Leslie continues sizziling streak at SummerSlam

It was hard to tell what was hotter on Sunday afternoon in Paterson NJ, The temperature in the gym or the impressive streak that Gracie NEPA Judo competitor Matt Leslie continues to ride. Coming into Sunday ‘s annual “Summerslam” event , the seven year old has earned a medal in every single judo tournament he has fought in, displaying a patience and technical ability that is well beyond his years
Seeking to continue this good fortune, Leslie took to the mats on Sunday and was immediately the aggressor in his first match, attacking his opponent with a barrage of attacks before countering with a loud, forceful, tani otoshi for the ippon victory.

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”