One week to Spring Nationals.

Let's get started.

Welcome to the ATA Nation Podcast.

Welcome back to the ATA Nation Podcast.

We are thrilled to have you here for episode 195.

That means five episodes left till our 200th episode.

Ah, gotta plan a live one.

You gotta work on it.

So much going on.

Guys.

I just heard.

Did you guys hear in the ambassador corner this last week that Spring Nationals.

Huge turnout.

We're gonna have a huge turnout.

So many people preregistered.

It's gonna be amazing.

So guys, if you hear this, as soon as it drops, there is still time to jump on late registration because it closes at noon Central standard time, which is going to be like half hour if you listen to this right away.

But if you don't, you can always.

I think they'll have sign up at your registration at the event then too, if you.

If you decide you want to make it.

But a couple other things before we get to our athlete of the week that I wanted to make sure we're hitting about St. Louis 1.

Just an amazing place there.

The.

My kids are so excited about going to this museum.

Oh, and I forgot the name of it already.

Um, but it's going to be pretty awesome.

I hope I get time to go with them.

It would be amazing.

But we've got midterm and rank testing.

There is late registration for that if you still want to go.

You.

We've got the team tryouts.

We've got the Blades to the max.

We've got the.

What's the.

The one called.

I'm going to scroll through here and double check to make sure I know what it's called.

It's.

It's the sparring with swords 1.

That one looks awesome as well, guys.

Okay, while I'm scrolling real quick, did you see the shirts for the 2026 Athlete Development Camp?

Oh, pretty nice.

I am liking the shirts this year for athlete development camp, so don't miss out on that.

You only have a little bit more time to register for athlete development camp as well, so don't miss on that.

Oh, Clash of the Blades.

Clash of the Blades.

This is the gumdo combat, guys.

So much cool stuff's going on at Spring national, so do not miss out.

There's still time to get in.

You don't want to miss it.

I know a couple people have had some things come up and, you know, things change.

So we want to make sure we get you registered for that if you missed out.

I'm thrilled St. Louis is going to be an awesome time if you're there and you listen to the podcast.

Make sure you stop me and say hello.

I might be carrying around my recorder so I can get couple of little clips from people.

I tried different events, I tried to get some different interviews and just there's so much going on I have to judge.

I have seminars that I want to take.

There's other.

You know, I did a great interview with a young man that was fantastic that I can't use because it ended up being too loud because we did it in the main facility.

So I just keep editing things and trying and seeing what we can do.

But it's going to be great.

Let's go to our awesome athlete of the week, ATA Nation.

Super excited to bring to you our athlete of the week this week.

And we have an awesome international athlete this week.

So could you introduce yourself for us, ma'?

Am?

Yes, I'm Lianry to 4th degree black belt from Pretoria, South Africa.

Very cool.

South Africa in the house.

So here's the question.

How'd you get started in martial arts?

I actually started doing Kung fu when we were overseas in Singapore for a while.

My dad had a job there and when we moved back to South Africa, I started with combat taekwondo.

But eventually I did found the ATA and it made me grow even more than the combat taekwondo.

So I stayed.

Excellent.

What you know, ata, we're everywhere, all over the globe.

South Africa has continued to grow.

Tell ATA Nation a little bit about how South Africa's ATA community is.

You know what, what it's like to be part of the, the community there in South Africa.

It's very great.

We're a very close knit community.

Everybody supports one another.

We had a competition in Sukuna last week and it was really nice.

Everybody enjoyed it a lot.

It was a very friendly atmosphere, very competitive, but still everybody enjoyed themselves.

The kids did awesome.

I myself had a max team that competed against me.

So it was really great and very fun.

Very cool.

And you guys now have a, what's the, what's the term?

An A plus tournament down in South Africa, right?

Yes, it's the African cup challenge.

I'm not 100 on the wording, but yes, we are very excited to get that level up on the competition.

So we are hoping some international guests will come this year to our tournament.

Yeah, that would be awesome.

What, what are you actively teaching in schools?

You own a school, you run a club.

What is your involvement in that side of things?

I currently teaching at traditional Taekwondo academy with Annika Fuljun.

I run mostly the MAX program there.

I adapted it so we can.

It can work better with our schools as we do have Tigris actually also doing the MAX program.

So it's.

That's what I am busy with at the moment.

That's awesome.

How cool.

I love that.

Okay, so you said you had a competition last weekend.

For you, is competition something that is a.

A big part of why you like martial arts?

Is what, what do you like to compete in those kind of things?

I think it's a big part of doing martial arts because it allows you to taste your skills against other people.

I really love competing against others.

We are quite small in South Africa so my division only has five people.

But for a long time it was only me.

So I competed against myself.

But now it's five people.

We are enjoying the competition.

We love competing against each other.

I really like the team events because then the crowd's all hyped up.

Everybody's cheering, everybody's.

It's loud and you get to see your fellow students competing with you.

You're cheering them on.

They are cheering you on.

