At the age of 7, I always wanted to exercise everyday, but it wasn’t real training. I was eager to be fit and become the strongest in my family, but I didn't succeed. At that point, I was already giving up but I didn’t.
In 2021 at the age of 10, my friend Josh told me about his taekwondo classes. As soon as I heard taekwondo, I was really desperate to join. Thanks to Josh for telling me about taekwondo, my mum let me join! In May 2021, when I first joined, I was very nervous but excited at the same time. We did kicks, stretches and punches. I was having so much fun, but there was one thing that I was after. Training!
In 2022 I joined a fitness training program called fast training. When I first joined, I was ready for what was going to happen. Lots of kicks, push-ups and many more exercises. While doing fast each and every time, I felt that I was getting stronger which made me be able to beat my mum! (not my dad yet).
Later in the year of 2022, the masters invited me to warriors. At first I had no idea what I'M about to get into, but it seemed fun. Warriors were really intense from what I saw for the first time. We had to do drills, many kicks down the room and many more, but the funniest of all was sparing. Soon later on, I joined poomsae. Doing poomsae was more difficult than I thought. Hand techniques were hard to master or just getting the movement right. These challenging things never stopped me and I kept on persisting forward.
In 2022, 11th of September, I did my first ever sparring competition. When I was there I felt really anxious about who or what I was up against. As soon as I got there, I didn’t want to compete, but I still went anyway. When I went on to fight, I was nervous and scared of my opponent, but I fought hard. In the end I lost, but that doesn’t mean that I had to give up. On the 23rd of October, I competed in my first ever poomsae competition. I was competing against 5 or more people. Hearing that I had to compete against 5 or more people made me frightened. I was hopeless. I was desperate to get gold (or at least get a medal). At the end of the poomsae comp, I got a bronze medal, which made me happy, but I wanted gold. If I want gold, then that means that I have to practice and train harder.
Throughout my journey, I made lots of friends, but I noticed that it wasn’t about throwing kicks. It was about how you throw your kicks. I wouldn’t be here without Master Joyce, Master Brian, Master Bryanna and Master Benecia. Thank you Masters for helping me achieve this goal!
