Competing in their first tournament, white belts Dave Leslie, Kevin Roginski, and Joe Alogna toed the line and showed the results of months of hardwork that they have put in at WARPATH Mixed Martial Arts and Fitness Center.

Leslie, who went 3-1 and Roginski, who went 2-2 controlled the Men’s Novice 220 and above division claiming 2nd and third place respectively while Alogna battled his way to a 1-1 record and a second place finish in the Senior Men’s 178 and over division. Although, their division may have been labeled “novice”, assistant coach Matt Marcinek says that the three fought as anything but:

“ I’m extremely impressed with the way that Dave, Kevin, and Joe fought today. Usually when someone fights in their first tournament, they are stiff, nervous, and overly cautious, I know I was, but not these guys they were calm, relaxed, and just followed the game plan that myself and Sensei Eddie went over with them. I think that’s a testament to all the hard work they put in leading into this tournament, I fyou put in the work in practice tournament day is easy, these guys proved that today”
Also bringing home a medal for Gracie NEPA Judo was Black belt Jen Williams, who brought home the gold medal in the women’s division ,displaying an excellent blend of both stand up and ground fighting skill

Also competing for Gracie NEPA Judo was Brown belt Vito Piccozo, who went 0-2 and Junior Matt Leslie, who also went 0-2 had his impressive medals earned streak snapped but regardless of the outcome, Sensei Eddie Adams believes there are always positives that can be taken away
“ I thought everyone fought great today. The most important thing to me was that everyone went there and battled, which has sort of become the hallmark or the standard we’ve set at Gracie NEPA Judo which is, that we will fight until the very last bell sounds and everyone certainly did that today and I could not be more proud of their effort”

Earlier Today, Gracie NEPA Judo proudly announced that it will be adding a kids program to its already successful curriculum of classes. The program, for kids ages 4 and up, will begin on Tuesday, July 27th and classes will be held every Tuesday and Thursday at 5:30 following Gracie NEPA’s highly acclaimed “BullyProof Kids” Program.

Classes will focus on introducing kids to the fundamentals of judo through workouts which are fun, fast paced, and physically enriching. Gracie NEPA Judo Head Instructor Tom McGuire is very excited about the program and to bring kids an opportunity that he and others wish that they would have gotten

“it awesome” says McGuire “if you talk to me or anyone on my coaching staff, the one regret that we all have about judo is that we didn’t start when we were much younger, and now with this program we are able to bring judo to an entirely new generation and hopefully help them to develop the same type of love that we have for Judo”

Although Gracie NEPA Judo is primarily known as a competition oriented club, Assistant instructor Eddie Adams, who will be helping in the development of the kids program says that success on the mats is only a small reason to have your child begin judo at a young age
“Regardless of if your child ever has any desire to compete or not, there are so many benefits to starting judo at a young age, Judo helps kids to develop self confidence, self discipline, teamwork skills, and it also helps to introduce them to physical fitness so even if your kid never wants to step foot on a competition judo mat, he/she will still be better off for having done Judo”

Gracie NEPA Judo is part of the WARPATH Mixed Martial Arts Facility located at 1000 Dunham Drive in Dunmore PA which also houses Gracie NEPA Jiu-jitsu and Keystone Crossfit For more information please visit www.gracieofnepa.com today

Never one’s to go quietly, the judo club decided to close things out with a bang hosting a clinic with former multi time national champion and top ranked player at 66kg who tore the house down with and showed why he is widely considered one of the most technical judoka in the United States today.
The 2 hour clinic, which focused not just on performing techniques, but performing them as technically and efficiently as possible, was viewed by head instructor Tom MGuire as a resounding success and is a prime example of the philosophy that McGuire and his staff bring to Gracie NEPA Judo.

“The clinic was absolutely fantastic, to be able to learn from someone like Justin is a great experience and its one that unfortunately, myself and some of the other instructors and coaches never got when we were coming up. So, it’s our goal to bring in the best talent, get them the best workouts, and get them to reach all of their goals faster than any of us ever did”

The clinic also helped to serve as sort of a metaphor for the club as Gracie NEPA ventures into the new facility.
“Yeah, that’s kinda cool” said a reflective Mcguire “today we sort of leave all the old stuff behind in this building and with the new building, we bring all the new stuff we got from Justin today, new techniques, new ways to teach, and new ways to train, big things are going to happen at Gracie NEPA Judo”

Assistant instructor Mike Lathwood has claimed the fifth spot in the men’s 45-49 yr old group at 81kg while Eddie Adams holds a fourth place ranking at 81kg in the Men’s 50-54 year old category

Although, it is very much an honor that Gracie NEPA judo’s black belt instructing staff owns high ranking through the country, McGuire prefers to see the bigger picture when looking at the rankings
“it’s definitely cool to see your name ranked high there’s no doubt about it but I think the most important thing to me is that these rankings show how much everyone has improved and how hard everyone has worked to be able to reach these rankings.”

