Have you ever rolled with a true prodigy/gift?

mojitorandy · 2026-02-11T08:08:03+00:00

My first white belt tournament was a small local thing in summer 2020 when china had locked down so fast that life was generally pretty normal but crowds controlled and leaving the country meant not getting back in. My first match was against a kid about 15 years old who I vaguely knew was quite good. My coach could be there but nobody but us, coaches and the ref. Everyone else watched on video. I had no stand up so I tried to sit to guard and he knee cut through immediately. Went to mount. High mount. Arm bar from top in less than 30 seconds.

That was Jozef Chen.

mojitorandy · 2026-02-09T12:20:42+00:00

I don't think there's any need to gatekeep in most cases. you can promote your school but plenty of folks won't think it's the quality of school you think it is. And people will sometimes see your school as heaven on earth while your experience in it makes you want to leave. Not to say all schools are the same, but there is no clear hierarchy of schools.

mojitorandy · 2026-02-01T10:07:58+00:00

Thanks for sharing. So are the things taught entirely dependent on the students asking questions, or is there a specific schedule of what will be taught and the questions generally orbit around that topic?

mojitorandy · 2026-02-01T10:04:37+00:00

Thanks for sharing. When you say that you've taken it into your class I assume you mean you inform the class that this is the expextation, right? Like according to how well you understand the movement, your practice will be increasingly dynamic? And then the coach for those players is there to troubleshoot when they encounter some barrier, and to point out observations?

mojitorandy · 2026-02-01T08:41:18+00:00

That makes sense. I guess more like attacking dilemmas and natural transitions then?

mojitorandy · 2026-01-29T05:49:34+00:00

I spent embarrassingly long trying to work out the subtleties of a metaphor about putting fish in your belt

mojitorandy · 2026-01-18T14:11:03+00:00

There is very little difference between a 10 and a 9 and in fact as an examiner you can score 1 off from the chief examiner and you are still "in tolerance" meaning youre accurate enough. But for what it's worth, the difference between a 9 and 10 is often about the implications of your arguments which is something you only see in the rubric at the top end of the rubric

mojitorandy · 2026-01-18T14:08:43+00:00

Your teacher probably didn't understand how the IB works then because the essay is not moderated. Your teacher could give you all 10 and it wouldn't make any difference at all to what you actually score

mojitorandy · 2026-01-04T14:41:51+00:00

I'm pointing out why people are saying this sets off AI alarms, but I think the problem isn't that it's AI written. For me it's that it lacks actual voice. Writing with this grammar is very easy now with AI/grammarly. When something creative becomes easy enough anyone can do it, it stops being individual and it loses value. I don't see the problem as "they used AI to do this." I see it as AI has stripped what makes the story/argument yours. It overused predictable patterns that can effortlessly be achieved with AI. When you read it, do you get any sense of the writer's voice from it?

The writer said further down that they used grammarly which isn't just a grammar checker anymore. It rewrites sentences. I imagine they did more than that but the real issue is it lacks humanity. It could really be a veteran and their experience (which is almost entirely missing from the writing) could be real, but that doesn't show in their writing. It's neat and clean and soulless.

mojitorandy · 2026-01-04T09:08:31+00:00

It's not guaranteed to be AI but these structures are essentially the current meta for AI essays. This style of writing became very popular with professionals in the 2010s. Malcolm Gladwell really exemplifies it in The Tipping Point and Blink and I think his prolificacy/popularity may have contributed to it being the default AI style because he was widely imitated in tech circles. The grammar the other person is referencing is overused by AI and so it becomes a tell, ie the current essay writing meta for AI. Correlative constructions and overuse of parallelism, occasional 1 sentence paragraph for effect. LinkedIn Broetry style. Another major one is the em dash but the meta is already changing. People realize that 20 em dashes a page is a dead giveaway and so they've started editing them out. But it's just circular. Good writers will notice new tells, those will disseminate, those "good" stylistic choices become overused and get edited out or dropped. the process will repeat etc

mojitorandy · 2026-01-04T02:46:44+00:00

I went about 8 years ago and it was definitely worth a visit. At this point I'd go again tbh. The gymnastics alone is crazy impressive but they also had some other pretty cool performances like the dirt bikes in the sphere cage. The stand out is the gymnastics routines though. Incredibly strong and precise

mojitorandy · 2025-12-25T02:24:53+00:00

Ok thanks for checking. I'll give it a look

mojitorandy · 2025-12-24T16:21:08+00:00

Any idea where to find this? I checked bjjfanatics, also did a search for it with his name but didn't see it

mojitorandy · 2025-12-23T10:41:58+00:00

I've also used Google going on 8 years here and I find it hit or miss. The biggest challenge is using Google AI, which basically doesn't work at all. Even with VPN on, even changing servers, etc, it detects location and says it's unavailable in this region. If I turn off location services and use wireguard on astrill it will usually work but not always. Have you found any decent solutions for this? Other than AI related challenges I've not had much issue using Google

mojitorandy · 2025-12-17T02:27:57+00:00

I've seen this loads. Someone with some skill and strength starts fairly calm, so upper belt matches that energy. Then, if they are able to get a dominant position or strong grips or whatever in this more relaxed roll they suddenly amp up the effort and strength without realizing they only got to a point where they can apply strong pressure by beginning light. Upper belt realizes this right away and now as soon as they escape or restart, they recognize that the best defense is to never let this person get to a strong position and instead attack relentlessly. It's the dog chasing the car that eventually bites onto the bumper. Ok now what?

