Taekwondo Passion

Hello taekwondo lovers, I’m glad of bringing you a new episode of taekwondo passion.In today’s interview we talked with Master James Howe from Living Proof Taekwondo @livingprooftkdJames has been a USA National Team member for many years and recently he founded Living Proof Taekwondo, the academy where he shares all his knowledge, experiences and helps others through taekwondo.James was an international level athlete, with a very longeve career always fighting with the best athletes in the world.But he comes from a traditional taekwondo background, and that’s why he teaches traditional taekwondo in his academy.Of course if his students want to train the sport, they’ll have the option to do it at the highest standards.Why is it so important to be in a place that helps you to grow?As a young athlete, James knew that in order to be as good as he wanted he needed to move to train with a competitive team.His idea was to try with different teams and choose the one which suited better for him.The first place he went was Miami, with Juan Moreno’s team Peak Performance, one of the top teams in the USA.He didn’t need to look for any other place. James knew it was the right place for him.The environment that coach Moreno promoted there was exactly what James was looking for.World Championships and OlympicsJames trained at Peak Performance for more than 10 years in a journey that took him to three World Championships, being very close to medals and fighting with athletes like Joel Gonzalez and Gabriel Mercedes.In the USA trials for London 2012 James fought against Mark Lopez, an experience which he considers helped him to realize that he could beat the top fighters in the world. But the -68kg was not a weight class for him. The winner of the trials was his teammate and friend Terrence Jennings, with whom he shared many battles from the past.James was able to help the USA Team on the way to the Olympics, especially his teammates from Miami, Terrence Jennings and Paige Mc Pherson and be part of their medals.Why is family support VERY important?Taekwondo still is not a professional sport, so many athletes and their families have to fund their careers.That’s been the case of many sparring athletes, like Nikita Glasnovic, Terrence Jennings and Paige Mc Pherson.And is even more common even for poomsae athletes, as is a newer sport.James family is no exception and his parents supported most of his career along with the support of USA Taekwondo.This can make us see the importance of helping youth to pursue their dreams, that will never be wasted money. If an athlete doesn't have support from his family, it will have a harder way through success.Another interesting thing is that James Howe always worked during his athletic career. He worked teaching younger athletes and also in the same warehouse as Terrence Jennings.Training with Juan Moreno at Peak PerformancePeak Performance is one of the top teams in the USA and in the world. So, how is it to train there?James mentions that it is fun but hard. The day can start at 5:30am for the strength and conditioning training that sometimes ends with some paddle drilling and situation training.And they do a second training at night with the rest of the team. Coach Moreno is a tough trainer who doesn't accept any excuses and always expects so much from his athletes.But James points that he always motivates his athletes so they know that they can be among the best athletes in the world, of course, supporting that motivation with a lot of hard work.Living Proof TaekwondoAs we mentioned in the intro James has recently opened his new facility, Living Proof taekwondo. After a long career James felt that it was the moment to open his own taekwondo academy. He teached taekwondo in the past but he wanted to do it in a place designed specifically to it with all the facilities to do taekwondo at the best level.He opened it just before the pandemic, so it was a very demanding challenge to face, but with the passion he has for taekwondo and all the experience he had accumulated, Living Proof will succeed and help the Bay Area community.You can hear the full interview following the links below. Please enjoy it and let us know your thoughts.

New Episode UP!Hello Taekwondo lovers, welcome to a new interview in taekwondo passion.Our guest today is master Ehsan Davari from Iran.If you follow us from before, you probably know him as he helped us as an interpreter to interview Fatemeh Hesam.But I wanted to interview him as he has been a poomsae, sparring and gymnastics coach and competitor.At first he practiced gymnastics for many years. When he decided to move into taekwondo, he was already a gymnastics coach.But he made that move because in taekwondo he would have better opportunities to develop as an athlete.Master Eshan now is mostly focused on refereeing and as you’ll notice from the interview, he is very dedicated to improving his practice and knowledge of the rules.He mentions that one of the most common mistakes athletes make at any level is to not know the rules, the best athletes have a deep understanding of the game rules.One of the most important things you can learn listening to this interview is about dedication and willingness to learn. Master Eshan is clear that one of the most important things for success is not to quit. So, don’t miss the opportunity to learn from him and to listen to how taekwondo is in one of the countries with a greater tradition in our martial art..You can find the interview on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.Iran’s taekwondo traditionAs you may know, Iran is a country with a very rich taekwondo tradition.Taekwondo is very popular in Iran, and also very competitive. The country organizes taekwondo professional leagues for sparring and poomsae.The league lasts for some months and you accumulate points as you participate and win matches every weekend.At the end of the league the athlete with most wins is the one who will win the league. IWhat do you think of this kind of competitions?I personally think that is a “fairer” way to find the best athletes in the country, but on the other side it can be very demanding for athletes to fight or compete every weekend.Also this kind of league can only work in countries where a lot of people practice taekwondo. A thing that with time is always more common.Here in my country Mexico, we have a lot of people practicing and going crazy about taekwondo events, and I’ve always imagined the same from Iran.Is it the same way in your country? You can tell us how it is in the comments.From gymnastics to taekwondoImagine that you are a really talented gymnastics athlete. You are among the