It's just a great atmosphere.

Yes, ma', am.

I totally agree.

The team stuff has just taken the excitement level to a.

A whole new plane and it's.

It's great to be part of those.

What kind of goals do you have for your future training competition?

Just your martial arts career?

For my instruction goals, I really would like to work better with the Tigers.

They are the group I lease connect with.

So I'm working on that this year.

I'm grateful with the teenagers.

Teenagers and older people.

But I really would like to connect better with the Tigers.

And then I'm practicing or training to get my fifth degree black belt.

So I would like to go next year over just to test for it.

So I've got everything ready.

I just need to test.

So that's my.

Some of my.

That's my bigger goal for the next year and a half.

Excellent.

I love that fifth degree form.

It's the best one.

What have you been overseas to do any of the other tournaments other than any other events yet?

Yes, I've been over to world three times.

Once as a color belt.

My first one was as a color belt.

It really made me see martial arts in a different way.

It was big.

It was still in Little Rock that year, so.

So it was crazy big.

I didn't think it was so huge when.

When I got there and then was 2022 was the next one and 2024.

That's when I started competing in the black belt divisions.

Sure.

Everybody there is just so great.

It is.

What's the, how long does it take you to get to the US to like world championships?

What's the travel like for you guys?

Our last one was pretty long.

We had an eight flight, eight hour flight to.

It's not Dubai.

Oh, I can't remember the place, but that was an eight hour flight.

And then it was a 16 hour flight to LA.

We went to LA that year.

So it's a pretty long flight.

You are very tired and we tend to tour a bit before the competition, so you're extra tired when you get there.

And then it's seminars and just soaking up as much knowledge as we can and then it's competition time.

So it's a hectic journey, but we love it.

That's great.

I love it.

Yeah, I'm really excited that you guys have this A plus tournament down in South Africa now.

Hopefully we'll start seeing more international athletes come down and participate.

It's on my bucket list to head down there one day as well because it's just so neat to have this international community that you can pop in another country and be.

It's like, well, I got friends here already even though I've never been there.

So is that for you guys coming to like world championships?

Does it feel like that?

Definitely.

I've made a couple of friends over the years and every year, every time I go there, I look for them.

I look for them in ATM martial arts barriers.

I'm like, that's my friend.

I know that person.

It's quite an awesome to be part of the international community.

I love that.

Very cool.

Well, we'd like to wrap up with.

What does it mean to you to be an athlete that goes beyond the belt?

To me it means taking what I've learned and just using it in my day to day life at work.

When something gets hard, I know I need to push through it, be determined, get through it, have respect for everybody around me.

So yeah.

And communicate well.

That's also very important to me, to communicate well to everybody.

So that's stuff that has, that martial arts has taught me because I was very shy as a younger kid and that has.

Tycoon has taught me to communicate well, to have respect, to push through no matter how hard it gets.

I love that.

It's, it's so neat how we can take these lessons into the rest of our lives and not just kids, but adults and you know, not just in the US I mean we're all we have the same struggles all over the place.

So I want to congratulate you for being an athlete of the week and thank you so much for your time today.

Thank you for having me.

It is great to have international athletes with us.

Guys.

South Africa go down there for that A plus tournament could be a really cool experience for you, your family.

So definitely check that out.

One of these days.

One of these days I'm going to all of them now.

Another thing I wanted to mention real quick, going on, and this is for your instructors, licensee school owners.

There are the award nominations going on right now for the different regional awards and things.

So please make sure that you might not have access to it as a regular student, but your instructors, your, your.

The licensees out there do.

So you might nudge them and say, not, hey, nominate me, but say, hey, I heard nominations are out.

Did you ever think about this person at a, at a tournament I met, they would be a really good award winner or this person and maybe nudge them a little bit.

And if you are a licensee instructor, make sure you get those nominations in right away because they'll have to shut that off and then the process for picking winners will go.

So make sure you're taking time to do that if you're a licensee instructor or if you're, you know, just out there as a regular student.

If you got somebody that you think like, hey, this person's great, maybe mention it to your instructor.

It might be somebody sometimes.

I know I would love to get some, some suggestions sometimes for my region.

Um, I usually have some ideas of, but I don't get to see everything.

I don't get to see all the great judges going on and those kind of things.

So it's nice to get some other input.

So, hey, that's going to wrap it up for us today.

Another quick one.

You know, we're in and out right now with these episodes with our athlete of the week, some news, some updates.

We got some other interviews coming, but we just, you know, beginning of the year slammed with all kinds of great stuff going on.

I hope to get catch up with some people at Spring national so we can bring you some extra content as we go there to get ready for, you know, big episode number 200 and then continue the future.

If you got someone specific you would like to hear from on the podcast, let me know.

I'd love to bring on some.

Some special guests that you want to hear from.

So shoot me a message on Instagram, Facebook, wherever you want to find me.

You can find me there.

I'd love to hear from you.

So till next time, get out there.

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