NAGA. North American Grappling Association. I had no knowledge of its existence 6 months ago, and yet now I have three t-shirts from participating in their tournaments. More about that later. NAGA hosts grappling tournaments worldwide. Every age. Boys and girls. White belts. Black belts. They all come to NAGA, and NAGA was coming to Providence, RI in about a month. I heard some of my teammates talking about competing. Awesome. I couldn’t wait to watch them test their mettle. As for me, I’d only been training for a few months at this point, and there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell I was about to sign up. “Hey Ted, are you going to sign up?” “You bet!” Wait. Did I just agree to sign up for this thing? Yes, dumbass, you did. Good luck at the choke show. Sir Chokesalot. What the…$#*%!
So now every day became one day closer to NAGA. Every…day. One day closer to my impending doom. All I could do was suck up as my Jiu Jitsu goodness as possible in the next few weeks, because once I was out on that mat, there would be no place to hide. That’s the thing about Jiu Jitsu. You can’t fake it. You can’t hide. You can’t blame the equipment. Its just you and the other guy. I gave myself every excuse not to go, but in the end, I came to the conclusion that failure was only certain if I did not show up. Plus, what’s the worst that could happen? I lose. Atomic wedgie. Big deal. So I showed up.
We arrived early. My nerves were insane. Lucky for me, the younger competitors go first. I suppose they don’t want to scare off spectators early should an old set of balls make their way to the party. Entirely avoidable but I digress. Back to the action. It was an awesome spectacle. Gritty matches. Wins. Losses. It didn’t matter. And that’s the funny thing about it. I was watching 20 year olds competing, and in my own mind, that was still me. I envisioned my opponents would look much like the ones I had been watching. I waited for what seemed like forever, and then over the PA I heard, “Ted Nunes, report to Mat 1.” My heart sank, stomach twisted, and I began to sweat. Showtime.
Now this next part, I mean no disrespect, but holy old dude Batman. What the heck? I know he had to be about my age, but man, he just looked…old. Maybe though, it was just the 20 year old me in my head forgetting that 42 year old me is on the mat. A quick handshake and we were off. I remember wondering how this guy got himself so slippery. It was kind of freaking me out. These matches are only 4 minutes long, and all Slippery Pete wanted to do was lock up. I could hear Coach yelling at me from the corner to let go and take him down. And I did. 2 points. Pretty easy. He put me in his guard which is where I stayed for another minute, because I suck (still do) at breaking guard. Finally I just let him back up and then I took him down again. Buzzer. Match over. 4-0 good guys. We were the only two in our bracket, so winner winner. That wasn’t so bad. Of course for the next week or so my buddies gave me sh*t about beating up grandpa. Screw it though. I was the Northeast Beginner Lightweight Director NAGA Champ! And grandpa had it coming to him.
The moral of the story here is that I almost didn’t show up, and just showing up is 99% of winning. We all know the Wayne Gretzky quote. Google it if you don’t. I showed up to take my shot on goal, and I am better for it.
(Fast forward 6 months…Last weekend was NAGA in Providence again where I defeated two really tough opponents to take home the gold. Both really close matches. My teammates took home 3 silver and a bronze too! I was wearing my new AK rash guard, which may or may not give me super powers. Check them out.)