Got three goals I think you should consider in 2026.

Let's get started.

Welcome to the ATA Nation podcast.

Students, parents, masters of Songam Taekwondo, welcome Back to the Ata Nation podcast.

This is episode 180 too.

It's a pleasure to be back.

I hope you had a great Christmas if you are a Christmas celebrating kind of person.

My family enjoyed themselves.

We always go as a, as a big group.

My siblings, my parents, my nieces and nephews, my in law or not, my in laws, excuse me, my brother in laws and sister in laws, we all go together and we travel a little ways and a bunch of us go skiing and snowboarding.

I have been off of my snowboarding for a couple years, just with young kids.

I haven't gone recently.

I've been going to pick that back up again though.

It's a good time.

Can't go wrong with that.

Then we had some crazy weather, we drove home, we got back, we're doing a lot of planning things for the new year, things like that.

Yesterday here in Indiana, it was the wildest day.

It went from like, I don't know, 30 something to 60 something.

At the end of the day it was 60 something.

And then I woke up this morning and it was back to 16.

So our weather has been a little insane.

But while we're getting ready, this is our very last episode, episode 182, the last episode of the show for 2025.

We're getting ready to head into 2026 and I've got three goals, three things that I think you should set as a goal for yourself if you haven't already for 2026.

So let me, let me give you these three goals and why I think you should take these on.

Number one, I think if you are not already in legacy, you should consider being a legacy student.

And if you're in legacy, really maybe doubling down on your instruction skills.

These skills can have such a huge benefit in not just if you want to be a taekwondo instructor someday, want to have a job doing it, want to have a career doing it, but maybe you just want to have the A side club, or maybe you just want to improve your confidence, your presentation skills, your ability to communicate.

That's what you're going to learn in a program like the Atlanta program.

So if you're not already doing it, I'm going to challenge you to set a goal to join the legacy program at your local school.

I think such a great thing, really something that you should look at doing.

The second goal that I think you should be setting is attending a national event.

Attending a national event, if you just stay inside your school, you're missing out on a huge part of the ATA and that's where you should go to these regional tournaments.

These regional events and you're going to build those connections with people around your area.

But then going to a national event, if you've never gone just takes your training to a whole new level.

It's and it opens up a family that you've never known you had and it's an amazing thing, right to get to build relationships with people across the, the country, across the globe.

Heading to some of these national events is so great in building your relationships, helping you see some, some people to aspire to be like to find some living heroes that you can be like to, to inspire you and just build you up in your training and your martial arts journey.

I'm going to challenge you to do a national event.

Now goal number three, I think you should set the goal to attend an extra training event.

So here's what I suggest.

One athlete development camp or the MAX gathering or a regional camp.

These events that are multi day with one group of people, multi day with one group of people helps really like build the bonds of martial arts relationships, right?

Tournaments, great, amazing at building those bonds.

But there's something just a little bit different about training with these people over an extended period of time.

Being tired with these people, being sweaty with these people and having it take place over two days, three days, whatever the case might be.

I think these are an amazing activity to really inspire you in your training.

Build relationships, build grit.

Doing some of this hard work where you're getting up early and staying up late and working out all day long and putting it in, showing up, taking action really builds that fortitude and that's something that we want to build as martial artists.

Build that grill, build that fortitude.

These multi day events like a regional camp, like a MAX Gathering, like an athlete development camp, these are really going to make a difference and can be a great way to help push you maybe in a time that you're a little bit, you know, we have seasons where we're might be a little bit like we want to make sure that we are re inspiring ourselves with our goals and these events can be one of those ways to do that.

Those are going to be the three goals I'm going to challenge you with.

Number one, get out there, be a legacy student, train hard in legacy, really take advantage of that next level and what you can gain from that in your personal life.

Your professional life, your martial arts career.

Number two, attend a national or world tournament.

You're gonna love it.

It's a blast.

Number three, attend an extended training event that is outside of your school.

So a national camp or a regional camp.

And these are gonna really help build you up as a martial artist.

Those are my goals for you, my challenges for you.

Now let's get to our athlete of the Week.

At Nation.

We're super excited to have with us another awesome athlete of the week.

Can you introduce yourself for us, please?

Hello, I'm Julian Thomas.

Hello, Ms. Thomas.

And where are you?

Where are you from?

I'm from Texas.

South Lake, Texas.

South Lake, Texas.

Who's the instructor there?

South Lake?

Tyler Reid.

That's what I thought.

Okay.

And hey, I'm right here bundled up.

I got my hoodie on.

I got my beanie I got from.

From Camp Jiangsu a year ago.

What's the temperature there in Texas right now?

It's actually really cold, believe it or not.

It's actually like 21, I think, today.

Oh, wow.

It is cold.

Man, oh, man.

10 degrees here.

But, you know, 20 is pretty cold for Texas, so.

Hey, what.

What got you started in martial arts?

Well, originally I was into, like, singing and dancing, but my dad always thought that I'd be a good martial artist.

