Cabarete Profiles: Tomas “Papo” Soñe and the Academia de la Costa
A conversation with the founder and leader of the Academia de la Costa
by Moraima Capellán Pichardo
I almost did not meet Tomas “Papo” Soñe.
As I waited for him near the Academia de la Costa, I was unsure if I was in the correct location. A stranger approached me and attempted to grab my attention by pulling my arm. I thought he was trying to sell me something so I looked up, moved away and responded, “no thanks.” This man did not take it well. As I walked a few steps, he stood sideways, glaring at me and again when I noticed, he moved towards me. In a threatening voice he warned me to watch where I stand. He glared at me for a few more seconds before continuing down the block. I decided to leave and immediately, Tomas pulled up with his young daughter on his lap.
I think Tomas made a joke, which completely flew over my head, about running away. Once settled, I explained to him my odd experience outside his academy and he immediately knew the individual involved. What are the odds that mere moments before I am supposed to speak with a professional martial artist, I am harassed on the street? Tomas didn’t even need to pitch me his classes before I was sold.
It’s important to note that this is not the norm in Cabarete. The Dominican Republic is safe for visitors and solo women travelers. I have been on this street many times and have never had this type of interaction. I can confidently say that I feel just as safe on the streets of New York City as I do around the Dominican Republic.
Tomas doesn’t need to make a case for his life’s work: Academia de la Costa. His, well-known, actions speak for themselves. And to describe the academy as a martial arts school is an understatement. Academia de la Costa operates as a community center that fosters sports, arts and culture. With constant workshops outside of the Jiu Jitsu discipline— I attended a Thai Massage session— this is an organization offering a range of resources to a hungry community.
A capitaleño, Tomas, arrived to Cabarete roughly 12 years ago. He established the Academia de la Costa and has grown it to one, if not, the largest Jiu Jitsu academy in the island. There are six active branches outside of the headquarters in Cabarete and he estimates around 140 students of all ages. Fun fact: the Academy began on the grounds of the eXtreme Hotel before moving closer to town and the locals.
I was a bit skeptical when he informed me that most classes are open to all-levels but just a few minutes into a Saturday morning class, I witnessed how he managed to challenge both his young students and the experienced adult practitioners.
Tomas is often accompanied by his daughter, Aurora, a martial artist in training, who did not hesitate to interrupt our chat to demand water. Aurora was also the source of impromptu lessons of please and thank you (in Spanish and Russian). It was a wonderful dynamic to see.
Below I chat with Tomas about his passion for Cabarete and his work to encourage the combination of sports and arts to better his community.
Moraima: What brought you to Cabarete?
Tomas: The lifestyle is what attracted me to Cabarete, the change of pace from the capital. I was looking for somewhere that I liked better than Santo Domingo and I had already lived in a few places, in a few parts of the world. In Cabarete, the surfers made me stay. The surfers here opened the doors for me because when I first visited, I was doing what everyone else does, the beach, the nightlife. But when I moved, about 12 or 13 years ago, I wanted to bring Jiu Jitsu and all the surfers practiced Jiu Jitsu. On a global level, those two sports are often related to each other and they opened those doors for me.
M: Which did you practice first, Jiu Jitsu or Surf?
T: Jiu Jitsu, but I am not really a surfer, not when compared to Jiu Jitsu. Here’s the deal, wherever there is surf, after Jiu Jitsu grew on an international level, there is a culture of Jiu Jitsu. Since there already existed a surf culture here, the surfers were looking for Jiu Jitsu. But once I arrived, my direction changed, the reason why I came here.
M: Why?
T: I came to open a Jiu Jitsu academy. A business that would work leading Jiu Jitsu classes but when I arrived, and stabilized myself, I had clients but I had more locals. They were looking for activities to do. And from one moment to the other, a lot of people arrived. Full of children, some of which surfed, some of which did kite surf but who had no direction. These are sports that are done individually. During that time, yes there were schools and all that but today there are more formal competitions, more vision for those sports. So imagine, with so many kids from the community that were not able to pay a cent for a class, my mission changed.
M: How did you do it then? How did you manage the young locals?
T: Unite them. In reality that was never separated. On the contrary, it was brought on and nowadays everyone knows how the project works. For the practice of what we do here, everyone pays what they can pay, under $60 dollars up to zero pesos. If it is zero pesos then there is a service, sweeping—
M: —like work exchange?
T: Work exchange, exactly.
M: Tell me a bit about your background in Jiu Jitsu, did you start young?
