The History of My Martial Arts Training
Hi guys! I’m Stephan Hermosura and here is a summary of my journey in the world of Martial Arts.
It was in February 2016 when I started to do Martial Arts. I was 5 years old then. The first Martial Arts that I did was Taekwondo. I did Taekwondo because I wanted to learn how to defend myself against big bad bullies especially in school. Since I was accelerated for 2 years, I was already in Grade 1 when I started schooling at 4 and I skipped preschool altogether. My classmates were either 6 or 7, even 8 years old! The Taekwondo training that I attended was held at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City under Coach Brixtonn Busto, whom I simply call as Coach Brix. He was a very strict coach. I learned a lot from him, discipline was on the top of the list. After only a few weeks of training, I already had my first tournament at Diliman Preparatory School. My first opponent was 2 years older than me and taller. I ended up with a Silver Medal which was my first ever in the world of Martial Arts. I was happy about it although a gold would have been better. I gave a head kick to my opponent accidentally, forgetting that it was still not allowed for that level. I remember that I also kept forgetting to shout as I kick. My big armor bothered me too and held me back from kicking higher. I went from white belt to yellow shortly then to blue in November 2016. I had stopped doing Taekwondo when I was a blue belt because my dad needed to go to Kuwait for his foreign posting as a diplomat and the entire family has to go with him. My dad also did Taekwondo. He got only until yellow belt before we left (haha 😊). I always bragged that my dad only got until yellow belt whereas I, blue. 😊
So, we left for Kuwait on the second half of November 2016. Upon arrival we tried to look for a Taekwondo gym that gave classes in English but couldn’t find any.
In December 2016, during the year-end party at the Embassy for the Filipino community, our family met Sensei Mario Adonis of the Philippine Cats Claw Martial Arts Association Kuwait. He invited us to join their training and so we did. It was alternately Karate and Arnis every Friday morning under different Senseis headed by Sensei Mario. There was Sensei Edison, Sensei Bhong, Sensei Emil and (the late) Sensei Jun. There were also Sempais and other advanced members who helped in the training.
Since I have been often out of Kuwait from September 2018 to February 2020 when I went to boarding school in France, to make up for my missed training, I had personal training under Sensei Bhong. I learned faster and more doing this since it was more personalized. My dad attended too.
As I write this, it has almost been 4 years of training in these two Martial Arts.
It is now Sensei Bhong who is heading the training. My dad and I have reached blue belt in both Karate and Arnis, and we’re looking forward to be tested to the next level 😊.
In Karate I’ve learned the following: Kihon Kata Shudan, Nidan, Sandan, Yudan, Godan, Ruk, and the other two which are numbers 7 & 8.
That’s it!
The next training this week will be Arnis.
Hope to see you there! 😊