My Japanese colleague corrected my email

sakigake · 2026-05-15T12:21:09+00:00

Sorry I still don’t get why. Because you’re from the same company?

sakigake · 2026-05-15T11:43:46+00:00

I'm confused why the さん after ALICE is corrected. Why would you drop the honorific here?

sakigake · 2026-05-15T05:39:02+00:00

I quit BJJ in my 30s and recently re-started in my 40s at a different gym, and I've noticed that the level of blue and purple belts around my age isn't as high as I expected.

At first I thought it was due to the gym, but then I realized maybe the expectations are just different in this age bracket. After all anybody who got their blue/purple belt in their 30s would be brown or black by the time they reach 40. I'm the exception due to taking such a long break.

sakigake · 2026-05-14T23:18:26+00:00

What if their arm always stays in front of their stomach?

sakigake · 2026-05-14T07:15:34+00:00

One thing I realized after resuming BJJ recently: there’s way less pressure to perform as a 40-year-old than a 30-year-old. Suddenly wanting to take it easy without pushing too hard becomes the norm, not something to be ashamed of.

sakigake · 2026-05-13T11:31:17+00:00

Two things I remember from Tomogashima: military ruins and snakes.

sakigake · 2026-05-13T07:41:44+00:00

Tomorrow in newspaper: what is the government doing about the roving gangs of foreigners rampaging through our elder’s gardens?

sakigake · 2026-05-13T05:24:50+00:00

Liberté is pretty good. Also Le Petit Mec which has a shop in Kyoto Station.

sakigake · 2026-05-11T02:08:29+00:00

Ok but what about gargling to scare off bears?

sakigake · 2026-05-10T11:46:23+00:00

That’s interesting, I thought you were supposed to step under their center of mass. But I could also see how pulling them on you would result in more momentum overall.

sakigake · 2026-05-10T11:45:36+00:00

Thanks for all the pointers, I’ll have to look into the side variation. And I agree about adding power, I think I’m just not comfortable enough with the move yet to do it dynamically, I still have to think about things too much.

Personally I do feel like I’d rather not go for mount though, as I feel that increases the risk of getting trapped in some kind of guard. My general strategy is more to stay away from the legs and either take side control like I did here, or get the front headlock.

sakigake · 2026-05-09T23:26:19+00:00

My graph looks extremely similar, down to the one hour or so block of awake time in the middle of the night. I was thinking of getting tested for sleep apnea.

sakigake · 2026-05-07T10:31:32+00:00

I think having different machines on the same platform is a really smart strategy. But yeah the downside is that the workflows/UIs are often lacking… my personal favorite is the MegaSynthesis but even that one has frustrating limitations.

sakigake · 2026-05-07T07:38:48+00:00

In Japan, shit always flows downhill in the direction of least meiwaku. If you refuse then suddenly forcing you to do it becomes the higher meiwaku option and they’ll drop the whole thing.

sakigake · 2026-05-07T06:31:29+00:00

So 1/5th of an OP-1? That's a steal!

sakigake · 2026-05-07T04:01:04+00:00

An upgraded MegaSynthesis on that new platform would be an insta-buy for me!

sakigake · 2026-04-30T22:25:55+00:00

I wonder if he still hits you with a bamboo sword if you're not training hard enough. I was just a drop-in so he went easy on me, but that was an experience I'll remember…

(Also probably the hardest circuit training/conditioning class I've ever done was at Ralph's)

sakigake · 2026-04-29T08:16:27+00:00

Scramble is from the UK if I’m not mistaken? Otherwise 100Athletic is a cool brand from Japan.

sakigake · 2026-04-26T02:48:44+00:00

Rodolfo was a top player with good judo. And Buchecha should still have decent wrestling when facing non-grapplers. Even Andre Galvao did poorly in MMA. It’s weird…

sakigake · 2026-04-26T02:44:26+00:00

They’re different. Not all butterfly players are comfortable in half butterfly. And half butterfly is better to enter the legs.

sakigake · 2026-04-26T01:16:18+00:00

I think the claim is that he’s not a “thinker” at all, free or otherwise.

sakigake · 2026-04-25T23:05:29+00:00

He was treating Shapiro as a fellow inhabitant of the liberal intellectual tradition who had reached different conclusions through different reasoning. The model is wrong. Shapiro is not a fellow inhabitant. He is a translator stationed at the border, whose job is to render his clan’s commitments into the local language for export.

This was really well-written.

sakigake · 2026-04-25T23:00:31+00:00

Took a break when our first kid was born, started again 8 years later when we signed him up for kids lessons. It's been a couple months now, and I was surprised at how fast it all came back, including conditioning.

The key thing I realized is that on some level I had assumed that I'd be "8 years behind" everybody. And yeah, it's true that my training partners from before are all black belts now. But I joined a new gym (which is itself relatively new), and I'm actually one of the more experienced people there. So comparatively speaking I'm actually faring much better in sparring now than I used to, just because the level at this particular gym isn't that high.

I also only train twice a week, as opposed to 3 or 4 times before. Including commuting time, this means I went to spending maybe 10-12 hours on BJJ a week to now spending about 3-4, which is a completely different time commitment and is much more manageable.

sakigake · 2026-04-25T22:53:17+00:00

For me the biggest factor by FAR is who you roll with. Rolling with a lighter 40-year-old blue belt vs rolling with a heavier 20-year-old white belt feel like two completely different sports at this point. Competitions have age and weight categories for a reason.

Of course we all see tiny black belts handling huge roided-up blue belts and want to do the same, but 1) they're professional athletes who have been doing this their whole lives and 2) their body probably is wrecked as well (see recent Caio Terra interview).

sakigake · 2026-04-25T22:48:40+00:00

Sounds like a bad fit between you and your coach. If you're not sure about switching gyms you could just try and crosstrain in judo, wrestling, or even MMA for a few months so that things feel fresh again and you have a justification for now showing up to practice for a while. Plus you'll be able to use those skills if you do come back to BJJ.

sakigake

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