best in your region and you are even starting to coach other athletes.Why should you move as a teenager to try in another sport? A sport that you have never practiced before.This was what happened to Master Eshan, he was a very talented athlete but his city is very small and they didn’t have the facilities which allow him to continue growing.They didn’t have even the most basic equipement.That lack of equipment didn’t allow him to compete in all the necessary events to be scouted as a talent.So he decided not to stop and to move to another sport.And that’s the way he came into taekwondo.It is also interesting that some of his first taekwondo training partners were his gymnastics students.But he didn’t care about that and as he was a person with a lot of athleticism coming from gymnastics he developed really fast in taekwondo.Another interesting thing Master Ehsan shares is that he was always the first who wanted to help his taekwondo Master.He was always early to class so if something was needed, for example cleaning the mats, he would always volunteer to that.The taekwondo journeyTo train in a small town can make things difficult but not impossible. Master Eshan was first more oriented to the sparring side of the sport.But you know you can train sparring alone, but it is better always to have a team and training partners.So, for Master Ehsan, a way to be more competitive was poomsae. In which you are more able to train alone.And in a similar way he is now more focused in refereeing than in coaching. He shares that coaching is a very rewarding experience, but for many aspects of coaching you don’t depend only on you to excel.So he prefered to focus on the refereeing part now. So, if he has to travel to an event he only has to focus on giving his best.But on the other side he has a responsability. He shares with us that he has talked with some coaches about the challenges of being a referee or a coach.If you make a mistake as a coach maybe you can redeem learning from it and giving the best for your athlete in the future.But if you make a mistake as a referee the mistake will always be there.What do you prefer?How to prepare for a competition as a referee?Every athlete has to prepare the best for a competition.The same is valid for referees.You have to be at your best for every match, apart from his normal preparation attending seminars and practicing. The night before a tournament, Master Ehsan reads and studies all the ruleset and practices for two to three hours.No matter that he already knows the rules, he make that extra effort to perform his bests as a referee.More on the interviewLearn more from training and refereeing in the interview.Master Eshan gave us some advice to improve at poomsae and refereeing. So, definitely is worth listening to him.Links to the interview below.

Hello Taekwondo lovers.New episode of taekwondo passion UP.Our guest today is 9x USA National Team member and world medalist Tim Thackrey. Now is an expert in sports performance and strength & conditioning.Creator of The Juice Compound @juicecompound he has coached Olympians, National Team Members, Games Athletes and people who want to improve their lives through exercise. Tim talked with us about his beginnings in taekwondo, being part of a family completely involved in taekwondo. @martialartfresnoTim was a child who used to win every competition he attended, until he was 15, when he lost every fight for two years.With the support of his family, he decided to stop going to high school to focus on improve his taekwondo skills and to dedicate full time to training.The strategy worked for him as soon he started to win and gain confidence and skills, first at national level and after it internationally.Years later he was able to finish his college degree in UCLA.Some of the things you can learn listening the interview are:Why is Tim's father, having an academic background and being professor in a prestigious university allowed him to drop out of school?How Tim prepared to get a medal at the World Championships?How should we program training when our athletes have to face multiple competitions in a year?Why do we have to learn about sprinting and weightlifting?How can we promote mental strengthening and toughness in our students?You can find the full interview on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.Please enjoy and let us know your thoughts.Should everyone drop out of high school and pursue their dreams?One of the first things that I found interesting about Tim is that he dropped out of school to focus on taekwondo.The normal way we hear we should make things is to focus on our academic career and then after finishing it we should start to gain experience in our field.Tim made things in a different way.He was at a point where he was losing all of his fights. And he thought the solution was to train more and better.His father proposed the idea of stopping attending school. It could seem counterintuitive, being his father a successful academic we would think that he wanted his son to follow the same way.But his father’s academic experience was in psychology. He was an expert in human behaviour and development and he knew that the best thing for Tim at that moment was to try and put all of his effort in his taekwondo career.Later he could study at the university as he did.I was very interested in knowing if Tim would recommend the same to others, and the answer kind of surprised me.I was expecting a straight yes but it was not that way.When Tim studied high school there were less options to study and train.Nowadays, and especially after the pandemia, it is easier than before to study an academic career while training, we have a lot of distance learning programs.So, I’m pretty sure you can always find good options that allow you to train and compete.How to program training for taekwondo?One of the most important things we should do as coaches is to organize our training. With the number of people training and competing in taekwondo nowadays details make a big difference.According to Tim, before programming it is very important to consider the sports age of the athlete, which is apart from the biological age.We can have an athlete that is 21 year old but has only been training seriously for two years. Or we can have an athlete that is 16 but has been training for 5 years.The younger the sports age we should focus more on training than competitions. With an excess of competitions in the calendar we can be tempted to aim for performance peaks all the year round.The danger of this is that in order to perform better at competitions, we’ll take out important time from training. Which should be the main goal with young