Taekwondo
From 2016 to 2019 I was a member of Jun Taekwondo in Whitby, Ontario where I trained 5 days a week, one hour a day in the martial arts. Since I was a child I was fascinated with movies from Asia about the culture of martial arts. Jet Li, Jackie Chan, and Donnie Yen were some of my biggest inspirations back in the day. I started off as a white belt, and through the course of 3 years worked my way up from white, to green, to red, and finally to the black belt. I learned many important self-defence skills such as punching, kicking, sparring, blocking, grab defence, and even how to use a katana. Taekwondo is a Korean martial arts that specializes in these techniques and is among the highest-quality of martial arts training.
Music
Music is a very important part of my life, it is something I need a little bit of every day to keep myself in a healthy mindset. Music speaks to humans like emotions and motivational moments, and music definitely speaks to me. Throughout my life, I have been into a number of genres from pop and hip-hop, all the way to R&B and folk. In 2021 I got into classic rock, and very shortly I discovered heavy metal, which became my primary genre from then. Heavy metal music is a genre of music that uses distorted guitars, powerful drumming, theatric bass and composition, and powerful vocals. While classic rock is based on blues, and vocal focuses, metal music is classically influenced and riff-focused with more emphasis on ripping solos. Lyrical themes are typically rebellious to the mainstream focusing on subjects such as political issues, history, fantasy, science fiction, and even literature. My favourite bands within the genre are Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Helloween, Blind Guardian, Death, Testament, Megadeth, and Candlemass.
outdoors
Another important part of my life has always been exploring the outdoors. This actually came to me as an important hobby in early grade 11 after the pandemic was starting to wear off its first wave. I realized that this hobby was going to be essential to my overall health and well-being. Nature and forest areas are my go-to, but I do like going for jogs and bike rides throughout new parts of the city as well. This is also a great part of my workout routines as it covers all of the cardio, allowing me to focus more on weightlifting and core exercises. Sometimes I go alone, but more often I go with friends, and overall it's just a great way to escape reality for a couple hours and be at peace with life.