Best of Combat Learning 2025 & 2024

Looking back on the first two years of the Substack era.

2024 marked the change from Combat Learning as a website and podcast hosted on WordPress and Anchor FM to hosted on Substack.

It triggered huge growth of the email list, and riding that excitement, I wrote a frenzy of new articles after only publishing three articles for the first four years of the podcast.

I’ve slowed down a bit since then, but I’m not done. More is to come! But in the meantime, I’ve assembled a list of posts that were most popular over these first two years of the “Substack era” of Combat Learning.

Best of Combat Learning ‘24 & ‘25

Bruce Lee's Tao of Aliveness

Teaching Martial Arts: 7 Concepts that will Transform Your Classes and Your Students

What Makes the Ecological Approach “Ecological?”

There are no Eco Games.

The Task Complexity Taxonomy

Representative Learning Design for Martial Arts Training

What is Representative Learning Design?

How to Manipulate Constraints to Build Deep Skill [How We Learn to Move, Chapter 4 Companion]

Get Conversant with Ecological Training Terms in 13 Minutes or Less.

There is No Perfect Technique

Combat Learning in 2026

I’ve had limited bandwidth between a demanding day job (I changed jobs this year), freelancing, and scraping through a doctoral program. I haven’t disappeared, and I am figuring out how I can carve out more time for my readers and listeners.

I also want to be a lot more active in promoting CLA in striking sports, especially sport taekwondo and karate. These are still virtually untouched spaces.