athletes.Tim recommends just one or two fundamental competitions during the year for these athletes.How to choose the fundamental competition?In some cases we can be worried that if our athlete doesn't win a certain competition he won’t be able to go for the more important one.For example, in some countries, to access a national competition you should win first your spot in the state or province championships.Another example is that to win a world medal, you should first win at a national level.So, which competition is more important? Shall we program for nationals or program for worlds?Tim mentons that if you are thinking in a world medal, you should program for that as you might be able to manage with all your experience the nationals stageBut if you still have troubles at the national level, you should program for the national trials.It depends on any case and the experience of the athlete.How high can a virtually trained athlete should point?Tim has trained athletes virtually even before the pandemic.He coached and qualified athletes from different sports to Rio 2016 and he continues doing it.In ideal circumstances we should have a great team, with a lot of training partners that help us to achieve our best in each training.But this is not true for many athletes. Life is different for everyone.So, if you just have the opportunity to train alone. How high can your goals be?Tim is clear that as high as you want.Of course for certain stages you’ll need camps and competitions. But with the right advice and program, distance or the lack of a nearby team is not a valid reason to limit yourself.As you will notice in the interview, Tim completely dominates the trainign and performance field, in theory and in practice.So, if you want to improve your performance in sports or your life through sports. You should contact.If you have a taekwondo team or a sports team, he is also launching a new service to help teams to achieve their goals, so, don’t hesitate to contact him at [email protected] hope you’ll like the interview, I’m grateful for having the opportunity to interview Tim. For me it was a world class consultancy and I hope it helps you too.You can find it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.Please share your thoughts with us in the comments section.

Marlene Harnois - Even at the highest level you have to have funNEW episode UP!Hello taekwondo lovers, I’m very happy to be with you again and to bring you a new interview with a world and Olympic medalist from France.Marlene Harnois started taekwondo at a very young age.One of the keys that made her love taekwondo was that her first instructors made taekwondo fun.She was a competitive and active girl, although she practiced many sports when she had to specialize in one she knew taekwondo was for her.First she made it to the Canada National Team and started winning competitions like the US Open as a junior.Marlene had the opportunity of training in France and in order to pursue her dreams she started to compete for France, focusing on international success.One of the keys to make that change was that she was looking for a more competitive training environment.Marlene remarks that having teammates that demand your best is one of the most important things an athlete needs to develop. With France Marlene has been two times European Championships gold, World University gold and World Taekwondo Championships bronze medalist in Gyeongju 2011.Marlene finished a great Olympic cycle in 2012 with a Bronze medal in London 2012.Marlene has been decorated with the Knight of the Order Merit and has been very involved in the development of sports in West Africa.Marlene contributed with the two historical medals Ivory Coast achieved in Rio 2016.Marlene is a Champion for Peace, she represents the Peace and Sport organisation which works for bringing the values of sport to the heart of communities and individuals in crisis throughout the world. Marlene talked with us about Her journey in taekwondoMoving to live far from your parents to another country at a very young ageHer preparation for London 2012 Olympic GamesDifferences in taekwondo in Canada, France and Africa.You can watch the interview on YouTube and hear it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.Taekwondo has to be funMarlene started practicing taekwondo at 4. One of the virtues of her first taekwondo school was to make taekwondo fun for children.Marlene shares that it was one of the reasons that made her stick to taekwondo.As a very active girl, it would be hard for her to be in a place where she only would be able to practice the same movements over and over.Marlene was a multisport girl. She practiced and competed also in fencing and handball but as she grew older the moment came when she had to decide for one sport.And she decided to go for taekwondo. It seems it was the right decision as she had a very successful taekwondo career which later helped her to work in other sides of sports and to help people all over the world.Outside parents home at 16The journey of course was not easy.Is not so common to leave your home country without your parents at 16.Marlene made the decision of leaving Canada to train and live in France because she wanted to train better and in a more competitive environment.In France she started to train with olympic and world medalists. And soon she noticed changes in her performance.She had an amazing cycle towards London 2012, medaling in the most important events. World Championships, European Championships, Universiade.Before the London Olympics Marlene had not the preparation anyone could imagine, she was sent to train in a military camp in the jungle in the French Guiana.The training was not precisely focused on taekwondo, she even broke a foot there but in a certain way she thinks it helped her to strengthen her mind.The last weeks she was in France alone while her team was in Great Britain in the last stage training for the event.Anyway, I think we can all learn from this. Because as we’ve seen in past interviews ideal conditions don't exist.Marlene still managed to do her best in London, maybe the last part of her process was not ideal but she had all her past hard work with her.And she achieved the bronze medal in London. Which is an amazing result because due to the magnitude of the Olympics anything can happen there.Helping to develop the sportWhen Marlene decided to retire from competition, she was close to high level African athletes like Anthony Obame and Balla DieyeThe first time she went to Africa was with Balla Dieye and with him they started to promote taekwondo, going to schools and also making seminars with the national team.Around