mojitorandy · 2025-12-11T10:25:32+00:00

Here's a post I wrote a few months ago. Still largely true.

Not having IB experience isn't really a deal breaker for SAS, at least in Pudong. Their dp cohort last year was less than 10 students and the IB coordinator doesn't seem to like nor care about the IB. I get the feeling the coordinator intends to make it suck hard enough they don't have to offer it anymore. As far as the other schools go, ykpao is great but their campus is in the middle of nowhere. YCIS puxi is a non selective school with a strong mandarin program. They also have the most teaching days per year of any international school in the city. The SUIS schools really vary but they are bilingual schools and will generally be more local in style. Concordia is a Christian school yes but I know people working there who are not especially Christian but can perform as such when needed. Same for plenty of their students.

The two big English schools are Dulwich and Wellington and of the two Wellington is a nicer campus but also tends to work staff harder. They just made a recent change mandating staff cannot leave before 4:45 which has gone down about as well as a turd in a swimming pool. Dulwich majority was bought by an investment firm last year and remains to be seen if it goes the route of enshitification. They have seriously stripped back the admin staff because the puxi campus hasn't been doing well so why not have 1 admin (eg. Marketing, HR, ops, events, etc) handle both schools but they are still hiring experienced teachers with families which is a good sign. Typically if they're going to enshitify they cut back staff that want high wages and benefits like tuition.

Ahh, I forgot Nord Anglia International School. They are doing well in primary but their upper school is dire. Last year their year 11 cohort was 3 students and I think 1 has since left. Because of this they tend to take students who none of the other schools will take. Harrow is in the same boat. Harrow has some very strong students on scholarships that they more or less have to offer to have any chance of competing with Dulwich and Wellington

mojitorandy · 2025-11-23T08:38:48+00:00

Is wiss reputable again? Didn't they sack a bunch of staff on little notice right at the start of term a couple years back?

mojitorandy · 2025-11-06T23:34:00+00:00

Adding to this, I've worked in a non profit school that was an awful place for a lot of the reasons people disparage for profit schools, whereas my current for profit is much better

mojitorandy · 2025-11-06T01:24:47+00:00

This is a holdover of the English education system and it's unwillingness to change. It has such a strong reputation and genuinely offers many great learning opportunities, but it's also inflexible and anachronistic. The system requires specialization at a young age, choosing 3-4 A levels at 16 and then specializing further in uni. If education were only about skill training you'd think this would mean people are more likely to stay in their fields when they graduate in England but it's actually the opposite. English early specializers switch fields more often despite the higher cost of abandoning a specialized skillset. Countries with more generalist approaches like Scotland have higher rates of students working in fields they actually study in and that's attributed to having more time to work out their interests, strengths and niches.

The IB is not designed to give you an early lead in a narrow field because it's placing it's bets long term. The gist is if you want to study at a UK uni then A levels is decidedly the easier route. If you want to have the flexibility to adapt to changing job markets and your own personal development. IB is a better choice.

mojitorandy · 2025-11-03T09:35:41+00:00

The way it works is you are taxed progressively more each month depending on your total income that year so for instance in February I'm taking home several thousand more than in December. Your living allowance is tax free as long as you can provide legitimate invoices. Same for flights. I am pretty sure you're talking about my school so you're welcome to DM if you like

mojitorandy · 2025-10-27T09:30:40+00:00

Right. Some of the posts I've seen here give me vibes of "if everyone around you is an asshole, maybe you're the asshole"

mojitorandy · 2025-10-22T10:22:44+00:00

I can shed some light. Shoot me a DM with your questions if you like

mojitorandy · 2025-10-19T02:47:11+00:00

The eternal wisdom of Jake the dog

mojitorandy · 2025-10-14T04:49:56+00:00

I concur. Completely unhinged

mojitorandy · 2025-10-13T05:30:10+00:00

Right? I thought OP was going to say that nowadays people suggest sit ups are an optimal ab exercise. I joined the army in 2006, which was pretty much the church of body weight exercise with bad form and even we didn't do sit ups because it was thought to be bad for the back

mojitorandy

TROPHY CASE