04 Mar NATHALY CASTRO (21 YEARS OLD)

WITH CEREBRAL PALSY, PARA-KARATE HELPS YOU FEEL FREE WHEN MAKING KATAS

✳️ When someone, for example Nathaly, from Cali in Colombia, tells you a phrase like this: “I fell in love with the katas because with them I feel free”, you understand all the good that this martial art does to those who practice it.

She tells us her experience of living through Para-Karate with her words:

I was born in the United States, in New York, with cerebral palsy. For health reasons of my mother we came to live in Colombia, specifically Cali.

I started training Karate Shotokan at 12 years old with “normal” children and went to the yellow belt and then orange, a belt I have now.

IMPROVED COORDINATION, BALANCE AND MEMORY

I chose karate because, honestly and first, it was close to my house and second because it would help me to enhance and practice coordination, balance and memory.

Now I practice in the Cauca Valley League and I am the only practitioner with any kind of disability, in my case, cerebral palsy.

BOOSTS CONCENTRATION AND SPACE MANAGEMENT

Karate has helped me improve spatial management coordination, concentration and I have discovered something I love…

In the Valley league my teachers, currently Sensei Jesús Lucena, have guided me to improve day by day to be both good karate and good person.

In Colombia even though there are not many practitioners with disabilities, support is not enough…😑😐😵

BECAUSE OF MY DISABILITY, I FIND IT DIFFICULT TO HAVE FRIENDS

✳️My disability affected my right side. My appearance is of a 15-year-old girl and my height is 1.45 cm so it’s hard for me to find friends and fit into society but with karate I feel free…💪✌️😉😍😘

You can see how well katas Nataly does: https://www.facebook.com/parakarateycia/videos/516086559271457/

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