that time some of Marlene’s friends from Ivory Coast called her as she was very close to the country.She went to Abidjan to the club where Ruth Gbagbi and Cheick Sallah Cissé trained. Marlene was stunned by the amount of talent of the athletes there, she had trained all over the world and had never seen so many talented people training together.She was also amazed by the focus and the spirit of their training.Together with the talent also was a very modest environment. They didn’t have mats or targets, no protections.She connected with them immediately as they shared the same passion. So she got involved with the project.With Cheick and Ruth they were involved in promoting taekwondo, education and social action. They created a foundation through which they were able to bring the electronic protector system for Ivory Coast and as Cheick Cisse was sponsored by Daedo they also provided equipment to build a facility for the development of younger athletes.Peace and SportsMarlene continues her labour helping people through sports now working as an ambassador for Peace and Sports.Peace and Sports is an organization that works in areas across the world with the objective of bringing the structuring values of sport to the heart of communities and individuals in crisis throughout the world.Marlene is part of The Champions for Peace, who are high level international athletes who want to support the most disadvantaged communities through sport.The Champions for Peace are athletes like Lionel Messi, Didier Drogba, Pascal Gentil and Novak Djokovic.Peace and Sports recently developed an app that would help sport trainers to bring structured training methodology to the communities they work.Marlene is a passionate professional. I hope you will enjoy the interview with her.Please let us know what you have learn from her journey on the comment section.

NEW episode UP!Welcome to a new episode of taekwondo passion.This time we had the opportunity to talk with Master Dan Chuang, who is the USA National Team poomsae coach.He is also involved in college taekwondo in many different ways.He teaches at the Taekwondo Club of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) which he founded in 2000.Master Chuang is one of the “T.Bos” coaches, a competitive sparring and poomsae group that he co founded with his friend Chinedum Osuji.Master Chuang is also very involved in promoting and organizing competitions in the USA. For example he serves as director of the Eastern Collegiate Taekwondo Conference, a league of over 500 students from Taekwondo clubs at over 25 colleges and universities which compete in a circuit of 5 tournaments per year.Master Chuang talked with us about his beginnings in taekwondo, how he learned the importance of building a community at college taekwondo and how we can make it with our students.Master Chuang remarks that it is very important to get involved with students not only teaching the technical part but also to get involved in their personal development. Otherwise the relationships don’t last and students just take some knowledge from you and then go away, and you don’t have a meaningful impact in their lives.Master Chuang sport and competition experience was on the side of sparring. When sport poomsae came up he had to adapt and learn how the sport was evolving to give his best to his athletes.He shared with us part of this journey of travelling to Korea to learn from the pioneers in sport poomsae.I hope you enjoy the interview. As Master Chuang is a person that enjoys teaching taekwondo and communicating, I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy listening to him.On building a communityMaster Chuang works a lot in an academic environment, where college students might have other interests than taekwondo.But the MIT’s Taekwondo Club has been very successful involving students in taekwondo.How Master’s Chuang achieve this?One of the keys he considers that has helped him is building a community. In the taekwondo Club students have to find leadership and friendship.Master Chuang tries to build a group mentality and to promote team goals.For example, if they have a College competition the goal can be to be first place as a team. And then celebrating that as a group not focusing on individual achievements.Master Chuang also mentions that it is important to provide goals for shorter periods of time. For example one month. And when the group achieves that goal, move to the next one.Importance of learning of others and how to do itWhat happens if you want to compete at sport poomsae but your style is different.Does that mean that you won’t succeed in the sport poomsae style?Master Chuang started taekwondo very young in a more traditional style. Not focused on competition.So he learned poomsae in the Moo Duk Kwan, Tang So Do style.Then in his college years and when he started coaching he specialized in sparring. He was coach of the USA College National Team and he also coached at the Madrid 2005 World Championships.When sport poomsae started to develop, Master Chuang felt the need to start learning again.So he attended all the Poomsae seminars he could and he also traveled to Korea to train with Master Sang Jae Lee, one of the first masters who started to promote poomsae in social media.He was a very good taekwondo sparring athlete, he also had very good results at national and international level as a coach. But he didn’t let that stop him from learning again. I think that is one of the key aspects to develop yourself in the coaching area.To be open to learn from others.There is much knowledge out there in books and digital resources. But you can also learn in a more practical way by asking others.And if you can, not only ask, try to go and see how others train. You can learn a lot by talking and asking a more experienced Master or coach, but you’ll still learn more going to watch him or her in action.Psychology of coaching, the subjective aspect of the sport, freestyle poomsae and more.We hear a lot about sports psychology for athletes. But what about the coaches?They also need to be in an optimal state of mind.Can you imagine if a coach is not in the mood for training or competition, that mood can be contagious for the athletes.During the talk Master Chuang shared his thoughts on the psychology of coaching and some other interesting topics related to taekwondo.For example how he’d like to see poomsae in the future or how we should accept that our sport has a subjective side.You can watch the full interview on YouTube and you can also hear it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other podcasting platforms.Feel free to share your thoughts with us in the comments section.

