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In English
Luiz Quintas, Brazil
I met Brazilian Luiz Quintas in the World Championships in Warsaw 2003. We both competed in 1st degree patterns and as I watched my rivals this Brazilian was in my opinion one of the strongest options to be in the final. Unfortunately Luiz lost to Peter Kasza of Hungary after having some problems with balance in Choong Moo. Interesting thing was that I wanted to get to talk to this skillful guy from the other side of the globe and we looked at each other from a distant looking like we'd have something to talk about. However, we didn't get the chance to talk untill in the party after the competition. I was amazed as Luiz knew me by face and name and told me he had watched me during warm-up before the competition. He had checked the results of the European Championships from the web and spotted my face and name there. This is how our friendship started, a unique friendship in the sense that so far we've only met every second year in the WC's. Luckily nowadays keeping contact is rather easy and so we can change thoughts regularely.
Name: Luiz Quintas
Birth date and place: 15.08.1981 –
Nationality: Brazilian
Studying/profession: Tkd Teacher, Import Administration
Grade: 2nd degree
Started Taekwon-Do: September / 1997
Years in national team: Since 2003
Best achievements: Vice World Champion 2007 (Sparring), 2 Times Pan American Champion 2004 (Patterns and Sparring) and 7 times National Champion
Club:
Instructor: Claudio Pinsdorf
Other hobbies: Running, football (for fun)
You took silver medal in the last World Championships. How does it feel
now that 5 months have passed since that moment?
It's good to be part of the ITF History, it's an important medal, you see that all your trainings have worked out after a long time... But after a while you see that nothing has changed, in fact 
The training's still the same, the relationship with all my tkd classmates and friends is still the same... I think that's important... to keep things the way they have always been.
Could you tell a little about your fights? Did you know your
opponents before and did you have certain strategies against them?
No... I only knew them by name... (Euro competitions, last WC's, Vikings cups...) I always do this "list" of the past competitions podiums just to know if they're strong fighters or pattern competitors. (I did this to you in Warsaw 
I knew you, and you didn´t know me, so it was nice to see your training before the competition began. Unfortunatelly we couldn´t face each other in the final.) Of course there are always new good competitors, but I think it's important to know who's won the current competitions in Europe. I didn't know their way of fighting, so my coach (Pinsdorf) and I paid some attention to the previous fights, to see what we could use against each opponent.
I know you have many martial arts in
How did you happen to choose Taekwon-Do instead of football, volleyball or some other big sport where
I chose TaeKwon-Do because of an indication of a doctor. I had a little problem with my back, so he told me to choose between swimming and practicing a Martial Art, so I chose Tkd.
Football is for sure the most popular sport in Brazil, but it’s not that easy to earn money with it, there are too many good athletes, and I’m not good enough :)
What do you enjoy the most in Taekwon-Do?Using the whole body to fight is the best part of Tkd in my opinion. It’s a Martial art for everyone and it’s something I’ll be able to do for the rest of my life (as it preserves the competitors). The fighting system is the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.
The Patterns’ movements and flexibility are also very beautiful. It’s really nice to see someone putting their foot over their heads as if they were doing it with their hands.
What is your weekly training routine like? Do you often train alone?
I never train alone… In
And when we have some important Championship we train at the weekends also, and the classes take something like 2 - 2,5 hours.
I started to run. In
Do you have any idols?
For sure General Choi was a clever man. Imagine how difficult it is to create a Martial Art. TaeKwon-Do seems to be perfect from the beginning. And the way he spread this Art to the World in such a short time makes him unique.
David Kerr and Milosz Moskaluk helped me a lot in sparring (I think that’s new to Moskaluk). I used to see their fights a lot. And in Patterns I think everybody should learn and study the movements of Jaroslaw Suska. Since I went to my first WC in Warsaw – Poland I’ve been recording all of his patterns on tape. And I’m still looking for his Juche! ;)
What are your goals in competing this season? What about in further future?
We started the selective tournaments for the WC 2009, so my goals are to get into the national team, but this time in Sparring and Patterns. Let’s see what happens…
How long are going to go on competing, or have you even thought
about that yet?
Yes... I think about it...
I think that in the last WC (Canada) David Kerr taught the world a lesson. After his 6th Championship he got his 4th World Title in two different weight divisions and one vice-championship in Poland. So after more than 12 years competing and still winning shows that Tkd ITF is a Martial Art for everyone. I think only TKD ITF has this feature. As the fighting system is by points and not by KOs, the technique becomes more important than your strength. With a good balance of physical and mental health your age doesn't matter. But of course, no one will win forever.
As a Tkd teacher you won’t have LOTS of money, but you can make a living. My teacher (Claudio Pinsdorf – Classe A President) lives by teaching Tkd. But I do it as something extra… I do have my job, Tkd is more because of the pleasure.
You live in the huge city of
I started this project with Sidney Guerra (2 Gup). I met him at Classe A when he started Tkd some years ago.He can do almost anything with his computer, and he came to me and told his idea… and I found it interesting. So we started with a simple 2-dimensional game that was me against myself. We took pictures of every single frame of all techniques and made some combos. But as all good Brazilian citizens, we have money problems, so the development of the game is stopped. The idea was to invite some fighters from other countries, and we didn’t give up yet… it’s only frozen for a while. You can check the game in the website: http://www.sguerra.com.br/gametkd/
Ideas and comments would be appreciated!
Classe A almost died some years ago. A lot of teachers left the association because of a disagreement with our SabumNim, but Claudio Pinsdorf stayed all the time at his side. So there was a time where Classe A was only Pinsdorf. He had serious problems to keep the association working (as he was alone) while it grew up again very slowly. By now some of his pupils are giving classes, and Classe A is becoming big again.
Most of his pupils saw and felt this situation and the strength he made to keep the association working, so I think that it made us very close to each other. It’s a very united group and we train together a lot, so everybody helps everybody. I think that’s the reason of half of the National team being from Classe A.
You’ve also produced an intensive video presenting some very classy shots. Will we see more of that stuff in future?Brazilian Tkd Team… That was another Sidney’s idea… he wanted some action video of Tkd, something different of all we had seen so far. He wanted Slipknot’s music, but as I was producing the video I chose Pennywise, because I imagined the timing of the song with some punches and kicks… and when Sidney saw the result, he got very thrilled even with my song. I’d like to do more of that, I made a little one for the national team (we played in Canada) but as it has some words in Brazilian Portuguese I didn’t put in YouTube. (It was more for the team and the event). But as soon as I get something new I’ll put it there.
Thanks a lot for your time Luiz! I wish you all the best on your training and personal life. and hope to see you there!
Everyone who was in Canada must remember the song the Brazilian team was singing at the competition place. There were some excellent drummers in the group and they used everything to make as much noise as possible: snare drum, bottom of a big trash barrel as a basedrum, floor, their hands and voices... Here's the lyrics they sang in Brazilian and English. Thanks to Luiz for them!
Brazilian
Aqui tem um bando de loucos
Loucos por ti Tae Kwon-Do
Aqueles que acham que é pouco
Eu vivo por ti Tae Kwon-Do
Eu canto até ficar rouco
Eu canto pra te empurrar
Vamos, vamos meu Brasil,
Vamos meu Brasil,
Não para de lutar!
English
There's a bunch of crazy people here
Crazy for you TaeKwon-Do
Those who think this is not enough
I live for you Tae Kwon-Do
I sing till I get no voice
I sing to support you, to cheer you, to push you
Let´s go, let´s go my Brazil,
Let´s go my Brazil,
Don´t stop fighting!
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