Noel Manaig KK Unite 2

Transcript

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First and foremost, Luckee, I do wanna say thank you so much for all the things that you do for the community and the person that you are, and, for allowing guys like myself to, to have a voice. It's very humbling. And, like I said, one of my first ones, so thank you so much. Oh, awesome. That's great. I'm glad I got an opportunity to talk to you today. recently you were in the hospital. I was. So Introduce yourself. Tell me about, the academy you go to and your life. Easy, easy. my name is Noel Manaig. yes, it's a Filipino last name. I was born and raised on the tiny island of Guam. I am a black belt under Leandro Viero, who is the owner of Prisma Jiu Jitsu, also one of the co-founders of Checkmat, Jiu Jitsu. I've been training for about 20 years now. Oh, wow. that's been a minute. Yeah, that's why you see how it's so hard for me to come to this, this gathering today and not be able to get on the mats. I know. Same here you did mention about, what I went through, and yes, on, February 4th, I suffered an acute stroke, which, left my left hand dead for a few hours. and then, come to find out I had a carotid artery that was really blocked. Oh, wow. Yeah. being young, dumb, and Filipino and eating all this local island food- Yeah it kinda contributes to that. And, not knowing that, what you eat makes what you do, right? I was eating really bad, poor diet, and training. But I had a carotid artery that was actually blocked, by, 85%. Do you think if you wouldn't have been doing jiu jitsu, it could have been worse? Oh, guaranteed. I probably wouldn't be here right now talking to you. Yeah. Seriously. Yeah. In all honesty. I mean, for me, I feel and I don't know what, anyone's religion, preference is, but, with this happening to me, I have actually gotten closer with God. Good. That's great I started to touch my Christian faith too. it's a cool, humbling experience. But yeah, it's a reminder. You know, I feel like everything happened for a reason. Yeah. I competed at Master Worlds, last year. How'd you do? I went in kinda nervous, and, I went up against a world champion who was a world champion, a brown belt. I lost my first round at, with, by points. No submission, by points. And he was an avid opponent. He was very big. I'm usually the smallest guy in the ultra heavy division. but after that, they say be careful what you pray to God for 'cause He'll grant you your prayer, right? so I prayed to God and said, "God, one day I would really love to be a world champion at least once in my life," you know? And, I feel like this is His response to me. He's like, "All right, let's fix your problems then. You got some, things we need to fix before we get you there. It's gonna be a hard journey, but we're gonna go." And I'm now in the process of recovery. Mm-hmm. My faith is even more stronger. And, my advice to a lot of people is just don't lose your faith and do things right. Correct. Right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, you look much thinner. taking care of yourself. God's plan. That's what I say all day. Awesome. Yeah. Awesome. So have you hit the mat yet? in honesty, my doctors have cleared me to be able to teach, so I do teach around the gym. Okay. I help out. as far as live rolling, putting this with my coaches on me about that too, I try to get into a roll, he's "Hey, what are you doing? Get off." it's kinda hard when you've been training for, 20-plus years, I can safely say, at least almost every week, three, four times a week, whatever, and then all of a sudden your life just changes and you have to stop, it's just, it's hard. But you have to understand there's a reason for everything, right? Sometimes you need your body to rest before you can get even better, right? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. So you have that, scar on your neck. I think it's like, it builds character is what a friend of mine told me. It does. Yeah. So hopefully not a dirty character. I have one too, right across my neck. Oh, my God. Yeah. But it gets better though, right? Oh, it does. and you these days, you train a lot as well. I do. Yeah. and that's what inspires me when I see a lot of you guys out there, you ladies and gents out doing your thing. Even after what we deal with in life, it lets me know that, hey, it's still possible. Yeah. It is. It's very possible. I'm blessed. I'm blessed to know all you guys too. give me a little background on how you started jiu jitsu. How'd you get into it? Truth be told, it was through a couple of my friends from Guam. I wanted to train, but just never really, had that, you know, I didn't get that bite yet till, later on when a buddy of mine one day... and back then, I'm not gonna lie, everybody does their thing. I was smoking a lot of weed at the time, and- Yeah one of my buddies was like, Hey, let me try some move on you." I was like, "What?" I was like, "Whatever. Let's go." So we go at it, and this guy chokes the