Districts is almost here and we have another awesome athlete.

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, masters, grandmasters of Songam Taekwondo.

Welcome Back to the Ata Nation podcast.

This is episode 149.

Next episode 150.

Can you believe it?

It's going to be amazing.

We have so much going on this time of year because as you know, we're in postseason district championships.

Everybody's waiting for those final finals.

By the time you hear this episode, the final standings might be out.

I think they will be.

I think when you listen to this, you'll be able to see those.

Who knows, maybe district registration will be really opened by then.

Who knows?

I don't know because I'm recording this in the future or in the past?

In the past.

You're hearing this in the future now.

A couple reminders though, as we get ready for districts, do not forget you can only register for the events that you're qualified.

You can't register for everything like a regular tournament.

You can only register for the things you're qualified.

Two, you must register online.

There is no, absolutely no registration at the door.

You can't do it.

You don't register online.

You will not be able to compete at districts.

So just pay attention, social media, your instructor, the things going on online and everywhere, on to when districts registrations will be open.

As a guy who helps set up districts for our Mid America district, I'm going to ask also a kind of a special plea, parents.

These districts are put on by groups of schools.

These districts are not run by any one individual school or by ATA headquarters.

A lot of stuff is done by headquarters.

But the day to day, on that day, getting people checked in, you know, doing the wristbands, getting the athletes ready, getting all the stuff, okay, set up and torn down is all done by local volunteers.

So I really encourage you to give back to, you know, these areas that you've been supporting in tournaments and whatnot, and volunteer to help.

Whether that be setting up the day before tearing down after the event.

There are people who will be needed in all of these districts for checking people in as athletes, for doing spectator admission, for doing the pro shop.

All of that is run by volunteers.

So I really would appreciate it and I think all of our districts would appreciate if you reached out to your instructor and were just like, hey, as a parent, I would like to watch my Kid when they go.

But I would love to be able to volunteer an hour, two hours to help out with his event.

I think that would be really awesome.

Okay, let's get to our athlete of the week.

Here we go.

Special guest interview.

Ata Nation.

We're super excited to have with us today Ms.

Lexi Barnes.

How are you?

Good.

How are you?

I am wonderful.

You are another one of these awesome athletes of the week.

Can you introduce yourself?

Tell us, like, where you train, who your instructors are, what rank you are, that kind of stuff.

I'm Lexi borens.

I'm a first three black belt.

I train at Wexford ATA in Pittsford, Pennsylvania, and my instructors are Ms.

Stanley and Mr.

Langer.

Excellent.

And what.

What got you?

Well, before that.

How old are you?

I forgot to ask.

Oh, I'm 11 years old.

Perfect.

So what got you into martial arts?

I've always been, like, interested in doing martial arts, but I never knew what type of martial arts I wanted to do.

When I was younger, I did, like, ninja camps and stuff like that, and I.

I wanted to do karate because I didn't know any other martial arts.

And I asked my dad.

I was like, I want to do karate.

I want to learn how to fight.

Be a ninja.

And we did more research into it, and we found that the AT industry was the best way to go.

Well, you are not wrong.

That was a great choice.

What age were you when you started?

I was eight.

Eight, perfect.

Okay, fantastic.

Well, that's super cool.

I hear.

Usually we hear lots of stories about, you know, little boys that are like, I want to be a ninja turtle.

I want to be a.

And not as.

Not as much the lady.

So I love that.

That you were like, I want to be a ninja.

That's awesome.

Were there any, like, shows or anything that you watched that made you think you wanted to be, you know, do martial arts?

I like a lot of action shows.

When I was younger, and I loved the ninja turtles and I even, like, dressed up like them.

Yeah, I love.

I wanted to be a ninja since I was, like, three.

That is so cool.

Which ninja turtle is your favorite?

Raphael.

That was my favorite.

That's a good choice.

But I'm sorry.

Donatello is better.

But, you know, you can have your opinion.

It's okay.

Speaking of, then what's your favorite weapon to train with?

My favorite weapon to train with is either the osundo or the gumdo.

I like the swords a lot.

Very cool.

I don't hear oh, sung do come up as much.

And have you done your first degree You've done the black belt, oh Seung do form?

Yes.

Have you done the.

The newest version with the whole different second half?

No, not yet.

Oh, you gotta check this out.

The new version, the X.

The like the second half, that's all new.

It is so cool.

I.

I just love the new Osung do form.

Really neat.

So I would love to learn it.

Yeah, yeah, you gotta check that out sometime.

Okay.

Hey, what, what events are you really like your favorite thing to do at tournaments?

My favorite thing to do at tournaments, it's usually combat sporting because I just love.

I just love to.

How you always keep moving and.

Yeah, that's my.

My favorite one.

And I like weapons a lot too.

Weapons a lot.

Weapons.

Competition, sparring.

Competition, Combat sparring.

You were saying before this that you had some team sparring training.

So you.

You're on a team?

Yes.

Okay, very good.

You do.

Do you fight with both the traditional sparring and combat or just this?

Combat?

Yeah, I do traditional and combat.

Very cool.

