Atsushi Yoshinaga
Atsushi started Judo training at age 7 in Chicago and has been competing for 17 years. Between the ages 10 and 16 he travelled roughly every year to stay and train at the Kodokan as well as the top police dojo in Tokyo.
In 1999-2000 he won several junior national tournaments and earned a spot on the Junior World Traveling team, competing in international tournaments in Poland and Hungary. Eventually competing in the junior world championships in Tunisia. He placed second in the High School Nationals when he was a sophomore and then won when he was a senior.
In 2004 and 2005 he trained for about 5 weeks each year at Tenri University, one of the top five judo universities in Japan. In his first five years of college, he won 2 collegiate national tournaments and placed second in one. In 2005 he came out to California from Chicago to train and study at San Jose State University.
Since then, he has either won or placed in the top three at dozens of E and D-level tournaments, and placed third at the Nationals in 2007. In 2007, he traveled with the under 23 elite team to compete in the German Open and train at the camp after. There were several World and European champions that attended the tournament and camp with whom he was able to train with. In 2008, he qualified to compete at the U.S. Olympic Judo Trials, where he lost to the number one seed, who eventually went on to become the alternate in his division. He has dabbled in BJJ for roughly two years, training on and off at AKA under Dave Camarillo.
