never in a million years would I have thought to achieve black belt – or any belt, for that matter – in a martial art. I have never been the sporty one and taekwondo was never on my bucket list. It was never a dream of mine, and I certainly wouldn’t have even considered doing it, if it wasn’t for my kids Piros and Patrik and hubby Peter.
My taekwondo journey is about family. It’s about coming to training, learning and exercising together as a family. Also, it’s about showing to our kids that we can do everything we put our minds to, at any age, all we need is a ’can-do’ attitude and perseverance.
It all started in the middle of the COVID lockdowns back in September 2020. The kids were already well advanced in their journey to black belt and they were having online lessons to keep up their basic skills and to not forget their patterns during the pandemic. One evening Peter and I were joking about joining them for a little bit of an exercise we were all lacking those days. One thought followed the other and the next thing we knew, we were on online lessons several times a week too! I have to admit, at first it felt weird to kick around and jump around in the living room, but then the kids helped us with the first odd moves and slowly but surely, we started to get better at it.
When the world opened up again and we joined the group trainings, our late evening classes started to attract more adults and families, which made training even more fun. Week by week, bit by bit we learned blocks and kicks, strikes and pattens, self-defense and board breaking – and today we stand tall celebrating this milestone and looking forward to seeing what’s beyond black belt for us.
I’d like to thank Master Bryanna and Master Benecia for the inspiration and professional leadership, Master Joyce for helping us with those first patterns and organizing our crazy taekwondo life along the way and Master Brian for his relentless support and unlimited patience for us at every training. Last, but not least I’d like to thank Peter, Piros and Patrik for their continuous encouragement to keep me going and get this far.
