The ‘Scorpion’ teaches his Tricks

The muay-thai’s Peruvian  Champion and South American second place is ready to share all what he learned.

By Nelson Peñaherrera. Video by Estany Tineo.

“Stay calm,” Daniel, The ‘Scorpion’ , Garro suggests me while I try to kick frontal. Muay thai’s Peruvian champion and South American second place keeps serenity before, during and after the demonstration for this story. “Calm and reflexes are fundamental when you face a fight,” he states.

Daniel is 30 years old, born in Huacho, near Lima, and seemed to be destinated to soccer, what he plays since he was 15.”I played with Union Huaral and León de Huánuco”, but since he turned 20, box and martial arts began to tease him, got involved with them, and became into the fight method created in the ancient kingdom of Siam, today Thailand, as an alternative for body-to-body combat in tribal and royal wars at Indochina Peninsula.

In fact, it was impossible thinking to lead if you have not wan a muay borang tournament, prior to muay-thai.

Today, it’s considered an extreme contact sport, and that demands  what the fighter gets focused on what doing, controls reflexes, knows how to keep calm and being able to hold the effort in endurance and power as well. This is not a sequence, but something integral, simultaneous.

“First, you have to get fit,” Daniel Garro advises. “Then, you begin to train movements step by step until giving them fluency such as you were dancing.”

Technique learning also requires you apply some Physics from initial attack position for your center of gravity to be in the right place at the time of kicking, punching, poking, blocking the opponent or make losing the balance until leaving out of fight.

“Myself faced to some ‘bulls’,” Daniel tells as he explains there is a weight classification for tournaments, but this is relative at the time of every combat. “It’s much trick than anything else,” he repeats as he tries I get painless (his bobbinn smashes hurt my tights) or he teaches me how to make leaving his gravity center by enforcing mine on my own ankle and spinning  my other leg like a compass.

He’s 1,80 meters height, 70 kg weight (I’m 1,67 m height, 70 kg weight), so he’s got agility (and experience) in his favor, but eventually each fighter has to learn how turning weakness into chances at a little time bit.

Plus Daniel’s attitude allows much confidence that learning is irresistible. Actually The Scorpion is teaching at AWKA Academy in Piura City, if somebody wants to gain power, endurance, and mental speed, because I got convinced that fighting without a strategy is the same than losing weight or gaining mass without diet control, at least.

By the way, he was nicknamed so by one of his first coaches. “At the sparring, I used to kick pulling my feet along my back,” and it was his personal print.

When he tried to have a true scorpion as a pet, he got a scorpions babycare, and when he wished to increase the family, he brought another one what ate the first host, then it rran away. Since then, Daniel defeated to be a scorpions farmer, but that nickname got printed in one of many tatooes decorating his body, which he carried at tournaments in Peru and Chile as well.

Even like a coach, he is already satisfied sending new talents to national championships, gaining the top rankings. There are also projects for training public law enforcement specialized groups but there are many remaining details to adjust yet.

Post-producido por Sheyla Benavente.