During a competition in Edmonton, a young martial artist won gold not just once, but twice this past weekend.

Amity Macagnino, a 15-year-old local Tae Kwon-Do practitioner at Destiney Martial Arts, describes her experience at the competition.

"I competed in Edmonton in the Pheonix Fire & Ice Tae Kwon-Do competition," says Macagnino. "There was a sparring competition, which is like fighting, and then there were patterns."

Macagnino has been participating in martial arts for just under a year and is currently a blue stripe, but is trying for her blue belt next month.

She says she originally started practicing Tae Kwon-Do due to stress from school.

"I was looking for an outlet to just get away from stress from school and everything. It was my dad's idea because I am very athletic. I love athletics and I do distance running and all that kind of stuff, so I just went and tried it out and Destiny was a great fit and great club and I really liked it there."

Overall, Macagnino was pleased with her performance in the competition.

"It went really well. I won gold in both of my sections, so it was really good and I had a great time."

Macagnino says sparring is where she is comfortable, but had to work hard in patterns to win gold.

"I generally do decently in sparring, but for my pattern, I had to do a lot of extra training outside of the club. I took personal lessons with my black belt instructors. I had to work on it a bit, so it was really exciting when I managed to get that gold. All that work paid off."

In the future, she hopes to continue with Tae Kwon-Do.

"Tae Kwon-Do is a very big part of my life so I definitely plan on continuing until there's a reason I have to stop. I want to go far with it."

 

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