His mom was an athlete of the week and now it's his turn.

Let's get started.

Sir.

I will live with perseverance in the spirit of Taekwondo, courtesy for fellow students, integrity within myself, and to become a black belt leader.

Welcome to the ATA Nation podcast.

Instructors, students, parents, family members, masters, senior masters, chief masters, grandmasters of Ata Nation.

Welcome back to the Ata Nation podcast.

This is episode 145.

Have you heard all 145 episodes?

Have you?

I'd love to know.

Recently.

Okay, side note, recently I was cleaning off some things, getting rid of some things on my computer, and I found the original podcast.

I started AtNation podcast back in.

What was it like 2017, 20, 2016 maybe?

We had some episodes back then.

It didn't go very long.

It went for a little while, a little project I'd done, but I really enjoy.

I've kind of become known as this podcast guy and I love listening podcasts.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not like obsessed with producing podcasts.

Like the heck behind it, the things, behind all the things.

What I really love is talking to people about martial arts.

I love to get information from them, hear what they're doing, get ideas.

It's really, you know, just a lot of fun for me.

We're, we're running, we're helping with business through the business beyond beyond the Mat podcast that is specifically just for ATA licensees.

And it's been so much fun because it's really, I just get to learn from the best.

I just get to interview these best people in the industry and it's fantastic that way.

I mean, other people can listen too, because that way, you know, the licensees get to learn great stuff, but I get to learn and I get to get, see all these great ATM martial artists, like our athletes of the week that we've been profiling recently.

Now we're going to do something a little bit different today and we're going to go with some upcoming events.

Here's what's going on in ATA Nation.

So before we, we get to our athlete of the week this week, I wanted to mention a couple training opportunities that we really haven't talked about recently.

We've been spending a lot of time talking about Spring Nationals.

Worlds is coming up, of course, and you want to check that out.

I don't think the schedule's up yet for that though, so I think you're safe.

But the ATA max training is going on the road.

They have regional trainings.

By the time you hear this episode, the first one will be done.

It was in Darien, Illinois, April 13, but it's coming to Ventura, California, May 24.

So that might be something you want to check out.

If you haven't been able to go to, like the MAX seminars or Worlds of Nationals or go to the MAX gathering, this might be a great way for you to attend.

Also, you will do not want to miss the Athlete Development Camp in Little Rock in June.

That registration is is just filling up.

Huge lots going on in there, so make sure you check that out.

Lots of ATA MAX trainings coming in September as well.

Looks like Oregon, Florida and California, so don't miss checking those out then as well.

There are some camps coming up and.

You can always check these out.

If you go to atamartialarts.com and you head over to the event section on the tabs at the top, you've got all the tournaments, but don't forget to go all the way to the right and check out camps and seminars.

So we've got the ATA European camp in Lisbon, Portugal, which is not going this year, but man, it's on my bucket list.

We're doing that.

Region 112 has their camp in May.

Region 119C has their camp in May.

You want to check those out then.

Region 107 has their camp in August.

Region 119 has their camp in August as well.

102A or west has their camp in September.

109 has their camp in September as well.

And then 118 and 102B have their camps in October.

Now, I mention these because you might be a higher rank and you're going to need personal development points as you go to continue to train and go for higher and higher ranks.

Those personal development points you can achieve at some of these regional camps.

So I would definitely look at attending those regional camps to make sure that you are learning, you know, all the things going on, staying up to date with your curriculum, up to date with your teaching skills, all those kinds of things.

Grandmaster MK is really excited that these camps have come back.

It's been a big push of his.

It builds that cohesion and community between our regions, our areas, things like that.

So you want to go and check those out.

Don't miss out.

I know our regional camp is a lot of fun and just a great bonding experience.

Then December, Camp Jong Su again in Little Rock, Arkansas.

I think there's some other stuff maybe going on in Little Rock that week, but I'm not.

I don't know.

You didn't Hear anything from me?

We'll see.

So, ladies and gentlemen, that is going to be our upcoming events.

Let's get to our special guests.

Special guest interview.

ATA nation.

We have with us an awesome ATA.

Athlete, Mr.

Tyler Tu.

How are you today, sir?

I'm great.

Senior master Hayden.

Awesome.

Thanks for being here with us today.

I want to ask you a couple questions, but first, where do you train?

Who's your instructor?

I train in San Diego, California at world class martial arts and my instructor is chief master Church and senior master Church.

Very nice.

Excellent.

And what degree black belt are you?

I'm a first degree black belt.

Going up to second degree soon.

Very soon.

Oh, excellent.

And what got you started in martial arts?

My parents enrolled me when I was a 6 years old just to see because I didn't do any sports yet to see how I'd like it and then kind of just went from there.

Kind of going from there.

How old are you now?

I'm 12.

Excellent.

Okay, so you've been in it like half your life.

That's pretty good.

I like it.

So you're one of these athletes that the junior brand ambassadors have been choosing to highlight across ATA nation, which has been really neat when it comes to competing.

Being a martial arts athlete, what aspect of your martial arts training or competition.

Is the aspect that like, you like?

Oh, if I could spend all the time doing this thing, extreme creative combat, you know, what would it be?

Forms?

