My Martial Arts Journey by Hasitha Tatineni

My Martial arts journey

Hasitha Tatineni

To date, I had an amazing martial arts journey. I had lots of fun in every class and at the same time, I worked hard. There were many things I observed and learned in this journey. To start with, I learned different ways to defend myself (blocks, break fall). I also have some attacking skills now.

Many of the TaeKwonDo tenets are helping me in my daily life. One of them is Perseverance. I try really hard not to give up on something that is tough. I get it done somehow. Self-control: I am in a better position to control my temperament. Humility: I learned the importance of being polite and showing respect to others, no matter who the other person is. I am more confident and gaining more power day by day. When I joined, everyone used to say I was a shy girl. But now, I am more talkative and express myself a lot. I opened up a lot. Now I know the real meaning of each of the tenets of TaeKwonDo.

I learned many different TaeKwondo skills from drills, stretches, forms to sparring. The stretches and drills help me stay fit, especially in winter when we stay indoors most of the time. Leadership hours are helping me in many ways to increase my confidence. One day, I will definitely do a leadership project.

There are a few challenges I faced and overcame in my journey. I had to overcome are the rolls, jump spin kicks, correct stances and power. I am in a much better shape now in all these techniques. I am still working a lot with my power. Board breaking is another challenge. It took me sometime to learn the board breaking techniques but once I learned these techniques, I had to work on my accuracy and power.

There are many people who helped me during my TaeKwonDo journey. To start with, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson help me every week in my classes. Other instructors who have helped me along the way are Mr. & Mrs. Lewitt, Ms. & Mrs. Jenkins, Mr.Synder, Mr. Loo, Mr. Merwin, Mr. & Ms. Page, and Ms. Stober. My mom & dad helped me and encouraged me whenever I was low in confidence. It is really an amazing journey.