Kicking it: Black belt style
(Goa Times Monday August 25 2008)

Rahim Bernard might look like any other tourist …but try conning him and you will properly end up at the receiving end of a flying kick. Tae kwon-do and Kickboxing expert,. Rahim is a Jamaican who after a lot of travelling has made Goa his home today, he trains goans at a gym in Miramar. His British accent gives away his long stay there. Jamaica is home I spent a lot of my adult life in England but today Goa ia an integral part of my life he states. I still support Jamaica in the Olympics he adds smiling. So what brought him to India? My son was sick with eczema. We couldn’t find a cure in England. Thn some one told us to try out Ayurveda. That’s when we came to Goa to the Ayurvedic Centre in Saligoa, Rahim relates. The treatment worked. Thereafter, we decided to set up home here, he says.

He compares Goa with Jamaica saying, Goa for me is home away from home;; Rahim is presently busy working on the 4th National Tae Kwon-Do Championships to be held in Goa this year. He says, six hundred contestants from 27 state will be participating. We are still working on the project trying to get some sponsors. I think with enough support, it might turn out to be a good event. Rahim studied Tae Kwon -Do under his master Raymond Choy. He competed in a number of Martial Arts competitions and won the Biritish Tae Kwon-Do Championship several times I was w champion for three years consecutively, After that I won a number of other competitions, he says as a matter of fact. Rahim went on to be come a part of the British demo and fighting Team.

We put up demonstration in Kenya in 1996 for Sonia Gandi. I was her bodyguard. She had come there to attend the round table conference. Also present King was king Constantine of Greece. He recollects Apart from Tae kwon-Do he as also dabbled in boxing having competed in the sports for five years. Football was another passion of mine. I had qualified for the British Football Federation coaching and training anywhere in the UK.

Rahim also owns a security company in the UK. It was during his tenure here that he met his Indian wife, Bina . She too is a black belt the couple is in the process of teaching their three young sons Amar Kani and Naim the same Art Though this black belt holder loves Goa, he finds some aspect disturbing. Like getting any officials work done here can take forever. Living as a foreigner in Goa, he admits he has found some of the most helpful people working at the desks of the foreigners registration office. They have always been very helpful and are a lot easier to work with than the Goan Police, who keep harassing us he says I miss the honesty that once prevailed in Goa he adds.

When it comes to work. Rahim has found his calling teaching Tae Kwon-Do and Kickboxing three days a week at the gym is fulfilling for him, He has also started free classes as well. He explains,. In Europe, people help others in need for instance, they have people in lucrative professions who help and teach others I want to do the samehere. Its wonderful to watch someone with no faith in himself, train well and end up at the the top of the class.Talking about sports. Rahim believes that government should encourage sports in school from a very young age. That’s where sports in India is lacking they don’t start at the grass roots the Tae Kwon –Do championships planned to be held in Goa might give a boost to young martial arts enthusiasts. Who knows years down the line Goa might have the Olympic medal winner for India in Taekwon-Do .