You heard about this awesome new thing for legacy students?

Welcome to the Ata Nation podcast.

Instructors, students, parents, family of Ata Nation.

Welcome back to the Ata Nation podcast.

This is episode 162 to the Atnation podcast.

I am your host, Senior Master Zach Hayden, and it is a pleasure to be back with you again.

We're back in the groove.

World Championships is over.

We're back competing.

I got a tournament I'm going to this weekend.

Are you heading to a tournament this weekend?

Let us know.

Shoot us a message.

We'd love to hear from you.

We are really enjoying hearing from these athletes of the week, but we've got other stuff going on too.

I don't want you to miss out on one the Ambassador corner.

Make sure you're checking this thing out on Instagram.

It's really cool.

Good tips, all kinds of neat things.

Check out the all the new ambassadors.

We had one interviewed last week.

But here after our athlete interview, I want to go over a really awesome thing, a really awesome benefit you get if you are an official ATA legacy student.

This is fantastic.

I love it.

Super excited about it.

Make sure you do not miss it.

It's going to be after the interview.

Let's get to that interview right now.

ATA Nation, we're back with another great set of athletes of the week.

Ladies, I assume you guys are related.

Can you introduce yourselves and tell us where you're from?

My name is Talia Walk.

My name is Scarlet Walk.

And yes, we're related.

We're actually twins.

We don't look like twins.

Yeah, we're fraternal, so we don't look that much alike.

We're both 13 years old and we are from Elite360 Studios in Trinity, Florida.

Oh, you guys have a new ambassador from your school, right?

Yes, Ms. Constantine.

Yes, yes, I've met Ms. Constantine.

Very cool.

And your guys's school, I was thinking at the awards gala that they won an award this year.

I can't remember what that, I can't remember what it was.

But yeah, we left early, but yeah.

I, I, yeah, it was, it was Saturday night.

Elite 362.

They did.

I can't remember what it is.

Maybe I'll, we'll look in and see if we can stick it in some of the notes another time.

But you guys just came back from World Championships.

How did Worlds go for you?

It was a really, really fun experience competing wise.

It was so much fun, like seeing all my competitors and I got second place in creative forms and two world titles in creative form.

I mean, no not creative form.

Creative weapons and extreme forms.

Congratulations.

Really well.

So I'm like, I'm really proud of myself because I performed really well.

I didn't place in anything, but I qualified.

So hey, I, I think it's important for athletes to realize that, you know, you're not going to place every year.

I mean, there are those people who place every year.

I don't, those guys are just crazy.

I talked to a friend of mine, he's been in taekwondo for 30 years.

He got his first title this year.

Like, come on, if you can keep doing it for 30 years, that's, that's impressive.

So I forgot to ask, what rank are you ladies?

We're both second degree black belts.

Very cool.

So you're in the second third degree division.

And what age group?

11 12, but we're moving up to 13, 14 now.

Oh, so the Super Deployment.

You guys compete in the Super 20 this year?

No, we did not compete in the Super 20.

Came home early, got, got done and had to come back.

Well, you got that, that red shirt and stuff.

So.

Yeah, what you said.

You guys, what's your favorite event?

If you had to pick like, this is the event that I cannot live without, what event would that be?

For me it would be Extreme Forms.

That's probably also mine.

Yeah, I love doing flips in my form and showing off.

Very cool.

What about if you had to pick a least favorite event, what would it be?

Actually I haven't competed in this event for a long time, so for me it would be sparring.

Because when we started like taking Creative extreme more seriously, we were like, okay, before Worlds we don't want to get injured.

So we stopped doing sparring for like a year and now I'm like coming back to sparring.

It's hard because like everyone is like, has been practicing and we haven't.

So it's hard.

Ah, that's rough.

I would do sparring at local tournaments, not like the big ones because I don't want to get injured.

But that's also my least favorite.

Yeah.

What about.

You guys do combat or neither of those?

I do combat, yeah, often, but not that much.

Yeah, not that much.

It's a little easier to not get injured in that.

What about, I heard you guys say you were doing some creative weapons, things like that.

What weapon is your like go to weapon?

For me it would, I do the double swords.

So the swords, they stick together and they're magnetic so you take them apart mid form.

Oh, that's super cool.

I do commas, I guess we both like our magnetic stuff.

You got the magnetic commas, then that stick together too.

Oh, that's very cool.

Oh, super.

Awesome.

I love that.

What kind of.

So we've just started a new year.

You guys finish off the last year really strong.

Looks like you did amazing.

Go into a new division.

What kind of goals do you have for the new year?

