Bastos. Vitor Freitas
Bruno Bastos is the man who is responsible for spreading jiu-jitsu around Midland, Texas. And his work is getting paid off, as each year that goes by his team continues to improve and grow. June 22th was another day that his team’s success was proven, as they won the IBJJF’s Kids International scoring 281 points, 100 more points than the second place. The tournament took place in Houston and was attended by some big teams like Gracie Barra, Atos and GFTeam.
Bruno spoke about how he’s still keeping the life of an athlete with the life of a coach and manager. The 39-year-old fighter explained how his team earned so much at the most recent events.
“Besides loving our work, we have to understand that kids aren’t athletes. They are not mini-adults. They are still evolving their bodies and their minds. As we know that is important to know how to work their sense of discipline, responsibility and a winning mind on a healthy basis. That’s our line of work and we are getting good results from the kids and teenagers. Me and my wife are very honest with the kids and we always prefer to have a good, transparent communication with the parents too. This helps creating a good place, a culture of excellence. A bigger part of our success comes from the parent’s support to their children, because their family is their basis.”
About the future of the Bastos BJJ’s athletes, Bruno states that their main goal is to shape those kids to be great black belts in the future.
“I want all of them to become black belts because I know how important jiu-jitsu will be in their lives, not only on their development growing up and to become great persons to be good where they want to go from there. When they start to compete as juniors it’s very normal for the kids approaching me about some tips about life and I always explain them about what jiu-jitsu can offer to their lives as a career. Jiu-Jitsu is a very wide career and it goes way beyond the championship medal.”
Not only as a teacher, but professor Bruno also showed his students that what he teaches in class actually works. The black belt took another golden medal to this home last weekend, winning the IBJJF’s National American in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“I became champion winning two fights. I’ve won both of them with advantages, controlling them all the time. Not only did I watch my team and students but I could show them one more time that hard work pays off. This was the most important thing to me.”
