Naga Midwest 11/16/2008

NAGA Midwest 11/16/2008

NAGA returned to Evanston, IL for one of their last tournaments of the year. This second stop in Illinois had an even better turn out than before. Over 1,000 athletes came to compete, and their ages ranged from 4 to 48. Every competitor was out to win one of the new NAGA samurai swords, and the expert divisions were battling for one of the championship belts. The NAGA staff had their hands full.

With such a large tournament, competitors came from as far away as Canada and Arizona. The teams with the highest amount of competitors were Gracie Barra Chicago, Combat- do, Team Vaghi, Team Torres and New Breed Jiu Jitsu. Unfortunately the team results were not in as of 11/20/2008. The tournament started out with the children’s and teen’s divisions first. The amount of promise and technique that the young competitors had was inspiring. Jasmin Vazquez, a 4 year old girl from Combat- do, competed for the first time and placed third in both her gi and no gi divisions.IN the adult competitions there were multiple surprises. In the no gi divisions, the high light was Eric "Red" Schafer won the men’s expert no- gi Super heavyweight division. In the gi division, the man to watch was Rodrigo "Comprido" Medieros. Rodrigo won both the Men’s and Masters’ brown and black belt gi Super heavyweight division. The women’s blue belt winners were Kaitlin Carlucci In the light weight division, and Darci Garner in the Middle weight division. Sylvia Reyes won the women’s expert no gi division.

NAGA has one more event this year on December. It will be held in Grapevine, TX on December 6. Next year NAGA plans to start the year off with their NAGA World Cup January 24. The next NAGA in the Midwest will be the Arnolds, a two day event, March 6 and 7. Check out nagafighter.com for information on all of their grappling events!