Hello taekwondo lovers.I feel really happy and thankful for being back with you again and with an interview with a top athlete that kindly shared with us his story.A story of passion for taekwondo, a story from which we can all learn.Our today’s guest is a fighter who always has fun and likes to make taekwondo sparring a pleasure for the eye.Damian Villa @damianvilla58 raised in Los Angeles, moved to Puebla to fight for an opportunity on Mexico’s National Team. And he made it really quickly, three weeks after arriving in the country he won the nationals and his right to belong to the national team and to train and live in the Olympic Committee.Soon he started to be one of the bests at -58kg. Winning several times to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Champion Guillermo Perez and having an amazing Olympic cycle towards London 2012. He was silver medalist at the Copenhagen 2009 World Championships, Silver at the Pan Am Games and he won the quote for Mexico at the pan american Olympic Games qualification tournament.He had the best cycle of -58kg in Mexico, but still he was not selected to compete in London.I think many people would give up after something like this. But not Damian.He went as part of the team to London. And one year later in Puebla 2013 World Championships he won the bronze medal.Three years ago Damian made a new big change in his life moving again to Los Angeles to train in a different way.He accumulated many years experience and he decided to take charge of his training and pursue new goals.He also started to represent the USA again.Now he is training, teaching taekwondo at Villas Taekwondo @villastaekwondo and recently he is sharing his experience with other athletes and coaches via Expert Method Taekwondo. @xpertmethodtkdA new project developed by him and Rene Lizarraga @renelizarragamx for the taekwondo community.Beside his outstanding career, I want to say that although Damian has the fighter personality, he is also very humble and a person that is willing to help the taekwondo community.I think he has the character for being a great teacher and coach and surely we’ll be hearing of Damian Villa for many years.One of the secrets to be father and taekwondo MasterDamian’s father, Master Octavio Villa was also his instructor.He was also a great mexican taekwondo athlete who was World Cup Bronze medalist and was near to compete at the Barcelona 1992 Olympics.Many Master’s and instructors struggle to teach their sons and daughters.If you have a bad day, it must be difficult to leave things at the dojang and not bring them home.Damian says that Master Octavio’s secret was to keep a balance and to treat his sons in the same way as his students.Master’s Octavio children were not asked to make more efforts than the rest of his students. Neither were they allowed to make less efforts.Damian and his siblings were treated fairly.Compromise with your beliefsDamian is a person that is compromised with his ideals and beliefs.During the interview, it is clear that he loves sparring. And even though he has always loved it, when he was a child he went to a tournament and he didn’t spar because his father told him that he had to compete in poomsae and sparring.And he didn’t want to make poomsae.His father told him that if he didn’t do poomsae he would not compete. And he didn’t compete.He went to the tournament, stayed all day there and didn’t compete.This shows us how strong the will of young Damian was and that his father respected his decision.Damian and the pressureAnother characteristic of Damian is that he is constantly challenging himself.When he was a new face at -58kg in Mexico national team and before team trials for World Championships he was suggested by some of his coaches to move to the lower weight class -54kg to avoid fighting Beijing’s 2008 Olympic Champion.He didn’t, although Guillermo Perez had won the Olympics less than a year before. When I asked him why he didn’t he told me in a very honest and natural way that he loves pressure.It is important to say that to have this attitude is good but you have to endorse it with hard work and results.For example, when Damian refused to change weight class he had already sparred with Guillermo Perez before, many times in training and he felt good.Even he detected that Guillermo Perez avoided fighting with him in a Korean open. So, his attitude was endorsed by his previous work.The Expert MethodI’ve been told by one of Mexico's best coaches, Master Julio Alvarez, that Damian enjoys helping and teaching to others.As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, Damian moved back to Los Angeles to continue training but also because he had some other goals that he could not meet by being part of the Mexico National team.And one of his goals was to give back to taekwondo and share his experiences with other athletes and coaches.With world medalist Rene Lizarraga, Damian recently launched Xpert Method Taekwondo. A sport training system for taekwondo.They have started great, I recommend you to follow them on Instagram and Facebook. They are constantly sharing tips for fighters and Zoom training with other taekwondo super stars.If you are looking to improve your sparring, you should check The Xpert Method.

