MARTIAL ARTS and ME (p. 9) Professor Carlos Damasco
Today I am going to write a different note. It will be from the instructors and teachers who have accompanied me over time and who have taught me things about the martial arts that I have practiced and still practice and they bring me good things for me. I always rescue the best things. In reality it is the man and his circumstances.We all have lights and shadows as human beings that we are. I have already said in previous notes that back in early 1973 I started with Karate Goju Ryu, Japanese style of the cat Gogen Yamaguchi.My first instructor was Mr. Ricardo Sosa Ferreira, now deceased. We were
practicing with him for a year and for reasons that are irrelevant, but rather we are going to give the explanation, he went to Brazil to perfect himself a little more with his teacher and he himself told him that he was going to settle in Mexico, something that It was very difficult at that time to go to see him frequently. He invited him to get involved with the Kyokushinkaikan style, a style that has its principles in Goju Ryu.There he was introduced. He was tested and etc, etc, other times, other things and he was recognized for the first dan that he was, the one he had. He came here to Montevideo, he explained the whole situation to us. The students accepted, we really liked the style. A much stronger style. It is more or less known what Kyokushinkaikan is. With him I have learned many things, very important things, I had a great admiration for him. When I was very young, we changed that style, we gave a lot of things. I was one of the first graduates, that is, with the blue or light blue belt, which is the first degree after the white that Kyokushin has to. I was a Goju Ryu green bar belt and
spent years with Ricardo Sosa. He had the opportunity to go to Japan more than once, he practiced with Master Masutatsu Oyama, with great masters such as Seiji Isobe, who is still alive in São Paulo, and great masters, some who have disappeared, others who are out there, such as Master Shigeru Oyama, who later created his Oyama style in the United States. I have seen him here, bringing Japanese, filling the Peñarol Palace, being the line judge of that participation that was made, of having taken advantage of many things, I am even saying that Mr. Sosa was a witness at my wedding, I will tell you a question Barbara. Coming to the media at that time to the press. Something very important. A standout in martial arts. With his lights, with his shadows. Years later, unfortunately, he lost the representation of Kyokushinkaikan due to things that were not very clear, but in these cases it is always about money, money, the famous money. He continued to teach, but at a much lower level, he lost that popularity that he had. Many of his students (I had already stopped practicing at that
44
