Bruno Bastos opens his first gym in the U.S., sets sights on another Masters title

Personal archive

At the prime of his 39 years, Bruno Bastos has started a new chapter on his personal life. After being a BJJ black belt for 18 years, the BJJ master is opening his first gym in Midland, Texas, and after living in America for 10 years, he’s going to put his vision and knowledge into a business for the first time. The decision was made along with his wife Petya, who just won the Pan 2019. And even after being a teacher for a long time and now a businessman, Bruno wants to keep competing. His focus is to come back at the IBJJF’s World International Master.

The “Highlander” talks about his happiness on opening his own gym, what will be the team’s philosophy and wanting another gold medal at the World Masters.

How do you feel about owning your own gym?

Opening my own gym is a dream turning into a reality for me and my wife, who is also a fighter since she was a kid. I’m training jiu-jitsu for 30 years because I’ve started when I was 10. I’ve learned so much in this sport and now I can help a lot of other people, adults or kids. Our gym will have two mats with simultaneous classes for kids and adults and also one exclusive class for women. We will have a complete schedule for jiu-jitsu and for self-defense. We’ll also be going to have an exclusive class for competitions. I got here because of my results and I’m not going to deny or ignore that. We have some good results around here and this is the beginning of a big story.

How do see your gym in three years? 

I believe that in three years if we could reach all of our goals, we are going to have like 250, 300 students. We have a very strong program for our kids and their development so I believe that we can reach a title in the black belt. My vision is to grow our gym’s brand we will have a very strong team, even if our gym is in Midland which is a small town from Texas. I’ve been studying a lot about business and I do believe that our future will be very organized to be one of the biggest gyms in America. Our work in Texas is already established.

You still want to compete, right?

I became a Master champion back in 2013 and I’m going to chase another title for me this year. I’ve already got two medals (silver and bronze). I know how to win because I already went there and I feel like I’m getting closer to the gold for my recent performances. If the day is good I will catch the gold another time. I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.

[Source: PR.]