, memorable highlight often matters more for a competitor's profile than the overall result of a match.

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