Pushing nerves away

West Winnipeg

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This article was published 20/09/2023 (976 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A bit of dedication can go a long way.

Winnipeg-based judoka Nicolas Villa brought home a bronze medal from the PanAmerican-Oceania International Championships, recently held in Calgary, Alberta from Sept. 8 to 10. The 17-year-old cadet defeated Hernandez Rojas, of Mexico, in the 73-kilogram bronze-medal final on Sept. 10.

It was Villa’s first shot at an international tournament and looks back at it with pride.

“This is like a big stepping stone for me to attend,” he said. “An international-level tournament, and then to win a medal at it, it was a big achievement for me.”

Villa is an instructor at the Nakamura Judo Club (439 McPhillips St.) alongside his older sister, Rebecca. The two have been training since they were young kids, he said, after their mom originally signed them up.

“We tried to do a couple other martial arts before, but none of them worked out for us as well as judo did, so we just kind of stuck with that sport. And we never started for competitive reasons. It was more just for the self-defence aspect, but we ended up loving it,” Villa said.

Leading up to the competition, the physical and mental preparation was hefty. The biggest struggle, Villa recalled, was what went into losing enough weight to qualify for the 73-kilo class in practically no time.

“I think I had to lose somewhere around like five, six pounds in a day to make my category,” he said. “Before the tournament, we try to balance out our diet to kind of make it a little easier. But on the day of, we try to usually sweat out the weight. I don’t eat or drink anything all day, but I also do a lot of running and physical activity to sweat as much as I can.”

On the other side of things, however, Villa concentrated on keeping his head clear and calm.

“I don’t like to stress too much,” he said.

“Although it was kind of scary to get ready to fight at this level, and I felt like there were higher stakes for this tournament … I try not to be too nervous, because I find that it’s best to keep a clear mind. Nervousness is only going to hinder your performance. So I try to keep a clear mind and just fight my best. I have trust in my abilities, I train as hard as I can, and at the end of the day, I’m only going to get what I trained for, so I go into it trying my best.”

Villa says that he wants to continue with the sport going forward, alongside his planned studies at the University of Manitoba for a career in dentistry.