shit out of me. Yo, I'm sorry. I don't mean to cuss, but he- No. No, you can cuss on here. Don't worry Oh, we can? Well, motherfu- no. So he choked the shit out of me. And I was like, "Whoa." I left that day, one- Feeling defeated, you know? And, it was just a lot to take in. You know what I mean? Yeah. and, when I left that day, I got more intrigued, right? I didn't start to, to train yet, but after that I, I kinda sat, in my chair and just "Man, how the fuck does this happen?" You used to wrestle, you boxed, you, scrapped a lot back in the day, and how the fuck does this little 100, a buck 50, whatever, choke the shit out of you? So then I ended up moving out from LA out to San Francisco, and I was at another get-together. And again, another guy from Guam that I know says, "Hey, you ever try jiu jitsu?" And I'm like, "No, but fucking so and so just choked the shit out of me..." 'Cause we have mutual friends. Yeah. Choked the shit out of me in fucking LA. He's like, "What are you doing tomorrow?" And it was a Friday night. I was like, "I don't know." he said, "I'm gonna pick you up." I said, "Huh?" Nice. He goes, "You're gonna come with me, you're gonna train." I was like, "Train?" I was like, whatever. I'm drinking my alcohol. And then, you know, morning comes, sure enough, he's there. He takes, he picks me up. We pick up this Brazilian kid, and we go to San Francisco, and all of a sudden we go into this gym and he goes, "Oh, that's my coach." I'm like, "Oh, why does he look like some white dude, right?" Yeah. He goes, "Yeah." he introduces me, "Hey, this is Noel, my friend. hey Noel, this is my coach, Carly Gracie." Whoa. So I'm like, "What the..." I'm like- "Real? Okay." Right? So we go in there and then we start going over some stuff and I'm like, I'm amazed now. Now I'm understanding why I got choked out. Yeah. And from that point on, it just, I never looked back. I started training. I ended up, actually getting a full on membership at a... It was Charles Gracie Daly City- Oh, okay is where I kinda just started getting more into- Yeah the jiu jitsu. And then after that, here I am now 20 years later, a black belt under Leandro Vieira, and enjoying life and sharing the love with everybody I meet, and then just enjoying it. You know what I mean? Yeah. Just being able to show love, and push positivity and good vibrations. That's awesome. Yeah. today we're at Koffee Krew Unite. Which is number two. And you were up there, MC-ing, I- MC-ing I got volun-told, actually. Nice. You have a great voice to do it. Oh, man. thank you. Yeah, I was just asked 'cause, They told me just to call out the time, and it went from that to having fun, and that's what jiu jitsu is about, right? Just good vibes, good times, and let the good times roll, just like that song by Fortunate Youth. Yeah. Good Times. So what keeps you busy these days? My kids. Mm-hmm. Work. How many kids do you have? I have three that I know of. No, I'm just kidding. I have three kids. my beautiful twin boys, who are nine years old, and then my, 13-year-old daughter. are they into jiu jitsu You know, whether or not, they have to train. It's like parents say when How do you get a kid to start training? Or how do you get a kid to play soccer? You gotta tell them they're gonna go and play soccer. Right. And then eventually they'll find that love one way- Yeah shape, or form, right? Yeah, absolutely. How's their journey so far? So far it's good. the boys have, been competing and having fun. my daughter too. One of the twins actually, at one of the BJJ Tour tournaments, for some reason he ended up on, the Gracie Mag Brazil page. Oh, nice. As, one of the highlight reels, and it was pretty cool, to see that. As a father, to see your kids doing what you love is pretty cool, but at the same time, you wanted them to find their own groove, right? Right. Absolutely. That is so cool. when you started as a white belt, in comparison to being a black belt what would you have told your younger self? a lot of cardio. Right. Eat right, a lot of cardio. Yeah, in, in all honesty, it's if you're Look, I just came out not knowing what to do and just went on. And when I started, it was really more like you get thrown into the lion's den. You know what I mean? And then you gotta figure it out. back then these older black belt big guys, they want you to learn 'cause they're old school like that, which is why our whole community has evolved. if anyone can relate. I've seen a lot of changes. But at the same time I still feel that we need that old school grit still. 