And then one day we drove past Martial Arts Studio, and my mom was like, you know, I'm just gonna sign you up for fun.

And I've been doing it for four years, so.

Been really good experience.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's fantastic.

And what rank are you now?

I'm a first degree.

Very cool.

Excellent.

Okay, so, you know, we're about halfway through the tournament season.

Have you been competing at some tournaments?

Yes, sir, I've competed in some tournaments.

And do you have any, like, any tournament goals that you're aiming at?

Definitely two.

Podium at Worlds, at toc in Extreme weapons.

I definitely wanna Extreme Weapons.

Is that one you said?

Yeah.

Okay.

What's your weapon of choice?

Bo Staff.

Bo staff.

Okay, very cool.

Okay.

So I'm guessing, is that your favorite event?

Extreme Weapons?

Yes.

Okay, very cool, very cool.

What if you had to pick one that wasn't your favorite?

What would it be?

Oh, I've been getting into sparring lately.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah.

Okay.

Very cool, very cool.

You do any team sparring?

No, but my studio is gonna create a team with some of my, like, people from my studio, so.

Oh, doing that.

Very cool, very cool.

So podiuming this year is kind of on the goal list.

You know, Extreme Weapons, have you have you done extreme weapons for a while?

What got you interested in doing extreme weapons?

I don't remember exactly, but I just remember like having a chance to try a weapon out and then my instructor's like, hey, you want to try this, you want to try that?

And as I just started training more and more, I just love throwing my weapon and training more tricks and yeah, the feeling when you get a new trick is just nothing you can't explain.

It's amazing.

That's super awesome.

I was at the Hu Lily Classic a couple weeks ago and I was judging the 50 to 59 year old division and holy cow, there were a couple of ladies in there throwing tricks that I had never seen.

I. I was so impressed.

Usually it's like your guys's age division, but these ladies were on fire.

It was crazy.

And some of them were from Texas.

Oh, really?

That's so cool.

Yeah, actually I think they were from the stairs over there.

Hey, so do you do traditional weapons as well?

I do, but I'm not the biggest fan of it.

But I do it so I can just do xma.

Hey, I understand, I understand.

Okay, so if you had to pick a traditional event, so if it had to be forms, sparring weapons or combat sparring, which of those four would be your favorite?

Hmm.

Okay.

So maybe traditional weapons, but lately it's been combat sporting.

Oh.

So very cool.

Very cool.

I like it, I like it.

So what kind of goals do you have looking at the future?

We talked a little bit about tournament goals, but what about maybe just for your own training or other.

Other kind of goals that you're setting as you're looking toward the future?

One of them is to obviously train harder and get new skills and get new tricks and you know, get faster with my BO staff and you know, stuff like that.

Get stronger, get more in shape.

Yeah, just mainly that kind of stuff.

Excellent.

Are you.

So how long have you been a first degree?

Are you looking at second degree soon or are you putting that off for a while?

Make sure you get the training in and get that all solidified.

I've been first degree for I think two years now and I'm actually testing for my second degree this summer of 2026.

So.

Cool.

So will you.

Are you going to start in the second third degree division next season then?

Yes, sir.

Oh, how do you feel about that?

Scary for sure.

My friends in the second degree wing and it's no joke, man.

And it's not a.

You are right, it is no joke.

But you've been doing the training, you've been working hard so you can step in and, you know, we don't get better unless we go into those harder divisions and keep working.

So, hey, what are some of the things that you have learned in martial arts that have helped you maybe outside of the martial arts school?

For sure.

Discipline and respect.

I can respect everywhere I go school.

I'm always saying, yes, sir, yes, ma'.

Am.

Just, you always have to respect people.

So definitely discipline and respect.

Love that.

Love it.

Okay, so we usually wrap up our questions with, what does it mean to you to be an athlete that goes beyond the belt?

Everything.

It.

It's.

It's like my life.

It's.

I don't know, it's.

It's really cool.

I love being part of ATA and how, you know, everyone supports each other and, you know, just, yeah, I love being a part of ATA Nation.

So, yeah, it's really cool.

I love it.

We love having athletes like you as part of ATA Nation.

Inspiring others, working hard on yourself, you know, just improving inside the school, outside the school, so.

Well, I want to congratulate you for being chosen and one of the athletes of the week.

Congratulations and thank you so much for your time today.

Of course.

Let me click and wrap our athletes of the week up for 2025.

We're looking forward to some awesome, awesome athletes of the week in 2026.

I've seen some of the names come through already.

Some great people.

We look forward to hearing from them and maybe seeing one of you on the podcast one day soon.

Do us a big favor, get out there and subscribe and share this with a friend.

Make sure they're hitting the subscribe button on ATAs YouTube page.

If we could get every ATA member to go and subscribe there, we would be getting one of those awesome silver play buttons.

That's one of my goals as well.

So get out there, take some action, set some goals, and be a champion.

Beyond the belt.

ATA Nation podcast.

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