Diana Oligino Success Story

Diana Oligino is an athlete.

A short introduction to yourself?
My name is Diana Oligino, I’m from Venezuela, I am 14 years old and I’m the current Karate-Do National Champion in the female 12/13 age Kata category. I’ve been practising karate since I was 4 years old and have achieved the Shodan Ho black belt from the Tamashi Shotokan Karate-Do Organization of Venezuela.

How did you develop your fondness for your sport and at what age did you start
learning karate?
My older brother practised karate, however, what made my parents enrol me was that when I was going to enter kindergarten at my school at 4 years old, I was really shy, because of that my parents would have had to postpone my going to school by one year, so to try to help me they enrolled me together with my brother Luigi. It immediately had a big impact on my life, karate gave me strength, going on to become a medalist at each one of my competition’s and little by little I liked it more and more, so what started as something temporary has become my lifestyle.

What is your style and what rank do you currently hold in (your sport)?
I practice the Shotokan style of karate-do and I’m currently a Shodan Ho black belt. The path to
a Black Belt requires time, effort, perseverance and discipline, it took me 8 years in particular to reach that long-awaited moment. In my case, and thanks to God I kept the strength to persist until I reached that goal, it is the result of all my hard work. And I refer to that goal in particular because it is said that the Black Belt represents the end of one path and the beginning of another now I also understand that it is only the beginning, the beginning of an exciting journey filled with discipline, values and hard work, and they will continually lead me to seek new knowledge, to try to understand the true essence of this martial art. And if at some point I have the opportunity to teach others, I will do so as many others have done for me, and I will strive for them to see that the limits are only placed by oneself, at the same time, I will benefit from continuing to practice what I have learned.

What do you like Kata or Kumite more?
Definitely kata, from a very young age I saw my brother practice and I tried to imitate him, then when I began to train in the dojo little by little, with patience and help from my sensei I began acquiring greater dexterity and without realizing it, a warrior attitude, As my first sensei, Daniel, used to say, what he called ane quote “Angry face&quot” but it wasn’t like that, it was that I felt strong and secure, I knew that I had to put strength and desire to win. Little by little, kata gave me satisfactory sporting results first in internal tournaments, then regional, then
national and international with my organization.

So even today when I practice Kata I focus on my movements; To try and make them more realistic, I imagine I’m in a fight. I execute the Kata over and over again until I achieve mastery of the technique with a correct and automatic performance, seeking to make it part
of my reflexes since it is one of the objectives of the Kata to allow the movements of defence, attack, positions and displacement to flow almost without thinking at the precise time. It is something magical, the strength, the power that one feels when executing it. For those of us who love kata, we must be clear that it requires synchronization of many details, that we must be super concentrated when doing it and that every detail counts.

Do you have a favourite Sensei?
In these 10 years practising karate I have been able to meet many great senseis, people with great human qualities and values, always ready to help and who have given me a lot of love and wise advice; from my first sensei Daniel Moreno to my current sensei Marvin Silva, president of my Tamashi Organization, whom I have known since I was 4 years old, with whom have taken all my promotion exams, that has always made sure to surround me with love and support, he has given many words of encouragement motivated me to excellence and reminding me that I can do better, until I reach my goals, to be ambitious
and dream without fear.

How did you get into this position and how did your journey in this sport go?
I want to start by narrating a little of my life, making a little backward glance and pointing
out the events that allowed me to have the knowledge and experience that I have had in
Karate-Do during these 10 years and tell you how I have come to this moment important of
my life.

Since I was 4 years old, I have belonged to the Tamashi Organization, Dojo Kuro Obi in
charge of sensei Daniel Moreno in my hometown of San Cristóbal, Venezuela. In addition,
since that age, I have been able to train with Sensei Marvin, president of the Organization,
in the opportunities that occurred with each trip that I made to the city of Valencia from San Cristóbal, the city where I live. It’s a long trip of approximately 10 hours by car, whether the reason was for seminars or belt change; I clearly remember those training, all my promotions from white belt, all evaluated by Sensei Marvin, which have never been easy but I have enjoyed it. The complexity of mastering the advanced techniques of Karate-Do and the need to raise my knowledge led me together with my parents to undertake trips to the city of Valencia, where Sensei Marvin has his Dojo, seeking his guidance and knowledge, that became a necessity in my life, in my Karate-Do.

An important change occurred 4 years ago on my journey when my first Sensei Daniel
Moreno, decided, driven by the prevailing situation in my country, to travel to Chile with
his family, I keep in touch with him, we write and get up to date by Instagram. The Kuro Obi Dojo disintegrated and all my colleagues had no choice but to go to other organizations. I, for my part, together with my parents decided to undertake the big task of training remotely, we installed tatami in my house, which has transformed into a Dojo, my parents and my brother are my only company and well, a lot of discipline and perseverance has gone into me to continue to train, I became for years the only athlete in the Tamashi organization in my hometown.

Sensei Marvin also assumed the commitment to support me and repeatedly travelled during
these years to San Cristóbal to train with me, which has now turned into our new normal, full of efforts and sacrifices to pave the way. During these 4 years, we have shared many extremely important moments for me, full of excitement, with great learnings, with lots of challenges such as the 2020 National Youth.

Championship where I obtained first place and meeting the World Champion Sandra Sánchez, we even continue to live new experiences such as this year’s competitions or virtual training. My path and training have not been easy, I have had to learn a lot about discipline, self-motivation, to focus very well on my goals regardless of the environment; currently, we have adapted to virtual training with which I no longer feel so alone and that motivates me more. With great pride, I can summarize my sports career so far saying that I have obtained 56 medals in private Championships, 12 in national federated Championships, I have been 3 times National Champion in individual kata and 5 times Champion in team kata as well as international championships in the USA and virtual in which I have obtained first place.

Do you take sports as a profession or is it just a hobby?
Being only 14 years old I take this sport very seriously, I practice it daily for 2 or 3 hours in
balance with my studies, focused on achieving great sports goals. So it is more than a hobby.

What challenges have you faced in getting to where you are now? You can also share any injury story.
For me, the biggest challenge was 4 years ago when I was very focused on my training with my sensei, already at that time I was twice National Champion and the championship was coming again I was looking for my 3rd consecutive title, and a hard moment came when my sensei said he was leaving the country, we did not know what to do, I got nervous because stopping training at that time and going to compete without my coach was difficult, fortunately, I received support from my organization and my association, Sensei Zachety Patiño, the sensei Marco Torres and Marvin Silva, they supported me in a way that I will never forget. Then, an even bigger challenge followed, deciding to train by distance alone in my house at the age of 10, yes, always with the support of my family and my father who is with me at all times helping me, deciding that travelling is part of my life to Valencia for 10 hours every so often to train, thus managing to stay on the podium consecutively for 10 years.

What motivates you most about your profession as an athlete?
At this moment, it motivates me to achieve my goals of representing my country in different
international championships and positioning myself as the best in my category.

Do you have anything you want everyone to learn?
Of course, I want to tell everyone that, in life, not only in a sport but also in your personal life, a lot of patience, effort and determination, great tenacity and hard work are required to achieve your objectives. That in life everything can be achieved and that success is never achieved alone, that is why we must be grateful to all who help us in some way.

What tournament or match you have won are you most proud of and why?
I am very happy with my last face-to-face Championship in 2020, where I was National Junior Champion, it was a great challenge because I was new in the category I knew that my teammates were excellent and I had to work hard to achieve it, I never thought of losing, I always focused on that it was difficult, like all other tournaments, but never impossible.

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