We are hardwired to seek and out and recognise patterns … in all facets of life. Some people see the virgin Mary’s face in a loaf of bread or in a slice for toast - there is nothing divine about this of course, it is just that ‘facial recognition’ is crucial to human/infant survival - and so we grow up very, very sensitive to finding ‘faces’ of all kinds, in nature, even in hot cross buns and clouds. It naturally follows that we spot patterns in things/areas/landscapes that we are interested in. I like seeking out the patterns that exist in BJJ. Without such patterns, BJJ can seem like a huge pile of unrelated techniques - very messy, very, very confusing - particularly for the novice (but actually for many black belts as well). In fact very often, the more people learn, the greater their confusion becomes. Once we identify certain patterns, certain concepts, a lot of the confusion goes away and things ‘fall’ into place. For example: Take knee-slice passing - there are many,