Welcome to a new episode of taekwondo passion.The World Poomsae Championships were planned for May 2020, As you probably suspect, they were not celebrated.Hopefully, Poomsae competition can be done Online, so last week we had the first World Online Poomsae Championships and today we’re going to talk with one of the top poomsaes athletes in the world right now.She was 4th on Recognized Poomsae in this competition, and has been multiple times European Champion and World medalist.I’m talking about Eva Sandersen @eva_sandersen, who talked with us about her passion for taekwondo and poomsae, and also shared how taekwondo has helped her to develop as a human being.When she was a little girl starting to practice our martial art, she was shy and introverted. Taekwondo has helped her to gain confidence.What she loved more about her first competitions as a child, was to have dinner with her parents after the competition ended.Eva also shared with us some drills that she uses to improve Ap Chagi and Yop Chagi and how she prepares to perform her best when she is in the mats.Eva is very young, but determined and disciplined. Surely we will be hearing about her accomplishments for a long time.Now please enjoy her talk and let us know that you have learned from her in the comments.The secret to make children remember competitions foreverEva started to practice taekwondo very young. As common in successful athletes, she was a multi sport child. She practiced taekwondo, karate, and riding among other activities.Her parents are korean, so they considered it a good idea for her to practice this Korean martial art.She practiced ballet before, which of course helped Eva in her beginnings at taekwondo.But one of the most interesting parts for me of her start in taekwondo, was what she liked about competitions as a child.And it was that after a competition, she used to go for dinner with her parents to a restaurant.So, what she remembers most of her first competitions is not the results, or the medals, or the performance, or anything directly related to the competition.Is dining with her parents.Which is a great lesson, as sometimes parents and coaches tend to think that performance results are the most important things, even with little children.So, do you want your children to enjoy competition day? You have an idea there.The ability to learn and take the best from othersOne thing that Eva values most of her life dedicated to taekwondo is the opportunity to meet other wonderful people.When she was trying to be part of the Denmark national team, she had a friend who also competed with and was always very close to Eva’s level. In fact, her friend started to win competitions before Eva in Denmark.When Eva started to go to international competitions she performed better and soon she started to win competitions outside and inside her country.But she considers that thanks to that personal competition she had with her friend, they pushed each other to a higher level.Eva also comments that in a high level competition, you can also learn just from watching. By the way, if you want to improve and know how the best teams in the world work and train, a World Championships is also a great opportunity to learn. In our past episode Jason Han commented to us the same idea.Also in these early years she admired the 2x World Champion from Turkey Elif Yilmaz. Who is now her friend and has helped her a lot to improve.This also reminds us that sports competition creates friendship, not only on team members but also between opponents.Eva gladly remembers her last European Championships in Turkey, her first as senior and in which she won the gold medal precisely against Elif Yilmaz. Eva considers a key for this achievement the ability to focus on the performance and not in the result.Mental training for competitionOne thing Eva does in competition to focus on the present is to breathe. Inhale with her nose and exhale with her mouth.Is one of the first things she learned from her coach. And she does it until she feels relieved or that the stress is gone.Another advice she gives to us is to be prepared for everything. She means that you have to consider every possible variable that can happen during your competition. For instance, if you have to be the first of your group to compete, be prepared for that and not let that new situation put some small stress on you.Or if your group is changed and instead of competing in the afternoon you have to compete in the morning. You have to be prepared for that. And take that small stress out to perform your best at competition.Another advice Eva tells us is to make a playlist for competition. She remembers that this advice was given to her by Elif Yilmaz in Croatia.It can be any kind of playlist that you like. Maybe can be one with music that excites you or also can be music that chills you. The most important thing is that it has to be music that you enjoy.Eva considers another very important tool visualization. Trying to be as specific as you can. To feel all the possible things of your competition, the emotions, the noises, the environment.If you have lived the experience previously in visualization, it is more likely that your performance will be close to what you expect.Enjoy the interview.I’m really glad of the opportunity of talking to Eva. As you will notice on the interview she is not only an amazing athlete but an amazing human being.Willing to help and really kind with us. I hope you enjoy the interview. You know, if you like please let us what you think of it in the comments section and share it with other taekwondo lovers.

