Danaher Says - Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Documentation Project

Nicholas Meregali ADCC 2022: One of the outstanding performances at this ADCC World Championships was undoubtedly Nicholas Meregali who had one of the best debut performances in memory taking silver and Bronze in his first ADCC. What made this so remarkable is that just six months prior he had never trained without a gi even once in his life! His first ever no gi training was an impromptu session with Gordon Ryan when they were both filming videos in Boston! Mr Meregali decided to move to Austin Texas to begin training. Soon after doing so he said to me one day, “I want to be the first person to win IBJJF Absolute and ADCC Absolute in the same year.” It seemed a crazy idea for someone who didn't know a single takedown and who never had a single no gi match in an age of no gi specialists. I must say however, that I was deeply impressed by Mr Meregali's self belief. As you'd expect, start was rough and difficult but he never faltered in his training despite initial frustration and disappointment. Then he had to lose two months of no gi training when the IBJJF world championships – despite suffering a severe rib injury three weeks prior to the event he won. Then he had to get back into his ADCC preparation. He took on matches and improved with each one, all while maintaining his training schedule. At ADCC he surprised everyone with his ability to negate strong leg lock specialists and stand comfortably with takedown specialists. He fought far above the level of someone with less than six months of no gi experience and came very very close to reaching his audacious goal of double gold gi and no gi in his rookie year. Mr Meregali is a truly fine example of dream big, but maintain a workload proportional to the size of your dreams so that they become reality. When your dreams are big the hard fight to realize them will make you greater athlete than another with smaller more realistic dreams – even if you come short of them you'll achieve something remarkable and prepare yourself better for your next goal!