T: I started at an age that I thought was late, I started at 19 years old. And I started because well at the age, like most guys I was restless about martial arts, how it is, to find better health, get in shape. But not at a gym, a gym with weights is not what I was looking for. So searching through martial arts, I found Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. A month into practicing, I had the key to the academy, and I started to learn to teach children and later to lead the warm up before the professor taught the techniques. Later they formed a Vale Todo team, which was a combat team in what is now known as MMA.
M: Here it’s called Vale Todo?
T: Vale Todo, as it was called in Brazil because it was not defined as a sport. MMA, Mixed Martial Arts is the commercial name and the name given once it was cleaned up, and once they established rounds and all that. Now when you fight in a league and you say MMA, you have an idea of the rules, before it wasn’t so clear. It was combat. So, I started to fight in these events. Sometimes they weren’t events, but fights inside a club. Closed doors inside the club. Not illegal in any way, because in reality since there were no regulations in the country so it wasn’t like underground fights. Nothing like that. But they were combats. And through the combats, what occurred is that well, it lead me to meet many people from many parts of the world and the country on a national level that arrived looking to learn from us, because of our knowledge of Jiu Jitsu. Well, today the motivation is not to fight, it has been a while that it is not to fight. It is more to teach, to teach the discipline and through Jiu Jitsu bring forth other things. Sometimes, depending on the age of the child who arrives, we are teaching how to take a proper bath, how to take care of personal hygiene, what foods are better, how you shouldn’t speak. Because imagine, the academy is open to the community, from the ages of three a child can come to us. Everyone comes at a different stage, with a lot to offer but sometimes adjustments must be made, and the academy helps with that. We offer a mentoring of sorts and as the students grow, they turn into an example for what is to come…or sometimes just take advice, because we don’t always want to be like others, but you can realize that it can be done and maybe you can be even better.
M: What was your participation in the Cabarete Carnaval?
T: My participation in the carnaval is from the very beginning of the carnaval, the academy as well. Mines, from the vision, of course this is with a group of people, from the vision of what we were looking to bring with this event to the town in which we live in, as well as the care of the comparsas, the welcoming of the comparsas. Comparsas are the groups that come. Also the care of conversations or talks in town regarding the carnaval, what we are looking for with the carnaval, all of that. And of course a more physical aspect of running around and moving things. I moved here because I like the town, I was attracted by the town, I was attracted by the people and as time passed by, as a member of the community if we want these activities to exist, well some of us human beings dedicate our time to making it happen. The carnaval is part of that. This is a touristic town that to my understanding does not expose many of its traditions and because of this many of us who live here don’t know the traditions of the country and the beauty of these traditions. So wow, what better way to attract tourism and bring people than by showing the beautiful things that we have. The carnaval here highlights those. A lot of carnavals are all about parties until the next morning, and okay that is a part of it, the fun times and the parties but in this case, the [Cabarete] carnaval of course has a part that celebrates nightlife but my objective and participation is the carnaval that is directed towards family, that starts at an earlier time and finishes at an early hour. That shows the beauty of this country. There are plenty of ugly things but it’s important to show the beauty—
M: —There are ugly things everywhere—
T: —There are ugly things everywhere and if we only see the ugly, we attract the ugly.
M: Would you say the majority of your students are from the community?
T: Yes, the majority are from the community…many from La Cienega, from right here the Callejon de la Loma, the play, from all these sectors and neighborhoods around Cabarete. Then there is a large quantity of naturalized foreigners. The first black belt of the Academia de la Costa is from Canada. He was the one who started to give Jiu Jitsu classes and when I arrived he handed it to me. He did not have it as Academia de la Costa, it was more of a space to practice. So there are a lot of naturalized foreigners, sons of foreigners born here. A lot of tourists who know of the community come, and they arrive to the town and use the academy as a way to introduce themselves to the people. Since there are so many locals, it’s easy to come here and find who gives kite lessons, who is a good surf professor, or who gives Spanish lessons or who gives yoga classes. All of those teachers practice here or know of someone and give those references. So the space of the academy has become a center of information. The Academy is also involved in the muralization of the town. If you realize, in town there are many murals and the academy started that. We organized a festival, that started to bring artists to view this place as a muse and to ask if there are any walls nearby for a piece. Of course with the collaboration and the work of artists. Our artist here is Santana “Freco” Espino. The melting ice cream pops around Cabarete, that’s Freco. There are many around. And of course, projects have been added to this muralization, for example the public school is painted. That was an activity done in collaboration with the United States embassy. The Mariposa foundation also creates murals, in their own space, but they have participated, collaborated with the event that began all of the murals —
M: When was the festival?
T: At the end of 2015
M: Are there plans for another one?
