The Community adds another 7th dan black belt. Paul Inevaformer president of the Aragonese Karate Federation from 2000 to 2008 and owner of the Goya gym for more than four decades, received this title last July 1 in recognition of his career in martial art.
The Royal Spanish Karate Federation, through the Higher Sports Council, has sent him a distinction that equates him to Fernando Rosuero, the only Aragonese who owned it to date but who recently died as a result of covid.
Born in Zaragoza in 1953, Ineva started in karate in 1968 with Yoshinao Nanbuin the disappeared Judo Kwai Club that was located on Paseo de la Constitución. In 1974, in Santander, he became the first karate fighter in the Community capable of proclaiming himself champion of the kumite modality, which earned him to be summoned with the national team.
For four years (until 1978), he was a member of the national team led by maestro Antonio Oliva at the time.along with whom he learned that the competitive nature of Spain could even challenge the hegemony of Japan, which had traditionally been the ‘mother country’ of karate.
“My obsession has always been teaching. Children have been my passion, and this is largely due to the lessons I learned during that time.. I have a special affection for Oliva”, explains Paul Ineva, who in 1982 achieved the title of national kumite referee, becoming the third Spaniard to hold it.
“Then I got the first dan, which allows me to be a monitor. And then came the 2nd (regional coach), the 3rd (national coach); and from then on I was able to become a judge of the grade court of the Royal Spanish Karate Federation”, recalls Ineva, about a few years in which she worked “like a little ant” to be someone in martial arts.
“In the year 2000 I reached the presidency of the Aragonese Federation and I remained in the position until 2008. In that period I was given the 4th and 5th dan. I still remember the exams on the tatami of the General Military Academy…”, he continues, before tiptoeing through one of the most bitter episodes of his life.
“I did not come out of the Aragonese Federation in the best shape and relations with those currently responsible are not the best either. That’s why I decided a long time ago to switch to Rioja. For me, born in Zaragoza and the son of Zaragozans (from María de Huerva and Pina de Ebro, specifically), it was difficult to make this decision, but I had no other choice”, says Ineva, clarifying that the title of 7th dan was requested by the president of the Riojan Federation of Karate, Roman Perez.
The award ceremony will take place in September, on a date to be confirmed, and the president of the Spanish company is expected to attend, Anthony Moreno. “I never thought I would get this far. I didn’t expect it at all”, completes who is also a benchmark in self-defense.
For around 30 years, he taught courses for aspiring guards, both in his gym (Goya) and in other approved private security training centers in the Community. “I put on my kimono at nine in the morning and took it off at eleven at night. Karate has been my working life but also my great passion. This is the brooch ideal”, concludes Ineva. And it is that the 8th, 9th and 10th dan are reserved for the creators of the school, something to which she does not intend to aspire.