'cause a lot of the things are getting watered down in a sense. I would definitely tell myself to eat right and a lot of cardio. to answer that question. so you said a lot of grit, you think it was harder before? it was a lot harder before. and I get it. Everybody has their own way. Now people start to hear about jiu jitsu, they wanna be a part of it, right? But at the same time they wanna find an easier way to doing things. Right? There's not an easier way. and they don't get that. But for us as higher belts, we sit there and we watch them, and we let them grow. All we can do is help them sharpen their tools, their swords, whatever it may be. Right. but yeah, for me back then it was a lot different, man. I remember getting strangled a lot. And I think that's why I had a carotid artery kinda build up. The build up. But, it's a journey for each and everybody in their own right. So my biggest thing too in that is enjoy your journey. Yeah. You don't gotta make it a chore, but enjoy your journey. You're only gonna get Just like when you roll, you get what you put in. If you give this kinda vibe, that's what you're gonna get back. Right. So it's always reminding yourself to be humble. Absolutely. To understand that even like when God went through the desert and for 40 days and on, he didn't complain about his feet hurting from all the heat and being hungry. It's the same thing. If you wanna take on something, you have to go through it, right? yeah. And understand that hard work pays off. Yep. That's it. Let's see what else I can ask you. You can ask- Because it is an ask- You can't ask me. It's keeping me from helping clean right now. No, I'm just kidding. There you go. Yeah, Do you have any other hobbies that we don't know about? You know, this is, you're gonna find it hard to believe. There's a lot of things like DJing. I like riding my Harley. Yeah. and boogie board. I like cooking. Cooking is fun, Okay. More barbecue or just cooking in general? No, everything, I'm- Yeah I'm into learning new things all the time, it's trying to stay busy. Yeah. I'm older now. I'm gonna put it out there. I'm 52 this year. Nice. So I'm just trying to push those- You're 52 young. Yeah. You know what? 50, 52 is the new 21. It is. it's just crazy, right? Because right now, things like that, hobbies, hey, watching cool anime videos is pretty cool, with my daughter. Yeah. 'Cause that's her thing right now, and I'm just enjoying that. So things like that, what else am I into here? I think it's for the most part things that are okay to say on the radio, but yeah. So we're gonna go on a ride, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, on a Harley. I hope so, please. Yeah. And you know what? I told, Mauricio too- Oh 'cause he just... But he said he just laid his bike down, No way. Yeah. he got scraped up by, by some dude, but he's all right. He said he's gonna come back, but I'm ready. All right. But yeah, we should do, a jiu jitsu ride. You know what I mean? We should. I'm down. Yeah. You know? And, having fun out there is what I wanna do, even more so now that I've been given a second chance. it's try to enjoy every minute while you can. I wanna start hiking this year. Oh. I wanna start- Okay going and doing some hikes and stuff, 'cause, we have all this beauty around us and, we just never really know how to appreciate that. and I don't know if it took this, this life-changing experience of having a stroke to understand all that fully but, loving my family and enjoying life is what I'm trying to do now. Yeah. being healthy is probably the biggest gift that we can ever have, right? This is true. Because without our health we can't do much. No. No, this is so true. There's three things that are very important in your life that I've learned, for me is, now eat right, train... Are you ready for the last one? Let's do it. Sleep. True. Yeah, we don't get enough of that. No. No, but you know at the same time you still... We're all human. I feel like this energy is all just borrowed energy and I think in order to provoke change in this world we gotta push love and try to keep being positive, right? Like help mold the future 'cause, I don't know, it's looking kinda wild out there right now. I'm telling you they all think it's the Munyos every time you roll. I'm like, "Yo, you win. I'll tell you. You got it." I don't have the metal though. Yeah. It doesn't matter here. No. And that's what I love about, what Kiko and you guys have put together. this, Koffee Krew is such a great thing to see. The unity, and, just everybody coming together to break bread, you know? Yeah. back then it's something that was unheard of, but, nowadays, the new generation, this is what they need. And you know, like some of these guys do it 'cause they fought the guy last weekend at the last tournament and they're like, "I'm gonna get you back." This isn't the place to get them back. But it- Go back to the tournament but it's all love. Sign up for another tournament. But it's all love. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. It's all love, you guys. Yeah. this is a good vibe, This is just super cool. If you guys have never been to a Koffee Krew event, I feel you should try it, and, it's life-changing. And if you, like I said earlier today, if you see my girl Luckee out there pointing her camera at you, she's about to change your life. Yeah. thank you for visiting me. No, all love. Thank you so much for all you do. I appreciate it. All right. Take care. Bye. Bye.