Bahiana receives Adapted Karate presentation

The ADAB Advanced Physiotherapy Clinic (CAFIS) held, on March 31, a presentation by the athletes of the Baiano Institute of Adapted Karate (IBKA), in the courtyard of the Academic Unit's Class Pavilion Brotas. The activity aimed to help athletes with special needs to prepare for their participation in the 1st stage of the National Karate Championship, which takes place on April 8, at the Athletic Association of Banco do Brasil (AABB), in Salvador .

Twenty-two athletes from 22 to 6 years old from the IBKA, an entity directed by Prof. Erick Chaves, physical educator at CAFIS, where they are practicing their training. They are children, young adults and elderly people with physical or intellectual disabilities or with combined pathologies.

According to the coordinator of CAFIS, physiotherapist Janaína Pitanga, the institution's support to the IBKA made it possible to expand the clinic's services. "We were approached by Prof. Erick Chaves, who was already doing work at the Bahian Rehabilitation Institute (IBR) with the proposal of bringing this work into the clinic and, as it is a physiotherapy clinic that works on the issue of accessibility and social inclusion, we saw that it was a very interesting proposal. We saw that the audience was children with autism, people with attention deficits, cerebral palsy, microcephaly for whom there is no offer of sports activities so easily. So, this partnership generated an interesting aspect, not just therapeutics, but physical activity aimed at the special public. Today, anyone can look for CAFIS to practice adapted karate and swimming".

The gains in the practice of these activities are evident, as confirmed by Marisete Chagas, mother of 18-year-old Amanda, who has microcephaly. "The experience with Professor Erick and adapted karate is very good. Amanda was very aggressive, had many behavior problems at school and after she started doing karate she is much better. She manages to have self-control and avoid conflicts with her peers" . 

The positive results in the practice of karate have also been transforming the life of eight-year-old Carlos Eduardo, Cadu. According to his mother, Karine Neres dos Santos, autism was discovered in him at the age of two. Since then, he started to do traditional therapies such as occupational therapy, speech therapy and psychopedagogy. Reading about autism, Karine realized the need to play sports.

She confesses that, due to the difficulty of finding a place that would accept children with autism for physical activities and sports, initially she didn't want to tell the teacher about Cadu's real picture. "But when I saw the teacher's work, I was sure that that was where I belonged, that was where I had to leave him. Today, Cadu has improved a lot. He sits, waits and is the first autistic person who manages to “ Katar” (sequence of pre-set movements that simulates a situation in which the karateka is attacked by several opponents in different directions) alone. This is the first time he will participate in a competition, because last year he couldn't because of restlessness. Today, he got better at school, he improved his speech, everything got better!", he celebrates. 

Among the main gains offered by the practice of the sport, Prof. Erick Chaves points out socialization and better motor performance. "When I founded IBKA, the proposal was to offer therapy and make the boys more social, because I know the discrimination that occurs in people's daily lives. It worked. I started teaching on the dike with only five students. At the end of last year, I came to Bahiana working with adapted swimming, I proposed bringing karate here and was accepted. It's been a blessing. We are in a place with very good accessibility, where we are respected, where students can have a case study, as we are in a health school, and it makes adapted karate grow in Bahia and, consequently, in Brazil" Today, the IBKA has three national champion athletes in the Adapted Karate category.

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