What do you think about the team events?

The team events, they usually take a while, but other than that, I really like being with my friends and sparring with them.

Even if we don't win all the time, I like to compete with it.

Yeah, that's one of the things I really love.

I always have been a martial arts guy, so I didn't do team sports.

That was never something I ever did.

Um, and I love that team sparring kind of brings that team aspect into it.

So you can still do your individual sport, which is what I love to do.

But here's this team aspect that keeps the.

Still the camaraderie and the then stuff with the, the life skills that we do in martial arts.

So I like team.

What if you were going to choose.

I'm not going to say that we don't have events that we, we love them all, they're all great.

But if you had to pick one that was maybe like not your favorite, which one would it be?

No, my favorite is definitely sparring.

I like sparring a lot, but in my ring I'm usually like, I'm in the taller ring, but I'm usually like the shortest one and I get like kicked in the head.

Not.

It's just like.

Yep, I understand, I understand.

I.

You know what, that's so funny.

I was never in the taller ring.

I was always in the smaller ring.

But I, I can totally understand that, you know, as a first degree.

And that's one of the reasons I kind of like, I wish they had team sparring when I was younger, because I think, like, for myself, I wouldn't have wanted to do sparring that much, but I would have wanted to be on a team.

So it made me work on sparring because I just wanted to be part of a team that way.

Um, yeah, I'm with you.

I totally understand.

Hey, what are some of the goals that you have for your martial arts training?

Maybe short term, long term, whatever.

What kind of goals are you looking at as a martial artist?

I really like teaching students and I am a level zero instructor, so I just have the red one.

But I really would love to get my level one and then maybe go to be a certified instructor someday.

I love that.

And then I also want to be able to, like, have a more confident, like, thing where I could, like, teach the class by myself, but with people just to help me out.

I would love to just, like, go on myself with like, a lesson plan and stuff like that.

I love that.

I.

I guarantee you will be awesome.

It you'll.

The confidence you build.

We just drove by.

I was out on a drive with my kids and we drove by where this Taekwondo school that I taught, my very first class was.

And I'm glad there's no video.

They didn't have, like, cell phones and stuff back then because it was a horrible class.

Um, and I don't.

I think I talk about this.

Um, I just whispered.

I think most of the time it was bad.

I mean, we didn't have great instructor training back then.

They just kind of threw us in.

Um, but I think you're going to be an awesome instructor.

A great inspiration to lots of athletes out there.

I'm.

I'm excited to get to see you.

You know, as we go and get to see all these athletes of the week, we get to see all these people and just to get to see you guys grow and mature as martial artists, as athletes, as instructors, master someday.

So what does it mean to you to be a.

An athlete that goes beyond the belt?

It means to me, to be an athlete that goes beyond the belt is not just helping and being your best self inside of your martial arts school.

It means being your best self out of school.

You know, helping whenever you can, having courtesy for people and just being yourself.

I love that.

I think that's so important.

You know, courtesy, being yourself, those kind of things in today's world is just, you know, a really important thing with so much social media and, you know, just all the issues going around.

So I love that.

It's great to hear of young Ladies like yourself embracing the idea of going beyond the belt.

And so we really appreciate you inspiring us in ATA nation through being one of these athletes of the week and all this amazing training you're doing.

So congratulations and thanks so much.

Thank you.

Any, any.

I always leave early and then I sometimes I have people message me.

I was like I had something else to say.

Anything else you want to say or you plan to say to at nation out there or do you think you covered it all?

I think I covered it all.

Excellent.

Well, I'm glad.

I'm excited to get this information out to let people see you as an athlete.

Congratulations on being chosen and thank you for being an inspiration to all of other athletes in ATA nation.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you.

We want to thank Ms.

Lexi Barnes for a great interview.

We really appreciate all these awesome athletes.

We got more coming all the way through June.

It's going to be amazing.

We've got some other neat things coming as well.

Getting ready.

This is what I'm going to ask for you.

I'm going to ask for you today.

Please head over to YouTube, click the subscribe button for the ATA Martial Arts YouTube page.

We're getting.

We're putting more shorts on there for the podcast, some junior ambassador things.

We've got some other stuff so make sure you hit the subscribe button over there on YouTube so you get notified of every episode and you can do that on your favorite podcast player as well.

Don't miss out.

Next episode 150 we just got so many stuff.

So much stuff going on, guys.

55 year anniversary of HA.

Last year we're into a brand new year, new season of, you know, competition starting at Worlds.

Oh, guys.

Oh.

I don't know if I can tell you this.

Secret park.

We'll do it at the secret park.

Here we go.

I think that's going to wrap it up for today.

Make sure you're out there going beyond the belt.

Okay?

Guys, Guys, I saw the.

So I saw previews.

Senior Master Lee showed previews of the medals for world championships to the licensees yesterday.

Really cool.

You're not going to want to miss.

We got one of those kind of combined metal things going on.

I don't know if I'm supposed to tell you guys.

I hope I don't get in trouble, but it's going to be cool.

I can't tell you anymore.

I better be quiet.

They'll fire me.

Okay.