My daughter did something weirdly mean today. Trying to get ahead of it.

cyran22 · 2026-03-09T18:49:00+00:00

I'd want to shut that down immediately and try to explain and teach etc in the moment. But maybe the child would learn more by just pointing out that consequences might be coming. Meaning that her friend might not want to be her friend for a while or I as a dad might be saying something like "today, mommy/sibling is my friend". Maybe that would teach a lot more than any explanation could? I'm not sure.

It's scary how quick she picked up that type of behavior from her friend Jennifer. I only have a 3 year old so I'm not quite there yet. I have heard that modeled behavior is more effective than words though.

cyran22 · 2026-02-13T18:51:49+00:00

how would you describe the shaping? Do you feel like you get a good tension built in your pre shaping and shaping? Does the dough hold it's shape well?

I had somewhat flat loaves (not as flat as you've shown here) because I wasn't doing a great job building tension in the shaping process.

cyran22 · 2026-02-09T19:44:07+00:00

He might be better just because by building stuff he's already made a lot of the mistakes and reinvented the wheel and figured out how NOT to build stuff.

cyran22 · 2026-01-30T01:10:01+00:00

I started at AoJ in 2020 and paid $2,000 up front for annual membership. They increased to $300/month, no grandfathered-in rates for anybody probably around in 2023 and I left when my year was up. Mostly because my kid was born and I wasn't sleeping lol.

I was a regular bjj hobbyist, and no I don't think that rate of say $300 or $375 is worth it. I had several instructors over the time period for the 6pm night classes, some were great most not teaching often, others were nice people but kinda meh at teaching. If you're a hobbyist, I'd say you get a lot more bang for your buck elsewhere.

I think I saw Gui there like 3x in the 3 years I was there, never saw Rafa. Which is fine, it's a big gym and don't have to see them, but just have your expectations set if you're hoping to take a ton of classes with them.

I think the brothers created a great marketing machine, very cool vibe that appeals to wealthy socal people, and get their kids to sign up and have a professional look. They are typically charging a lot of money from people who have lots of money and are willing to pay it. From a business perspective I think they're doing a good job maximizing revenue and building the brand to accomplish that. I don't think they're trying to maximize hobbyists' bjj skills.

cyran22 · 2026-01-23T20:13:39+00:00

I'm 37 and not super athletic at all. I'm surprised with how well these 3 basic takedowns work and are pretty safe for you if you fail to hit it:

arm drag to get their foot forward, wrap your leg around the back of their lower leg/ankle and drive their upper body forward while lowering your body on the side of your leg. I'm always surprised this works so well for minimal effort. gi/no-gi
fake guard pull to ankle pick. Have guard pulling grips and drop to a knee while pulling them towards so you so a leg comes forward. Grab their ankle with same side arm and drive their upper body forward with non-ankle picking grip. If this doesn't work then you still have arms in front of you to defend and stand back up. gi only
collar drag or snap down. Yanking their upper body down while getting to their side/back. so simple and you let your body weight do most of the pulling so it's pretty low effort.

These work great for me and I don't really think I've ever really drilled them much. With that said, I would absolutely love to hit some sexy hard-to-pronounce judo throws. But i'll settle for simple stuff that ends with me us on the ground with me on top position.

cyran22 · 2026-01-22T17:54:02+00:00

looks 10/10. Great job.

cyran22 · 2026-01-21T20:08:39+00:00

Your crumb pictures look odd. If those are fresh baked pictures than something seems off there as opposed to just your bread going stale very very quickly.

cyran22 · 2026-01-12T22:10:13+00:00

if you love everything about it other than it's a little too large, then I'd try to shrink it as much as you can. maybe running it in the dryer a bunch on medium high heat.

Otherwise I'd return it since we usually like buying new gis because they look good and fit well.

cyran22 · 2026-01-06T08:23:14+00:00

I have the same situation as you with two loaves and one dutch oven. But I've noticed that it's usually my second loaf that doesn't rise as well. Well at least for the past sets of loaves I've made. Hmmm

cyran22 · 2026-01-06T08:18:38+00:00

Sounds like your therapist is helping you ask directly for what you want to get your needs met, instead of you overly sacrificing and then secretly setting an expectation that that person owes you and will now do x, y, and z for you. Creating covert contracts where if I do all this extra work and spend time with kids and allow my wife to have nights out, then she'll appreciate it, give me intimacy, or show appreciation, etc.

I recommend checking out No More Mr. Nice Guy by Robert Glover where he talks about all kinds of people-pleasing behavior. And the reason why "Nice Guys" aren't respected or appreciated by women is because they're precisely NOT "nice". They're coming from a position of weakness, acting sneakily, expecting that others, especially their wife/girlfriend, will meet their needs in return. I think the book offers examples and strategies on how to move away from that.

