Martial Artists

I played different sports such as baseball, skateboard and bmx. I have been training martial arts since I was 15 1/2 years old. Why, it is simple, I have always been a fan of the art of martial arts and on a personal note, I was picked on in my younger years and did not want to be bullied.

Hello! My name is Juliana Chin, 27, born and raised in Malaysia with Chinese and Sri Lankan background and I currently reside in New York. I am an interior designer by profession and also a part-time athlete for martial arts competitions like Taekwondo and Boxing.

I have tried many sports in my teens and achieved good levels at basketball, football, wrestling, boxing and MA (JKD). It was the time when I was training seven times a week.

I was training at a facility over there that introduced me to parkour, tricking, martial arts, breakdancing, hand balancing, gymnastics strength work, acrobatics, yoga and many other disciplines. It was a huge playground for kids and adults to explore their edge and discover what their bodies were capable of.

I have always loved training my whole life. I have been training for as long as I can remember. I started with basic home training (pushups etc.), later on I tried Kung Fu, boxing Taekwando and gymnastics for six months to one year with a friend. But got bored of it and did parkour for two to three years.

One day physique + wrestling, which consists of rounds of very intense exercises for conditioning. One day power, which consists of bodyweight exercises (pushups, pullups, etc.). I do all this with my brother Erko Jun who is a little heavier than me, which makes it a great training partner.

In my free time, I’m doing some MMA, wrestling and fitness. I would call myself an all-rounder, not limited in bodybuilding or martial arts only.

I am also a martial artists, I have two black belts in Karate Shotokan and Tang Soo Do. I specialize in executive protection and weapons.

In primary school I tried out for a variety of sports but I chose to swim and practice karate because I enjoyed them the most and they challenged me in ways I liked. I have fond memories of my family coming to support me at swimming competitions and karate grading events.

In that period I had a lot of free time to train while balancing my life studying and training; so at 21 I also started training Brasilian Jiu Jitsu.

I have studied weight training, Yoga, Pilates and Martial Arts, including Qi Gong, Brazilian Jui Jitsu and Muay Thai.

I started with Kung Fu as a teenager but after two years of doing it, I had a knee surgery and the doctors told me that I would not be able to do heavy sports anymore.

I have always had an interest in martial arts, combat sports, and fitness since I was a child due to always watching old school Kung Fu flicks and WWF with my older cousin who I idolized, so it was a natural progression.

I am originally from a tiny village in the woods and we didn’t have many hobby options that interested me, but I did Judo for few years because I also wanted to become a stunt woman (still one of my career goals!).

My other sports include tennis elite level, professional MMA and pro wrestler traveling around the world. In my spare time, I love playing Xbox, cooking and traveling.

I have been able to do some boxing and Tae Kwon Do style training in the space I have though. For me, it has been all about finding what can be done in the limited environment I have.

I am a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Black belt first degree, under professor Thiago Braga. I live and breathe Jiu Jitsu, it’s my Job and what I choose to do for life.

Overall, I have been training in MMA for 8 years. This may seem like a long time and it is to an extent, but due to the complexity of MMA and the fact that so many different martial arts and skills are involved, there is still so much more that I have to learn and improve on.

All my life, I loved everything involving sports, martial arts mainly. I’ve always been a big fan of Jean-Claude Van Damme due to his training. I began to go into a gym in 2015 and the following year, I initiated to practice Wrestling.

Throughout my childhood, the one thing that kept me hopeful was watching wrestling on TV with my dad whenever we got the chance to. When we were released, I started wrestling my little brother in my backyard and uploading the videos on YouTube. Eventually our videos reached over 20 million views and I enrolled into a professional wrestling school.

I train vicinity three to four times a week by varying my diagramme of training, crossfit, MMA, running, swimming or yoga. My circuits training takes place in three stages, stretching, exercises heating and circuit training.

I joined the United States Marine Corps right after 9/11 and that, of course, only reinforced my love of hard, physical training. It’s always been part of my life, which made it very easy to incorporate when I began professional wrestling.

Anyways, let’s talk about my fitness journey. Throughout my years in school, I’ve played soccer (elementary Team), took karate in middle school, Jujitsu in high school and I’ve played football recreationally. Also, I’ve done ice skating, rollerblading and had a good amount of taste in volleyball.

I’ve continued keeping my mind and body in shape still weightlifting and doing other HIIT programs, along with MMA training.

Right now, I am 10 kilos heavier and this is my maximum. Also, I am doing some martial arts and won a gold medal in one of the tournaments here, in my home country.

