EMA took a relatively new and inexperienced competition team to the Devon BJJ Open held in Plymouth at the weekend. Nine of our adults and five cadets/juveniles made the hour journey from Exeter. With only three of them having ever competed before in BJJ, I was expecting them to gain a lot of experience but not a huge medal haul. How wrong was I!

Everyone excelled going in with a win or learn attitude. The day got off to a stunning start with Max getting an armbar submission in the first 15 seconds and the day just got brighter from there.

Special mention goes to Olivia and Violet who, due to lack of teenage girls competing, were placed in brackets with teenage boys. This didn't phase them — they came away with silver and bronze respectively.

Here are the medal results:

• Lee Hambleton — adult medium heavyweight blue belt masters bronze
• Olivia Rowntree — teen 2 silver gi and teen 2 no-gi bronze
• Violet Howson — teen 2 gi bronze and teen 2 no-gi bronze
• Lewis Gale — juvenile middleweight no-gi silver
• Brandon Clarke — adult lightweight white belt gi bronze
• Karl Sharpe — teen 1 gi silver and teen 1 no-gi silver
• Max Pochereon — adult featherweight white belt gi silver
• Reuben Cock — teen 2 gi silver and teen 2 no-gi bronze
• PJ Dundass — adult heavyweight white belt gi bronze, adult heavyweight no-gi silver
• Simon Hill — adult super heavy white belt gi bronze and adult super heavy no-gi gold
• Rich Martin — adult featherweight white belt gi bronze
• Adam Bright — adult light feather white belt bronze and light feather white belt no-gi bronze

In total our team achieved nineteen medals — eleven bronzes, seven silvers and a gold. Experience was the biggest winner with all getting invaluable competition practice which will make them all even stronger next time out.