You can view all of the masters rankings at: http://judo.teamusa.org/resources/elite-athletes/masters/masters-national-rankings

In his next outing Leslie used a series of foot sweeps to dispatch his opponent by two wazaris and earning himself a Gold medal on the day. While, Matt’s accomplishment is certainly noteworthy,it is the way that the medals are achieved that is most impressive to his coaches.
“Matty is an absolute pleasure to work with day in and day out” stated Gracie NEPA Judo assistant coach Matt Marcinek “We can teach anybody to do judo, but you have to have the WANT to get better and the drive and for seven years old, Matty has the “want” in bucket loads and that’s awesome to see”
Also competing for Gracie NEPA Judo was Sensei Eddie Adams who had a challenging day fighting in both the Masters and the seniors divisions at 178 lbs and facing some tough national and internationally ranked competition and going 0-4 on the day and while the results of today will sting for a bit Marcinek only sees this as a positive for tournaments to come

“Eddie had a rough day, no doubt about it, and I know he’s not happy and I know he’s probably going to beat himself up but today he stepped up in a big way, he went out of his comfort zone and he fought guy s that are younger than he is and who are at that are top of the food chain , you can’t train comfortably all the time, if you truly want to get better you need to test yourself and this will only help us when it comes to game planning and helping us get ready for the bigger events he plans to fight in the months to come”

Cost is only $35

learn the techniques which helped Justin reach the very top of his weight class in all of the USA

Please call Tom (845) 313-2772 or Matt (570) 840-6380 or email us through our site www.gracienepajudo.com to reserve your spot today!

You can learn more about all of justins Accomplishments here http://www.jfloproductions.com/Justin.html

Representing the club on this day were Jr competitor, Matty Leslie, Gracie NEPA Academy Owner Jeff Reese, and Brandon Chicalese.

Leslie(pictured, right, with Sensei Eddie Adams) continued his impressive streak of earning a medal at every judo competition he has entered by capturing a gold and bronze medal in two divisions winning 5 of six matches on the day while also taking home the tournaments “Fighting spirit” award

When asked how why he believes Matty has been so successful in competition Sensei Adams, Gracie NEPA judo’s coaching representative on the day, was short and quick with his response “Hard work” he says with a smile “For such a young kid , he is very hard working and extremely coachable”
Reese continued the club’s dual medal day bringing two silver medals home to “The electric city” displaying an awesome infusion of standup and ground skills something that is emphasized at Gracie NEPA
For Chicalese, the day wasn’t quite as fruitful going 0-3, but despite the less than favorable outcome, his coach sees nothing but positives

“Yeah, Brandon had a tough day, and I’m sure he is disappointed right now because he’s a competitor but he fought very hard and very well, he is still pretty new to the sport, this was only his second tournament ever and he has made and continues to make fantastic progress, the wins will come, I thought everyone fought great today”

“Starting from the top, you will see that we have added some new pages to the site namely, the “upcoming competitions page” and the “contact us” page

Upcoming Competitions- This is page that I think will be vitally important to our club, we have always been able to find out about tournaments on the internet through sites like judocalendar.com, but never had we had one place to find out about all the upcoming events. Now, we have a calendar which links directly to the registration forms for the tournaments. So, if you want to compete check the calendar, and find out when the next competition is. You know longer have to wait for one of the coaches to bring it up

Contact us- Too many times someone has tried to leave us a question or a comment about the site only to get lost in a flood of SPAM comments. So what we’ve done is close all comments ad replace them with the “contact us” form so now if you have a question or comment, just fill the form out and it will be sent to our e-mail address. This will help us disperse information much easier

Continuing down the page, you see that under the header, we now have an announcement bar. Here, will be where you find announcements on class cancellations, times we are leaving for tournaments, and any quick announcements that need to be made without having to read a full blog post.
On the right side of the page, you will see a Find Us on box which lists all the different social media sites we use as a club. Social media is HUGE right now and we want as many people as possible to know about what we do here and this box will help people find us easier

And finally at the bottom of the page, our Sponsor’s area. We are the only Judo club in the area to be sponsored by a local business and we are extremely proud and honored by that fact so we have included a link to Smiler’s facebook page and we encourage everybody to check them out”

So there you go, a brand new website with a lot of great new features to showcase the fastest up and coming judo club in the state of PA today. If anyone is interested in training with the judo team please check out www.GracieNEPAjudo.com or www. Scrantonjudo.com today