It doesn't even have to be tournament goals if you have other kind of goals, but what kind of goals do you have as you're looking towards the future?

So we're not really going to be focusing on competing like for world titles anymore, for more.

We're both actors, so that's more of our focus now is like getting our acting strong because it was mostly like martial arts is like, like world champion looks good on the resume, right?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

That's not too shabby for me.

I just kind of enjoy the performing part.

I'll probably still go to local tournaments and perform there.

Yeah, just for like, you know, showing off.

Oh, I'm an actor.

I'm.

And a martial artist.

Like, I combine them.

It's not, it's not more about the placing, it's more about, like your performance and interacting with the audience, getting them, like to clap and cheer for you, you know, More of that.

Yeah, that's like totally practice for, you know, the, your, your goals.

Sounds like you're working on that whole acting, that performing part.

So just getting the reps in of doing extreme and creative kind of things is just more practice doing performance that way.

So that's.

Yeah, exactly.

What kind of have you guys done?

What kind of acting things are you guys trying to get into more like.

Like, for film and like movies.

We're working up to that.

Very cool.

I love it.

That's awesome.

I.

Who was I talking to?

Oh, no, I just saw there was a lady that was a.

She was at Leaders for Life in Illinois for years and she went down to Atlanta to work on being.

She wanted to be a stunt woman.

That was her thing.

She wanted to be a stunt woman and just recently was in.

In something cool and I was like, wow, that's awesome.

Cool.

Yeah, yeah.

And then we've got, you know, lots of the ATAs got a fair number of actor people who come out.

Master.

Master Mo is done act.

You know, Hana and her acting, so really cool now I'm gonna be super excited when you guys go big and I'm gonna be like, I did that interview with those guys.

I, I knew that'll be so cool.

Okay, so what's it mean to you guys to be champions?

Beyond the belt for me.

So for me personally, I applied a lot of what I learned from martial arts, like the skills and the legacy program, to become a singer and an actor.

So I'm also a singer.

I don't know.

I sang the national anthem in my district.

That was like, huge for me.

I've never performed in front of that many people.

It was really exciting for me.

And also, like, just to hang on, just to, like, inspire.

Inspire people, like, to be their best.

Because, like, people don't really know what they're capable of until they really try, you know?

Yes.

Oh, that's great.

And I love that.

Just like, I mean, you performing in front of, you know, all these people for the national anthem.

And that national anthem is not an easy song to sing.

So that.

That is awesome, you know, and that's inspiring as well, seeing you guys, you know, these athletes of the week come on the show and they're like, wow, I can be like those guys.

They're awesome.

What about you, Scarlett?

For me, I just kind of apply, like the life skills that I've learned, like confidence and dedication, and I apply that into my acting and perform, like, showing the world, like, this is who I am.

Because before I was super shy, but now I'm like, not anymore.

That's awesome.

Has a.

Has kind of.

Usually that's my last question, but I'm gonna go with one more.

I. I'm curious because you guys are working on this acting things.

How have you seen martial arts and what you've done in martial arts assist you in that kind of goal, building that confidence, things like that.

Has it been a big part of it?

Yes, it helps.

It's helped us a lot with like, building confidence to perform because I was like, every time I would go to compete, I would be like, okay, I can't mess up my form or I'm going to lose or I'm like, I'm not going to place.

But I really gained, like, self confidence in myself, like, building my mindset to say confident things.

Like, I'm amazing.

I can do this because I believe in, like, my skills and what I can really do.

Excellent.

What about you, Scarlett?

Pretty similar for me.

Could you restate the question?

Certainly.

How.

How have you seen martial arts assist or help in your goal to be an actor?

Building confidence or.

Or whatever way it might have helped.

You performing under pressure, like going out there and performing live and then like having the confidence to do it without, like, any mistakes.

And then if you do make a mistake, like fixing it and not like crumbling under pressure.

Oh, that's a good one.

The.

The pressure.

Because you don't get.

You don't get multiple takes when you're doing your form or.

Or whatnot at a tournament.

You know, that's why it's really good, because that actually really helps you prepare for acting.

Because on set, you get multiple takes, but you're used to performing under pressure and only getting one.

That's awesome.

That's very cool.

Well, I am super excited that one.

You guys were the athletes of the week.

Congratulations.

It's just neat to see these other students out there inspiring all of ata nation.

And I'm really excited to see how you guys continue to thrive in not just your training, but in this goal of being actors.

We look forward to seeing you guys on the.

On the big screen someday.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Have a great one.

You, too.

Forward to seeing those two on the big screen or the little screen, whatever.