One of the first objectives of the podcast was to bring knowledge of successful professionals that could help with their advice and experience to the taekwondo community.The idea was to interview athletes, coaches, health care professionals, Masters, business owners to share ideas from their respective fields to us.Today we will cover many of these fields in one interview. As our guest was former USA national team member, he has excelled at coaching and sports performance and he is also a top health care professional who has worked with professional athletes and performers in places like the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Cirque du Soleil and now works for one of the best soccer teams in the continent, the Los Angeles Football Club.He also co-owns The Juice Compound, a World Class Coaching program that helps individuals to reach their potential.I’m talking about Dr Jason Han, taekwondo World Cup Medalist, doctor, consultant, owner of Health Fit and father of family.Dr Jason Han very kindly accepted to share with us his experiences since he started taekwondo as a child after watching a demo at his school.Taekwondo demonstrationsDr Jason was a multi sport child. He decided to focus on taekwondo until he had to make a decision between it and basketball.Usually, when we think about successful athletes, we can suppose that they started competing in taekwondo very young, but it is not the case for Dr Jason.First he was part of his dojang demo team, and it is interesting that also a demo was what brought him to taekwondo.He saw a demo at his school and so he asked his parents to take him to taekwondo.Another interesting aspect that made him stay in taekwondo in certain moments where he wanted to drop out was the opportunity to mentor lower belt students of the dojang he attended.It’s interesting how this seed of helping others was one of the things that made him stick to taekwondo. The social part more than the athletic achievements.Athlete and coach at the same timeDr Jason studied in one of the most famous and prestigious universities in the world, the University of Berkley.And one of the reasons why he chose Berkeley was the taekwondo coach that taught there, Dr. Park Bong Kwon.But curiously, when Jason had only one year at Berkeley Dr Park Bong Kwon had to leave the university and so Dr Jason, being the most experienced athlete had the big responsibility to lead the team..He remembers it as a growth experience as he had to start to research how a training plane was made and also he had to focus on his studies and on his athletic career.Dr Jason shares with us that in those days access to knowledge was really difficult comparing it with nowadays. At first he had to plan according his experience as an athlete and then slowly pick up information from different sources, for example, if he went with the USA Team to the World Championships and he saw the Iran team doing certain drill or exercise before the competition, he analyzed it to see if it made sense to try it.This is a great reflection of what we can do as coaches, maybe we don’t have the experience of other coaches, or maybe we don’t have access to Sports Lab or to a multidisciplinary team to work for us. So, we have to do what we can with what we have. A reflection that also Stephen Lambdin shared with us.Choice managementAlmost at the beginning of the interview Jason shared with us this quote:“Is not time management, it is choice management”This came out because of the multiple areas in which Dr Jason works simultaneously.He works with the LA Football Club, owns his clinic with his wife, co owns and works with The Juice Compound helping athletes to achieve their goals no matter their level.And he shared with us that everyone had the same amount of time within a day. But it is up to us what we decide to make with our time.We can decide to spend one hour on Instagram or Facebook, or maybe we can use the same time to something more productive that can make us feel better and to achieve other kinds of goals.Dr Jason wakes up every day at 4am, that is a choice. Because at 8am he is a father and takes his daughter to the school, and after it he works, so, to dedicate time to himself and his personal projects he had to wake up at that hour.And to invest in his body he goes to bed early, because also is not the best choice to sleep only 4 or 5 hours per night.How is it to work at the Cirque du Soleil and Pittsburgh Steelers?Dr Jason has worked in places like the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cirque du Soleil.And I was really curious how and why he chose those places to work.What did he learn working there?And his answer, more than technical things, was more directed to the human part.Of course working in those places must require high level technical knowledge. For example, in the Steelers Dr Jason had to deal with really serious contact injuries.But Dr Jason put things clear, he doesn’t want to talk about bones and muscles and techniques.Some of the challenges of working in those environments are in dealing with humans. In learning to communicate with others in an assertive way.Politics are everywhere, in any kind of job. You have to earn the confidence of your coworkers and in health care of your patients. In the Cirque du Soleil Dr Jason had to treat performers from all over the world, all of them with different ideas on how to deal with injuries and recovery. He had to convince them that he was on their side, not trying to take them out of the show. His job was to prevent damage that could actually get them out of the show.No matter if your patient is from Poland, China, Russia, or wherever, the most important thing to earn confidence is honesty, and this tool can help you to motivate your patients and athletes.Connection with the patientWith years of experience, technical skills and physiotherapy experience of Dr Jason has improved. He tells us, if you are in the physio area you need to love to be better at technical things.But not only the technical skills are important. He mentions the 80/20 rule. Maybe the technical knowledge is the 80 percent and the connection the other 20.Maybe viceversa. But both areas have to work together to make people better, faster and as safe as possible.In physiotherapy and rehabilitation you will spend a lot of time with the patient, you will not be like a surgeon who needs to be very good at the technical process and who probably won’t interact with the patient.A physio is someone that is trying to make you something that is uncomfortable. And some people don’t want to push, some people want to push too much.And you have to read the situation, if they push more they maybe will hurt themselves more and not gonna trust you and go with someone else. Which will not allow you to help them.As I mention in the audio, the interview is very rich. So I hope you can listen to all of it, I share with you the links below. Please let me know what you learned from Dr Jason.

