Whether or not you can meet something that you can devote yourself to while you are young will greatly change the fate of that person. In the case of Yuki Nakai, a pioneer who popularized Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Japan, the turning point was that he met Nanatei Judo when he entered Hokkaido University.
Before entering university, he attended Sapporo Kita High School, which is known as a preparatory school that competes for one or two in Sapporo. Club activities are wrestling. The reason he was playing a sport that wasn’t flattering was that he wanted to be a professional wrestler in the future. At that time, it was thought that wrestling was a shortcut for professional wrestling boys living in rural areas to become professional wrestlers.
Nakai recalls, “That’s why I chose a school with a wrestling club.”
“I was able to wrestle, and I made it to Kitataka, which convinces the surroundings (because the deviation value is high).”
When I was in the first year of high school, I was already the 65kg class champion at the Sapporo tournament. However, he cannot win when he goes to the all-road tournament. In the second half of her second year, she felt she was being overtaken by her high school synchronism. Nakai was about to give up his dream of becoming a professional wrestler.
Nakai, who said, “I tried to become an ordinary high school student,” devoted himself to studying for entrance exams instead.
“The three-year class was really close, and even after the class was over, everyone remained and studied.”
High school days when I declared that I would go to the University of Tokyo
During my elementary and junior high school days in my hometown of Hamamasu Village (now transferred to Ishikari City and in Hamamasu Ward), I was treated as a child prodigy because I was able to study tremendously. When it comes to the test, it is natural to get 100 points. At the 90s, it was smart enough for the people around me to tilt their heads asking, “What happened?” Even at Kita High School, his grades were not bad, so Nakai declared to the people around him, “If you get 720 points or more out of 800 points in the common primary (current center test), you will go to the University of Tokyo.”
“My good friends also received the University of Tokyo. If you think about it now, I can’t go that easily (laughs).”
