Rolling this week was eventful as I have been able to develop a new perspective for Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Beginning this week, I participated in Andre's class and I became instantly enamored with his explanation of grips and how the importance of grips can never be underestimated. The key points I took from the class is the hierarchy of grips with the grip on the top collar near the head being of foremost importance while the grips on sleeve and leg of less importance while the lower collar grip being deemed as the lowest on the rung of grip importance. When I applied the grip importance viewpoint, I was rewarded in both being able to pull off my moves very successfully along with being able to enjoy and appraise BJJ matches in great detail. Rolling was decent as I was able commit much more submissions than usual as well as pull off moves that are simply in the experiment stage since I devoted steadfast focus to grips.

 Wrestling class was of course quite eventful. One goal I took from the class is to attack the arm drag with stronger consistency, therefore, whenever standing up I will always attack it and from that point shoot and attack the single leg. With a sense of gratitude, Lucas illustrated a method of properly attacking the deep half while maintaining proper defense, the major concept is protecting and being defensive until the deep half is sunk in. Conversely from being deep half'd emphasis must be granted towards driving my leg close to my opponent's hip and from there I can hit a deep chin choke. Alas there is much to learn.

  Wednesday was devoted to rest and then Thursday was a truly amazing class with Bill Cooper. Cooper explained a fundamental method of landing the darce which mimic'd to an extent an upper cut from standing. Cooper then moved on to show a way to pass the butterfly gaurd via grasping the opponent's head and driving the elbow to the floor while simultaneously switching the hips and pushing the knee back. Cooper also illustrated a method of achieving the triangle while sidemounting the opponent where I allow the opponent to extend his arm inside and I pull on the arm and lay from that point into the triangle. Friday was followed with more Bill Cooper stuff in which he showed a way of acheiving Darce from full mount by grasping the head pressuring the wrist, getting the opening and snaking my arm inside then from that point switching my hips over and falling into the darce set-up. Lastly, Cooper showed a method of achieving the gi collar choke by sidemounting the opponent and using the gi collar while keeping the opponent oblivious and from that point switching hips to chest on chest, handing the gi collar over to the arm clasping the opponent's head and getting the choke via straightening my arm. It was a fun class.

  Saturday followed with a gi session and for an unfathomable reason I was really tired but made note of a problem in that I am having a massive amount of difficulty passing the Z guard. Sunday then followed with no gi rolls at 10th planet which was awesome as usual as I had the chance to perform 10 rounds of rolling followed with a little boxing at the end; consequently, a lot of progress was made. As on Saturday, I did notice that my offense against the Z guard needs improvement, so I must put forth research towards this area. Geo also noted a tip for the capoeira half-guard switch where I must grab the opponent's knee pit on the underside and from there I can initiate a switch pass. If I don't perform this step, very negative things can occur such as the opponent easily grasping back control. It was a good week rolling and learning.