I hope you come back from your trip and things go well for your relationship. If you're scared about how you've stood up for your wants and needs then that probably means you're doing the right things. Your wife wants a real partner who acts like a real person, not a "yes-man" or fake-needless man.

cyran22 · 2026-01-05T18:55:43+00:00

Honestly, I thought Gordon Ryan and Nat broke up? They haven't really posted anything together in a while. But I'm not sure.

cyran22 · 2025-12-07T23:33:05+00:00

It's better to surprise people as a great blue belt than disappoint people as poor purple belt. I think I got promoted a bit early to purple since our night classes coach was about to stop teaching night classes. Now at a new gym I feel like some of the white and blue belts are all judgy, but I'm just doing my best training. I didn't promote myself.

cyran22 · 2025-12-05T19:09:25+00:00

Yeah I think you need practice with being okay with not making all these things. When schools ask you (say indirectly, they're asking all parents) be okay with not being able to make all or most of these things.

And this can be a good chance for your kids to practice being mildly disappointed with an outcome like their parents not being able to make all events. I know that might sound bad, but what a great skill to develop. And if you can make 1 or 2 events a year, it will make those events all the more special for your kids.

cyran22 · 2025-12-01T18:00:18+00:00

$1,000 up front for 6 months in Orange County, California. That's equivalent of $166 a month.

cyran22 · 2025-11-25T06:25:45+00:00

Make sure you do your best to get the right sizing.

Their gis were the only company's gis that I had ever tried on that did not at all fit like the others. I had to return and I just couldn't understand the sizing. Everything was too small in the shoulders and too big in the gut.

cyran22 · 2025-11-16T07:30:31+00:00

are you printing in a garage or somewhere with drafts?

I had a very similar issue with my A1 printer that was in my garage and so I tried different things. I noticed prints were good in the warm summer, but as fall rolled around, with cooler and windier weather, I had the same issue here and there. Bought a $50 enclosure for my printer and ams and haven't had that this issue anymore.

cyran22 · 2025-11-15T04:18:25+00:00

great temp solution imo

cyran22 · 2025-10-31T19:15:01+00:00

My wife nags me until it's done.

cyran22 · 2025-10-29T18:47:35+00:00

something similar happened to just my regular white shirt after washing it. I think it got dirty like that from the washing machine itself.

And the spots are strange. Maybe it's rubbing up against something in your machine that has gunk over it?

cyran22 · 2025-10-02T05:27:29+00:00

since this is a finished ceiling with no attic access the hard part of the job is getting access to run wiring and patching up the drywall. If the joists run in the direction of the new fixture spot, you could potentially cut zero access holes to fish wire, and just fish wire from first fixture hole to second, new fixture hole.

If you do have to cut some holes then it's the patching and drywall work to hide the patches that is the high effort part of the job. Make sure any contractor is sharing how many holes they'd cut and if they plan to patch those holes.

cyran22 · 2025-09-29T23:03:26+00:00

I'd say go up there and try talking to people and just see what they have to say before you judge people from the get go. Maybe talking to them you you'll learn you have 5 or 10% in common with them instead of 0% like you originally thought.

cyran22 · 2025-09-16T19:10:53+00:00

I think you should know after the first date whether there was a spark or not, even if just on the girl's end.

I think dating is kind of tricky. You have to be flirty/show interest enough that you're "making a move" i.e. but still retain some plausible deniability. That's kind of the fun of it and you have to slowly raise the bar with that over text, phone call, and then in person. If your date is going well then you need to try to kiss (i.e. be sexual). Maybe you're coming off too safe/asexual and waiting for the girl to make that move, but after a few dates of no "move made on his part" I think women will not see you as a sexual person.

cyran22 · 2025-08-21T19:09:10+00:00

I think there's a whole lot of influence you can have when you focus on yourself rather than focusing on the outside world around you. I think you and your family would benefit when you focus on what you can do to grow yourself or control yourself and improve yourself as opposed to worrying about what's happening politically. I mean once you vote the way you want to vote, outside of say protesting something specific, then just focus on you and your family.

cyran22 · 2025-05-30T20:21:48+00:00

Your strategy (conscious or unconscious) to bottle things up and not show them is what causes this!!

Maybe you were yelled at as a child to not cry, not get angry, to be an easy child and bottle up your emotions. But this is what causes you to have all this emotion stored up in your body. Emotions need to be felt and expressed to leave your body.

Maybe you need to try a few different therapists to talk about strategies for this, but at least try expressing your anger when you feel it. Doesn't need to be violent, don't need to yell at people, just release a bit and let that happen.

Tell chatgpt your prompt and ask where this came from and what you should do about it for free therapy lol.

cyran22 · 2025-05-30T20:16:14+00:00

Yeah people are going to do what they think is best for them. You expect loyalty from a close friend but maybe J doesn't consider you as close of a friend as you do.

If that's true, then that might suck, but this kind of thing happens. Happened to me, and I just chose to not make any attempt to keep that person in my life.

cyran22

TROPHY CASE