I think it'd be sparring.

I love sparring.

I know I'm not on the taller side, but it's really fun.

Excellent.

I love to hear that.

It's been great.

We've done quite a few interviews with the athletes so far and everybody's got something different than they like.

Some of them it's the creative extreme.

Some of them is a forms.

So you are a sparring guy.

I love that.

Traditional sparring.

Combat sparring.

Do you have a favorite between the two?

My studio doesn't really practice combat sparring, but so I like traditional sparring better.

But combat spring is also really fun.

You like to kick people in the head, right?

Yes, sir.

Yeah, legs don't get that high.

Well, you know, you're 12, maybe you are.

Are you your family on the shorter side, are you going to get to.

Be taller or you stuck the size you are?

I don't know, Stuck on the shorter side.

I understand.

Hey, there's some awesome athletes out there on the shorter side, you know, have you ever Master Havaducci sparring, Master Haynes, you know, big height difference but there's some pretty awesome athletes doing some great things.

So what now, if you had to pick, like, in your training?

We love martial arts.

We love all the different things of martial arts.

But if there was an event at like a tournament that you were like, I.

If I have to skip one, I'll skip this one.

What would that be?

I'm gonna say they're combat mine because I don't really practice it that much.

Creative forms, because I'm very new to it.

Are you new to it this year?

So.

Excellent.

Very neat.

Okay, that makes sense.

You know, getting new to it.

Have you done, like, weapons?

Very cool.

Awesome.

Very good.

Oh, good deal.

I love that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

If you, if you.

What weapon are you?

That's the.

If you had to pick a weapon.

What'S the weapon you'd go for for traditional forms?

I do Chucks, sir.

Nice.

Love it.

One of my favorites.

I, I started with the Chuck's first degree.

Really loved it.

Got into the top four for that.

So good deal.

What kind of goals do you have in your martial arts training?

Maybe short term, maybe long term.

What are you looking at trying to achieve?

I'm gonna say, like kind of short term, kind of long term.

I want to win the world championship, sir.

Nice.

What event?

Any event, specific event, all the events.

I like it.

That is a great goal.

Good.

You gotta set.

I got second place in forms in weapons.

Oh, man.

Second.

Oh, one point for both events.

Oh, one point.

And what did you learn from that?

Like how.

How did you move on from that?

That's a tough one.

Well, I just told myself I gotta keep going.

I can do this next year.

I mean, I was stuck on it for a bit, but, you know, you just gotta get out from that phase.

Yeah, it is.

It's tough to get by that.

You know, you get.

I tell my students, you get a little bit of time to commiserate, to feel bad because, you know, you worked so hard.

You should get a little bit of.

Time to, you know, be like.

But then you got to pick yourself back up and get back to training and try again for the next year.

Now I've got a question for you.

As one of these youth athletes.

What does it mean to you to.

Be an athlete that goes beyond the belt?

For me to be an athlete that goes beyond the belt, I think it means like inspiring others to work as hard as me to, to train more, to like all that stuff.

Yes, I love that idea of inspiring others.

What a great, what a great thing.

We love to see you guys, these athletes all across 18 nation being highlighted, getting to show off.

We love to see you guys competing.

Do you got any tournaments coming up that you're going to be heading to?

I know you guys had a class.

C just recently at your school.

Were you last weekend?

Yeah.

Will you be out at Fort Worth?

I don't think so.

Not this time.

No problem.

Hey, I haven't.

The tournament I'm going to would be spring nationals because there's one in Conroe, but I'm going to be out of town.

Gotcha.

Off to nationals.

Get some of those big points at nationals.

So you're ready for world championships, huh?

Mm.

I love it, Sir.

Awesome.

Well, Mr.

Tu, I really appreciate your time today.

You are an inspiration.

Keep competing out there, keep working hard, keep showing off those skills and inspiring other ATA martial arts athletes.

We really appreciate it.

Thank you.

And before I go, I'd like to thank you so much for this amazing opportunity.

Well, thank you.

You know, it's the youth ambassadors that have been doing such a great job of highlighting you guys, and we're excited to be able to partner with them and show all of ATA nation about some of these awesome athletes.

Thank you.

Man.

These athletes, they're great.

You know what I love about them is not that it's just these athletes, but it's all of you out there in ATA Nation.

We can all do this.

We're just highlighting some of the athletes across ATA Nation, but there are thousands of you.

Speaking of thousands of you, you know what I would love for you to do?

Do me a huge favor.

Click the subscribe button on your favorite podcast player and on YouTube, we would love to make sure that we are sharing this information with all of ATA Nation.

We want to just continue to grow ATA nation.

So share it with a friend, Share it with a fellow training partner.

Share it on the Internet so other people can just check out these awesome athletes and the cool things that are going in at nation all over.

Make sure that they get to see that martial arts is way more than kicks and punches.

Okay?

We are building champions beyond the belt.

So get out there, share it.

We'll see you next time on the ATA nation podcast.

Get out and go beyond the belt.

Thanks for listening to another episode of the ATA nation podcast.

Be sure to subscribe and share with your ATA family.

Watched on YouTube, you would have saw what I was drinking right then.

That's going to be the secret part today.