While the rest of their classmates were recovering and regrouping after spring break, School of International Service freshman Diane Kim, SIS sophomore Karriea Hamman and College of Arts and Sciences sophomore Leah Parent underwent intense physical training for a national Taekwondo competition.
The trio spent the two weeks following spring break working out for over four hours a day in preparation for the U.S. Collegiate National Championship in Berkeley, Calif., an event held from April 4-6th. Competing at nationals made them the first athletes in AU’s history to represent the AU Taekwondo club at the national level.
Despite losing their initial matches, all three athletes fought energetically in the tournament, and each individual came away with a unique accomplishment. Hamman earned a silver medal in sparring, Parent earned her first collegiate Taekwondo point and Kim gained experience as a collegiate athlete.
The trio’s journey to nationals began when AU set aside enough finances for the AU Taekwondo club to send three athletes to the competition this year. Club coach Daniel Hunziker selected Kim, Hamman and Parent to represent the University, and Hamman believes that the team was chosen based on commitment level and potential for success at the national level.
“[Coach] works on two principles. Mostly it’s about dedication, who comes to class most often, who has proven that they’re dedicated… The other one is, are they capable of doing well? Do they have the talent to do well?…At least that’s my understanding. I’m not him so I can’t be 100 percent certain,” Hamman said.
Prior to being selected for the event, Kim, Hamman and Parent trained with the AU Taekwondo club team three times a week, but when they learned that they would have the opportunity to compete in nationals, they increased the intensity of their training under the careful watch of Hunziker. Parent mentioned that they also studied the tournament brackets and assessed their competition before deciding to cut weight to give themselves the best opportunity for success. Nevertheless, cutting weight was not a simple process.
“At the point when we got approved for nationals, it [came down to] who’s going to be able to work hard and be able to get in shape and cut it [weight] for nationals,” Hamman said. “If we had started cutting right before, it would have been really unhealthy, so we had to start cutting weight immediately.”
Although Taekwondo may be an individual event, the AU Club is rooted in teamwork, and its members support each other in every aspect of training.
“Of course, because we are a team, we all cut [weight] together which meant that even though I didn’t have to cut any weight, I still cut,” Hamman said.
Kim battles hard in black belt competition
Kim, who has been competing in Taekwondo competitions on-and-off since pre-school, represented AU in the black belt division. Her black belt represents the highest honor in the sport of Taekwondo, and she has great pride in the accomplishment.
“It means a lot. It just means that I stuck through it, I just never gave up. That’s what it means to be a black belt,” Kim said.
Kim fell in love with the sport before many of her peers learned to read, and she has continued her Taekwondo training for over eight years.
“I went to a really Korean pre-school, and they taught it, and I was just like ‘I love this!’ It’s part of the reason why [I came to AU],” Kim said.
As a student at South Pasadena High School, Kim started her own martial arts club and competed in tournaments around the country. She experienced great success in her many high school competitions. She placed first in forms, a competition that requires athletes to perform set skills in front of judges without an opponent present, and earned third place in sparring at a national tournament.
But college Taekwondo was a new field for Kim.
“It was my first time at nationals [at the collegiate level], so I wasn’t expecting it. I just got incredibly intimidated by all these national champions and my mental game affected me. So I’m hoping to be more mentally prepared [next year],” Kim said.
While Taekwondo is a physical competition, Kim stressed that the mental aspect of the sport is a critical element for success.
“When you fight, if you don’t fight smart, you’re basically done and it’s definitely a mental game. It’s not so much physical, it’s mental,” Kim said. “If you’re scared, you’re not as aggressive as your opponent, and you’re bound to lose, and that’s what happened to me.”
Despite not placing at Nationals, Kim remains determined and has big goals for herself and the club in the upcoming years.
“As a club, we are hoping to bring in a lot of new members and potential members and to continuously grow and go to more tournaments,” Kim said. “As an individual [my goals are] to really push my limits, to compete more, and to really learn to focus during a match and fight smart.”
Parent builds off successful nationals, prepares for next season
Parent also looks forward to the future of the AU Taekwondo club and hopes to build upon her experience at the national competition to come back even stronger next year.
“I think the fact that we lost was more gallivanting than anything. It made us want to start training for next year’s nationals now,” Parent said.
Parent, a New Hampshire native who has been participating in Taekwondo for nearly four years, competed in the red belt division at Nationals and earned her first collegiate point during her sparring match by making crisp contact with her opponent’s chest protector during a kick.
Sparring, unlike forms, involves a physical fight against a matched opponent; individuals are paired according to weight, belt level and gender, and they earn points by making contact with the opponent through a variety of kicking techniques. The type of movement and the location of the kick determines the number of points that an athlete can earn, and the person with the most points at the end of each round of sparring wins the match.
Hamman overcomes adversity, shines at Nationals
Hamman also experienced success at the national tournament by earning the silver medal in sparring at the yellow belt level.
She is specifically holds a yellow belt with a green stripe, the level in between yellow belts and green belts. Hamman never competed in Taekwondo before coming to college, but her extensive background in karate allowed her to pick up on the sport very quickly, despite her initial hesitation to continue with martial arts in college.
Hamman holds brown belts in two different styles of karate, Goju Ryu and Shotokan, and she credits Hunziker for encouraging her to give Taekwondo a try.
“When I graduated from high school, I was done with martial arts. I honestly did not believe that I was going to go back,” Hamman said.
After a friend encouraged her to come to a Taekwondo class, Hamman met Hunziker, and his enthusiasm help rekindle her love for martial arts.
“He was genuinely interested in us doing our best, not pushing us to do more than we could,” Hamman said.
Despite battling six food allergies and a concussion in the fall of her sophomore year, Hamman persevered, and it was her dedication that earned her a ticket to Nationals.
The Taekwondo club works hard during training to prepare for their competition, but Hamman stresses that the team is more than just an athletic group.
“The Taekwondo team a lot of people think is scary, that we fight other people, but that’s not what we are at all. We’re a team, we do social events,” Hamman said.
