My journey of a year and a half of Taekwondo has been mostly pleasant. I had started the sport with no martial arts experience, and not even any consistent sports experience. I didn’t have a great connection with sports in general, and PE classes had been among my least favourite subjects for most years of my primary, middle, and high school career. I knew I would one day force myself to take up a sport simply for a healthier lifestyle. A new Taekwondo Dojang had opened up close to where I was living—I signed right up.

I don’t think there was any moment in Taekwondo where I didn’t physically struggle. Almost everything was a challenge including my lack of stamina, lack of physical power, and lack of balance. While I didn’t necessarily overcome these challenges objectively, I did start having an extremely positive attitude towards the sports, and gradually found the challenge to be one that was fun to approach. The basic thing that measured my improvement came easily in Taekwondo as a martial arts with the belt system—a higher belt would mean I would have to work harder and learn more challenging technical skills as well.

Personally, it was “commitment” enough to continue the sport after a year had passed, especially with my lack of physical capability and my long years of dislike for exercising. While I found challenges in physical aspects, I actually enjoyed almost every session. The satisfaction I felt after an hour session was even greater. This was probably what made it possible for me to stay committed until now. Another small addition to my (surprising) commitment had to be the fact that I had another friend that also did Taekwondo. It wasn’t a competitive thing in the slightest bit, however just the fact that I had friends doing the same sport as I was a motivator in itself.

Continuing Taekwondo this first season, however, imposed a slightly different challenge. I had to miss several sessions because of my sprained foot—this was the greatest thing that affected my commitment. It wasn’t the first time I had sprained my foot from Taekwondo, and I knew to overcome the challenge was to simply work twice as hard after recovery.