Somewhere in Waimanalo, some old backpack and a few pieces of luggage have Travel Channel mileage on them.

It wasn’t very long ago when Cory and Darilyn Pestano were at their wits’ end. They tried to find an outlet for Dane, their active little boy, little in the sense that he was just a kindergartener who happened to be as large as third-graders. Judo fit just right.

"If it wasn’t for judo, I probably would’ve become a bully," the youngster recalled.

Wrestling came along three years later, learning the ropes in the Police Activities League from an uncle, Darren Reyes, who is also the head coach at Farrington.

Dane Pestano
The Kamehameha
junior’s future is bright
in combat sports

Since then, life has been all about training, competition and travel. By seventh grade, he was on the Kamehameha campus and started competing for Warriors judo coach Ernest Miyamasu and wrestling coach Christian West.

"He was competitive from his first day," West said. "He doesn’t wrestle like someone in judo. He’s calm, cool and collected. If something great happens, he’s composed. He takes a failure and learns from it immediately. He’s blazing fast, a powerful, complete package."

Last summer, the junior-to-be placed second at the Judo World trials in Dallas, knocking off a slew of college recruits. That put Paihi, as he’s better known to family and friends, on the radar. Alas, a shoulder injury curtailed a trip to Cape Town, South Africa.

"I was bummed. I didn’t do so good the year before, so I wanted to prove myself," the 5-foot-7, 215-pound competitor said.

But back to the travel log. Sure, Cape Town would’ve been another great notch on the belt. But Pestano’s excellence in sports, particularly in judo, has taken him to Venezuela ("We were like prisoners because elections were going on and we weren’t allowed to go outside"), Fukuoka ("Sushi!"), Morocco ("Camels"), Peru ("Small taxi cars") and Toronto.

"Toronto was just cold. Cold!" he said.

Cold opposed to hot, like midsummer in Fargo, N.D. It was a unique two-day span last July when he flew to Fargo, went 4-0 in a national freestyle wrestling tourney, then left midway through to compete in the judo tourney in Dallas.

"His single leg (shoot) is smooth. He hits fast, like a 130-pounder," West noted.

Of course, there’s more. He has seen California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Nevada and New York.

"New York City, that was exciting," said Pestano, who vividly remembers those first few weeks as a tyke at Salt Lake Judo Club.

"I was really hardheaded. A rascal. We tried all kinds of stuff. Karate, I didn’t like fighting," he said. "Then we found (Salt Lake) and I got my butt kicked."

His peers on the mat were two to three years older, but some were lighter in weight. They all simply had much more technique and experience. Three times a week, the kolohe boy learned the rules.

"It was humbling, but my parents kept bringing me," Pestano said. "When you know someone’s better than you, you always try your best. I was getting beaten every day. I would cry every time."

Within three years, he started to keep up.

"Every day, you figure out their moves. They revert back to them. You start defending those moves and you can work on your own," he said.

Now a wizened young man of 16, those years of traveling from the Windward side to town via the H-3 so often seem like a lifetime ago.

"Judo helped a lot with controlling my body, my aggression. I’d always ask to go out with my friends, but my parents always pushed me to go to practice," Pestano said. "It was the right thing. If they hadn’t pushed me, I’d probably end up being a bully."

Pestano has dealt with the shoulder injury best he could.

"It was pretty frustrating," he said, noting that it caused him to miss football season.

He plays linebacker and plans to return to the team this fall, even though West thinks Pestano has a huge future on the mat. Pestano reached the wrestling state finals twice before winning gold as a junior at 215 pounds, capping an unbeaten season that was almost exclusively "WBF" (wins by fall/pin).

In judo, he took the 220 title last year. Pestano now trains with Tenri Judo Club, but the upside in wrestling is also large.

"After his performance at nationals (Dallas), he got an invitation to the Arizona State camp," West said of the honor. "Wrestling is so big up there. You’ve got these parents traveling all summer in their Winnebagos, taking their kids to all these tournaments."

For all the globetrotting, the kid from ‘Nalo is still down to earth.

"He doesn’t say a whole bunch. He’s very coachable and that’s what makes him such a good athlete," West said. "When he won states, he was crying, but he wasn’t jumping or whooping it up. He’s just a great leader at practice and kids follow him because he walks the walk."

Pestano has worked with (MMA grappler and Olympic hopeful) Jake Clark and (Punahou coach) Matt Oney in the offseason, learning more technique, honing his craft. He could follow the trail blazed by three-time state champ Shayden Terukina, who graduated from Kamehameha last year and started as a freshman at 135 for Iowa State in the winter.

"Paihi is such a mature kid," West added. "He makes mature decisions."