T: With the murals festival activity we are not focused on doing another festival because the murals festival was the beginning of bringing murals. Each week, month, we are approached by artists and that’s how we continue them. We realized that the objective of the festival was to begin bringing murals, now there is no need. Yes, there are spaces that are left without murals but we organize such logistic. We go to the location, request permission, permission from the owner and after that the artists can create a mural. It’s a process that takes time and we have a few documentaries that discuss the muralization of Cabarete, that show our murals.
M: Where did this idea of bringing murals to Cabarete come from?
T: Well, for the same reason as the carnaval, and the same reason to introduce a new sport to the people. Because these are activities that bring vision, that bring inspiration, move the economy. Arts and sports are two of the biggest things that human beings have created. In the town, art and sports, it’s strange to have to say that it lacks sports when it is the capital of water sports, but this is recent. In fact, no water sports are taught at the public schools. Yes there are sports schools but the state is not in charge, these are individuals that thanks to our mother nature, are dedicated to these and have businesses that grow with that base but we don’t even teach swimming in the public schools. From my part, as a human being, I consider the arts and sports to be the best, two of the greatnesses of the world. I have the tools to be involved, or participate, collaborate on the logistics, the permits or whatever it is to be involved in that. It is good for the people to have another schedule, to have other tools to bring more people. It is also positive, beautiful and brings joy.
M: I imagine that it brings everyone together because if the locals are not surfing or kite surfing, it’s only for one type of person—
T: —exactly—
M: —So there’s a separation there—
T: —Exactly, art, carnaval and the muralization brings everyone together. Cute, ugly, black, white, yellow, everybody. It’s also about being more sensitive. There are many social tensions and so with the carnaval we can see that for example in our country, the participation of men and women does not have to necessarily have to be about men and women. Many men dress up as women and women dress up as men…and so it’s that social integration that the world needs more of…every time that a mural is being painted, every time that there is an artist doing a mural, children approach, oh lend me something, I want to paint and it starts that way. People approach and sit down to enjoy a bit of that and later it becomes a cleaner area because of the biggest impacts of these murals, apart from the beauty, is that where trash was thrown, where a mural is put up, less or no trash is thrown. Sometimes the owner of the place where the mural was made, or the mayor will install a light or will be more interested because now it has become an attractive area. It’s a phenomenal empowerment.
M: What challenges have you had with the Academy?
T: We are in the Dominican Republic. The economical challenges are always there and I also think that the challenges we have had here from a community level are normal when one is bringing or showing something new. Nothing out of the ordinary. Whether it is a resistance from people who don’t understand that what we are doing is correct, until they realize—
M: How come? Do you have an example?
T: Well, since the academy promotes the arts, the carnaval and that type of activity so much, our country tends to be very religious. These topics are delicate. Of course, when you have a tradition in place, something that is here before us and we come with something like this, that well women will be thrown on the floor and will put men in between their legs or vice versa. Jiu Jitsu is like this, you should take a class. That type of feminine empowerment, for example, a woman on top of a man holding on, that hits a nerve. It has hit several times and it tends to me misinterpreted until time passes and we fill that hole of ignorance with the facts. Now we have a good image but these are normal challenges. I imagine that with every new discovery or big movement, revolution has had this at the beginning. A resistance group—
M: Yes, anything new or that innovates—
T: That innovates in our present. Because maybe somebody did it a hundred years ago but it got lost in the times and then someone else comes and says I am innovating. That is the matter with our country, there’s a lack of education…we don’t study our history. When I moved here I found a lot of people who lead Karate classes, or did, many years before. There were many martial artists, that I met at 50 or 60 years old. But there was always talk of not one, nor two but many. But with time there was no record, nothing—
M: —They didn’t have a space—
T: Exactly, it also wasn’t known that in the world of Cabarete these things were done, in the country it wasn’t that popular. This is what the academy has achieved. Social media, helps a lot, with photos and information.
M: What’s next?
T: Continuing with the Academy, continuing to teach Jiu Jitsu until the body can handle it. We will continue to see how we can be involved with all these cultural activities that we are doing, see how it goes with time. We will include other activities, other types of art, other sports. The Academy is in the process of introducing skate. There is a space, that has been created, and we have the various equipment needed for that —
M: —Skateboarding?
T: —Skateboarding, yes, this is a sport that has become an olympic sport and in the Dominican Republic there are many spaces where skate is popping up. The skate community is growing and skateboard is a practical sport, boys like it a lot. It’s an activity that attracts boys from the neighborhoods, attracts boys that don’t fit in with basketball or baseball.
M: Yes, something different. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me.
La Academia de la Costa offers daily classes in Jiu Jitsu, Boxing/Kickboxing open to all levels, as well private lessons and kid friendly programs. Check out their pages for the updated schedule.
This interview was translated from its original format in Spanish and condensed for clarity.
