Lost the first round on points 10-0 against Gustavo Camacho Muñoz (who went on to take bronze, beating my victorious opponent from Lisbon on the way).

Not a bad match. I pulled guard and he almost immediately passed. He was within a few inches of getting to my back off the pass. But I managed to defend and force him into side control (although you know things aren’t going well when your opponent getting into side control is a relief). Then he went onto knee on belly. I managed to frame him off and catch a foot, allowing me to re-guard. I got back to closed guard, but opened it — and he passed again. We did an almost precise repeat as I got back to closed guard off his move knee on belly. Right at the end I thought he was starting to slow down slightly. But still an essentially one sided match in his favour, despite some decent defence on my part.

Lessons learned:

  • I need more hours on the mat. I think that’s a big thing at this point. I’m not out of my league. But I’m only a year plus change into blue belt and I think that shows. Need to keep grinding away and doing more comps.
  • Probably related, I need a smoother, more focused and aggressive guard game.
  • I need to close the athletic gap. There are some worryingly strong and well conditioned people in Masters 2 and I need to be one of them.

Onwards!

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