TANG SOO DO PANAMÁ SabomNim Carlos Omar Urbina Panamá 2022 A young Panamanian from the province of Bocas del Toro on his main island Isla Colon where growing up I saw Sawamura El Campeón on television that I liked him a lot and wanted to be like him and as I remember there were no martial art schools on my beautiful island Colon. I grew up and went to school, but suddenly I traveled to the capital, Panama City where I finished school and then went on to university. Still in school I think starting high school I wondered if I could learn martial arts, Karate was the best known, but I don't know why I saw a couple of Karate classes and I didn't feel that it was what I wanted to learn. On the way to school and returning home one day I discovered that passing in front of the entrance to a neighborhood called La Cresta there were some locals and I saw an advertisement for TangSooDo – Korean Karate and decided to get off the bus or public transport and I visited it, I said to myself “I like this”, I went to find out the data and tell my relatives to be able to pay for the classes and enroll, but I think in two or three months the TangSooDo school closed. I
wanted to continue learning, but I didn't want Karate and I didn't think there were more Dojang's of TangSooDo, but a fellow classmate told me that if I wanted to continue learning there was an Academy in a place called Rio Abajo but that the classes were very strong and maybe I wouldn't stand them. I wanted so much to continue learning TangSooDo that I found out how to get to that place, the Colegio Episcopal de San Cristóbal in Rio Abajo (it is known as such), but it is in Parque Lefevre. At the San Cristóbal school there was a gym and these classes were held there. When I arrived I saw that on this basketball court, that is, in this gym, the space of the court was full of students and a student from Black Belt approached me and asked me how he could help me and well, I will not say that the rest is history. I saw the class and immediately knew and said to myself “this is my thing”. The thing was that these classes were three days a week, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, the man who was the Master, a dark man, his name was Alfonso Jesse, but I found out that to address him it had to be like this: SabomNim Jesse (RIP). He was sick and passed away in November 2020 but when I started in the classes of the SabomNim Alfonso Jesse in the early 1980s and I started with fear that I would not stand the classes, well I realized that there were few black belts and over time I found out that not everyone could achieve the Black Belt. Well, this is not exactly the case, but what is true was that for him Sabonim Jesse well, it should be said SabomNim, to rise from the grades or ranks of the colored belts to those of the Black Belts, the student had to show several things such as the endurance of how strict these classes were also the emotional growth and development of the student's character to the point that more than 50 years of teaching SabomNim Jesse until God called him on November 6, 2020 only 8 students achieved this award. Thank you SabomNim Alfonso Jesse for having taught me, for tolerating me for so long and even after his departure from this world I remember him as if he were
still alive, I thank him that I was the 7th Black Belt in 1989 that he did. I SabomNim Carlos Omar Urbina until 9 years ago I started teaching on my own
with the authorization of my Master the SabomNim Alfonso Jesse in a gym in the Betania urbanization. Before and after I achieve the Black Belt with my teacher, help support instruction if my teacher needed it. Now with the passing of time I have learned in TangSooDo for almost 33 years of being a Black Belt. I am 4th Dan and I lead the representation of the World Traditional TangSooDo Union. I train my students with combat all classes as I learned from SabomNim Alfonso Jesse. In Panama City, every time there are open Karate or TaeKwonDo tournaments or competitions, I take my students who are prepared and want to not say that they can go to the competitions. I teach classes to children from the age of 4, as well as teenagers and adults. We train with warm-ups, kicks, blocks and punches like with Hyong, that is, we form what they call Kata in Karate and a lot in sparring, that is, in combat. The truth is that I teach what we call physics, that is, calisthenics and stretching, etc. and not always in the same order, but in the different ways that the Chinese Hand Martial Art or TangSooDo can be taught. Tang symbolizes the Tang dynasty of China, Soo is hand and Do
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