09 Jan ADRIÁN VALLEJO (23 YEARS OLD)

FIND IN PARA-KARATE AN OPTION TO RETURN VISUALLY IMPAIRED

✳️ Whoever picks up hard is always an example of “where there was held”. This time he arrives motivated and eager to learn, work and give war. Welcome Adrian to this martial art that welcomes all people with open arms.

***My name is Adrián Vallejo, I am a 23-year-old boy from San Fernando de Henares, Madrid (Spain) who was born on February 15, 1996. I am currently a student of Para-Karate in the Visual 😎 category at the Tomás Herrero Gym in Torrejón de Ardoz.

✳️When I was 5 years old my mother pointed me at Karate at school and I spent 7 long and very good years doing karate up to the blue-green belt 💚💙 with a very good teacher named Olga.

I SUBSTITUTED KARATE FOR FOOTBALL BECAUSE WHEN I WAS SEVEN I DIDN’T FILL MYSELF

➡️At the age of 12 I decided to give up karate as I didn’t finish filling up completely ☹️ That same year I joined a futbool team at another school because mine had not.

✳️At 13-14 years I was diagnosed with Retinosis Pigmentaria, a vision disease that consists of the progressive degeneration of the structure of the eye sensitive to light, a slow but progressive decrease in visual acuity that affects night vision and the peripheral field. This disease is hereditary and is also suffered by my grandfather who is currently total blind and was a coupon seller at the ONCE.

✳️Although I had never been aware of the children since I was 3 years old wearing glasses 🤓e went to annual reviews to the Hospital Niño Jesús in Madrid, I have never been aware until that age, 13-14 years, that at night or in places with low light people saw and I did not, but I continued to make my normal life, trying to make sure that it did not affect at all in my day to day ✌️💪

I FINISH THE INSTITUTE AND REMEMBER KARATE AGAIN

➡️In 2015 I completed compulsory Secondary Education at the Jaime Ferran Clua Institute, and decided to enroll in an average degree of 💻💾 Microinformation Systems and Networks. It was that same summer that Karate caught my eye again and after I’ve been meditating on it I decide to go back 🌞

✳️I started researching places near where I live and found the ‘Henares Sports School’ Gym. To my surprise there I was teaching Olga 😍 with her partner Manuel Capetillo and I was for only that year and I got to take off the blue belt 💙 However, it happened to me the same thing that the previous time, I did not finish filling myself up, I guess it would be the excitement of the moment, for the summer…

✳️In 2015-2016 a friend close to me was diagnosed with Leber’s Optical Neuropathy overnight, which led us both to join once. He was caught, not since they told me I was ”ok” for what I had… That same year he signed up for a ONCE futsal team with visually impaired people, as he has spent virtually his entire life dedicating himself to football and offered him the chance to get into the team ⚽⚽

➡️As a result the coach told him that I could go to training, but without playing the league games, and so it was…, I was going to train with that team 3 years… 😃

THE CHISPA DEL KARATE COMES TO ME WITH SANDRA SÁNCHEZ AND DAMIAN QUINTERO

➡️It was in June 2019 that I again took the ONCE membership test and finally got it and I was able to play the League matches. Everything well until in the month of October I started to go unwilling to go to football, unmotivated and almost every day I left training angry with myself and with the world in general 😠😤 It was right there when I got the spark of karate again, again, thanks to I saw on Twitter and Instagram Sandra Sánchez 😘 and Damián Quintero.

✳️ I started looking for some karate with people with disabilities on my own and I came up with something called ‘PARA-KARATE’. I contacted Elena, the person who gives visibility to the Para-Karate through Instagram and other Social Networks. She encouraged me and told me not to worry, that I would ask whoever it belonged to. Days later they contacted me and gave me options. 🔥 I was particularly struck by a gym in Torrejón de Ardoz as it has several people competing in Para-Karate and I decided to contact Tomás Herrero, master of that gym. 💪✌️🔥 So last November I resumed after almost 4 years.

✳️One day after I left football training I said to myself, “This is how far we’ve come up with football, IT’S FINISHED.” I told the coach and he understood me, he told me to take a break and I told him the possibility of resuming Karate 🥋 to what he replied to that without problem, that if I ever wanted to return to football I have the door open. I left football with good memories and great people I’m going to miss 😊.

THE FEELING WHEN I PUT ON KARATEGUI AGAIN WAS INDESCRIBABLE

✳️I put on the karategui and felt a tingle all over my body and images of when I was a child came to mind and practiced karate at school 😃☺️ It was at that very moment that I knew I was in the right place and started a new stage 👏👏

✳️To this day, I am very happy ☺️ to have resumed and face a new challenge: to be able to compete at the national level, and I hope internationally, in a karate style such as Shotokan 💪 since I have always practiced Shitoryu. I’ve almost taken it back from scratch.

➡️I am currently 79% visually impaired but I have the support of family and friends who have never lacked me at any time ♥️

WE ARE NOT PERFECT, YOU HAVE TO LOOK AT THE FEAR IN FRONT AND IN THE EYES

🔥To finalize dedicate this to anyone who is afraid 👽 to face any challenge/goal in life. We’re all wrong, we’re not perfect. Years ago I had a video in which I said the following sentence: “If you want some truth, go for it without looking back, looking at the fear in front and in the eyes, giving everything, giving the soul, taking out the child inside you, the one who believes in the impossible and who would give the moon to touch a star” 💪

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