Like many troubled adolescent boys, my journey began with martial arts. This was somewhat of a gateway as it served to introduce me to the marvels of what the human body is capable of when pushed in the right ways.

My name is Ivan Polanco and I am a 27-year-old singer-songwriter, personal trainer, and admissions counselor at a university. I’ve been an independent pop/r&b artist for 10 years, and throughout the entirety of my music career, I’ve been a personal trainer, group fitness and martial arts instructor.

I have tried many sports going through high school and college, I started with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and quickly I wanted to explore more martial arts. I then started boxing, wrestling and ended up practicing MMA, when you think about it all that it is is chess played with your body, how am I going to defeat my opponent with the different pieces at my disposal.

Throughout school, I played all sports available to me such as track, football, and my favorite wrestling. I had many great coaches especially during my weightlifting class.

I’ve been practicing sports since my early years, I started with swimming, then I switched to football (which I practiced for 12 years), then boxing, MMA and finally CroosFit, which I started in 2013.

I was born in New York in 1970, moved to San Diego, California in 1982 where I began my formal training in martial arts. Now, I’m 50 and have been working in physical culture ever since then.

Sports have always been a part of my life, since I was a small kid, I started practicing Tae Kwon Do and got to Black Belt 3rd Dan, winning several local and international competitions.

Knowing that CrossFitters regularly trained Olympic Weightlifting and feeling like I had great baseline cardio endurance enough to handle it due to training martial arts most of my life, I agreed.

18 years later, I still love lifting and other hobbies including recently training BJJ (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu) and reading. All of these hobbies tie together to this idea of continual self-improvement.

My biggest inspiration has been Bruce Lee since I was 9 years old. I saw this movie called ‘Dragon- The Bruce Lee Story’ and fell in love with his legacy. This was a movie based on his life so I started doing my own research and saw each of his movies and became obsessed. That’s when I bugged my mom to enroll me in the martial arts!

I’ve started my sports journey when I was 5 with swimming, then changed to basketball, volleyball and martial arts, so I had an athletic preparation. At the age of 18, I’ve started my career in the gymming and powerlifting.

I became a regular at several boxing gyms, boxing clubs around the world, and after another decade of training in Boxing & MMA, I finally worked my way up to fighting internationally at a pro-level in Europe.

Once I graduated law school, I had a bit more time, and I really wanted to get back into great shape. And I found an unexpected way to begin building my body – martial arts.

I have been lifting weights since 2014 but only taken it seriously this last 2 years. Also, since 2014 I have practiced several martial arts such as judo, jiu jitsu, muay thai and freestyle kickboxing.

I’ve been training and doing fitness for most of my life. I did all sports when I was younger, the main one I did was Karate 3x per week with my dad – here I achieve a black belt at nine years old.

I used to practice judo, box, MMA, rugby, soccer, football, aikido, wrestling, and many different sports, but eventually I settled down for fitness and natural classic bodybuilding.

Training is something that I simply have to do daily and I try to make my motivation internal. I do not take my health for granted and just having the physical ability to be able to lift and train in the martial arts is a blessing to me.

Before bodybuilding, I did karate for five years, however, I didn’t finish with all my exams and I was not able to take the rest of the belts and grades because I had some fighting problems with some college of mine and that’s how karate, unfortunately, ended for me.

I’ve always been into sports from a young age, winning the U13 Somerset Gymnastic Champions aged 11. I played football (soccer) for my school and county, and also I was into martial arts, which is how I found the weights and they took over.

I began training by myself in my basement at 12 years old. I had always had a fascination with muscle and strength so when I got the chance I dove right in headfirst. I also have been training BJJ for the last two years and hold the rank of blue belt.

Many of which I drew from my martial arts background – these exercises compliment Shelli’s experience and skill with yoga. This further helps her to develop a muscular and aesthetic physique that is just as conditioned and functional as it looks.”

As it turns out, I was not very good at football, and all my friends at the time had interest in lifting, so that is kind of how it all started. The sport I did choose to do was wrestling and martial arts, both of which I have been a part of for over six years and I continue to train in Chinese Kempo.

In my life there have been other sports. Because we are in Brazil, I trained Jiu Jitsu for 12 years.

I have always been active and sporty from a young age. I used to play soccer and rugby back in school. I have participated in MMA as well.

Besides bodybuilding, I have been doing pro wrestling. I did wrestling along with bodybuilding from 1965 to 2001. Had to retire after I tore both quads in 2001.