Karate in Brazil

Even though it may sound strange, karate is popular in Brazil, maybe it is not shown in sports television but there are many participants. Brazil officially harbors eight of the eleven official styles of karate, only behind Japan, which has all official eleven and a few other Asian countries. The probable reason for this, or at least a part of the reason why Brazil has so much karate is because Sensei Buio, who is the founder of three styles here in Brazil was very close to some of the Karate founders in Japan. He imported Karate here and thought a great deal of student, including my teacher and I. He is the one who examines my training and judges if I am worthy of getting a new belt. He was also very close with the founder of Wado-kai, the style which I practice. This is probably the most important reason why karate is taken seriously in Brazil, not like other countries. There are many good examples of this, particularly in my Dojo, two black belts already moved to the United States and within one year each of them had won the North American Karate Championship. This is very important, at least for my training, to have a serious martial art teacher, it defiantly enhanced my performance and influenced me to take it more seriously.