One of the athletes I wanted to interview when the podcast was only in my mind was Stephen Lambdin.I thought his story was especially interesting for many reasons, Stephen fighted not only against his opponents in competition but also against scepticism.He was told that he would never make it to the Olympics.When you receive a comment like that you can choose if that will make you stop or if that will make you stronger.Because obviously you can’t control what others say from you.Stephen also had to renounce a promising professional career in a company to pursue the Olympic dream and train full time for it.When he started his preparation for Rio 2016, he was looking for ways to strengthen his mindset. So he traveled to Poland to train with Wim Hof on the Wim Hof Method, which combines breathing, meditation and cold exposure to push body and mind boundaries.Since then he has applied the method to his life, his training and his competitions as a way to push the mind boundaries and get that extra 1% that can be the difference between winning and losing at high level sports.If you are interested in mind and spirit development, how to get more of your training without training more, how to improve your cut kick, this episode is for you.Why is it not so bad if you lose by point gap?Stephen wanted to go to the Olympics, because he used to see them on TV every two years. But he didn’t know how the process was.He enjoyed taekwondo but was not aware that he would first had to earn his spot at the national team and that it was only the beginning of a long journey.Stephen shared with us that when he won his spot for the first time to the Junior US National Team, he didn’t even know that after it he would then go to represent his country in the Youth World Championships in Greece.A whole new experience for him. And in terms of results nobody would say that his performance was good.He lost by a wide score against Korea. He didn’t know to what level of competition he was facing.He thought it was a fact that if he won US Nationals he would go World Championships. That was another tournament for him.But the most important thing was that when he got that “bad result” he went back home very motivated to train harder.Again we have two options when we don’t have the results we want. To drop out or to continue and improve.Would you get up at 3:30am pursuing your dreams?Stephen had support of a program that gave elite athletes a job in order to help them to continue training. He was beginning a promising career at General Electric, probably many people’s dream job.Part of his responsibilities for that work was to answer a call at 3:30am. That was the hour his day started.Then he did his first training of the day, after it he worked until afternoon, then did his second training of the day. And finally he was lucky if he went to bed 8:30pm, which was not that often.His career in General Electric was rising. But his performance at training was not what he was expecting, he was lacking many hours of sleep and the qualification process for Rio 2016 was starting.Stephen always had the dream of going to the olympics so in a not so easy decision he quit the job and focused 100% on his training.His boss was not happy, but understood the decision.It is interesting how many people didn’t understand his decision. In nowadays society many times we tend to value profitable careers more than other options life offers to us.But Stephen considers leaving that job was the best investment in his life.Just one week after quitting the job his performance improved a lot.Challenging his mind in the road for Rio 2016Stephen, with the support of his parents started to train first for the spot at US Olympic team, second to win the Pan Am qualifiers and then to Rio 2016As mentioned before, he wanted to build a strong mindset for the challenge.So he travelled to Poland to learn the Wim Hof Method directly from Wim Hof.Wim Hof is a Holland man who has pushed the boundaries of body and mind. He has broken Guiness Records for ice and cold exposure.His method, based on breathing, cold exposure, and meditation can help to push the mind to its limits, to improve resistance to cold and to modify the immune system response.Before attempting to practice the method I recommend you to research a lot and to check Wim Hof’s website. Two years ago I purchased a 10 Week course 50% off on a Black Friday deal. Maybe that offer is still this year.Well, let’s continue with Stephen’s story.He traveled to Poland to a Wim Hof’s training camp. When he started to practice the cold exposure and breathing technique. Most of the people were there because they wanted to improve their health. Stephen was the only one looking to improve his sports performance.Still nowadays Stephen practices the technique everyday, and he uses it before training and competition.I asked him if he can tell a difference between training using the Method and training without using it.He has done that test and commented that probably the difference is around 10% in his performance during training. Which is actually great.Getting more of your trainingStephen also shared with us how much we can improve in our training by doing it more specific and focused.If we have to improve something, let’s go straight into it. For example, for Olympic taekwondo competition, you don’t have to waste your time practicing jumping side kicks.In sport taekwondo nowadays there are certain specific areas in which you should focus. For example the cut kick. Stephen also shared with us some advice to improve the cut kick.But you can apply this principle for other aspects of training and life.Stephen's conversation was very rich, he also shared with us how his faith in Christ has helped him through his journey, how he helps the athletes he coaches, some ideas he thinks could work to improve taekwondo as a viewer friendly sport and more.Please enjoy the interview and share with us what do you think of Stephen’s work.