Continuing with my desire to compete as much as possible at brown belt, I signed up for my first NAGA tournament. Being that it was in Chicago, I assumed that there would be a decent turnout and I’d get a few matches in my age group. I signed up for four divisions with the hopes of getting a good number of patches. Divisions offered were Executive (over 50), Director (over 40) and Master (over 30). I signed up for Executive and Director for both expert no-gi and brown belt gi. They called me to head table to explain that I had no one in my divisions at Cruiser weight. My only options in the no-gi were one in masters at cruiser weight and on in masters at heavy weight. In the gi my only option was the same masters cruiser weight guy again. His name is Cristiano Ribeiro Da Costa. I consider it a privilege to compete against him in the black belt division. He is very skilled and definitely humbled me.
