05/09/2026
🥊💜 This girl deserves a post of her own. Our very own Bebo 💜🥊
Sometimes, as an instructor, you get to witness a kind of strength that has absolutely nothing to do with how hard somebody can punch or how high they can kick.
And this girl has shown us exactly what that looks like.
Three years ago, at just 11 years old, she was preparing to attend her very first World Championships.
She had trained for it. Worked for it. Earned her place there.
Then, just before she was due to go, she suffered a serious injury to her hip at school.
In one moment, everything changed.
What followed wasn't a few weeks away from training before returning to normal. Three years later, she is still living with the consequences of that injury. She has developed avascular necrosis (AVN) in her broken hip and is now preparing for a full hip replacement.
But there's another part of her story that I think says absolutely everything about the person she is.
Her injury meant she couldn't compete or train in the way she'd originally planned.
So she found another way. 💜
Because of her injury, she began learning Para Kata last year—something she may never have discovered otherwise.
And last year, the little girl whose first opportunity to compete at a World Championships had been taken away from her finally made it there.
She travelled all the way to Niagara Falls to compete at the World Championships in Para Kata.
And she came SECOND. 🥈🌎
A World silver medallist.
Not in the event she'd originally dreamed of.
Not following the journey we'd originally planned.
But through a completely new path that she created because she refused to let an injury be the end of her story.
I don't think she will ever fully understand how proud that made us.
Because that medal represents so much more than second place.
It represents adapting when life completely changed the plan.
It represents turning something devastating into another opportunity.
And it represents fulfilling your dreams in whatever way you can. ❤️
But the medal doesn't mean everything suddenly became easy.
That's the side people don't always see.
There are weeks when the physical limitations, the pain, the uncertainty and everything this injury has taken from her leave her feeling completely broken mentally.
And I think that's important to acknowledge.
Because resilience doesn't mean being positive every day.
It doesn't mean never crying, never struggling or never wondering why this had to happen to you.
Sometimes resilience is falling apart for a while... and then somehow finding a way through it again.
And she does.
Again and again.
She comes back through those doors and asks to train. Sometimes shes sent a message before shes even crossed the threshold!
We have had to completely rethink what training looks like for her. There is a huge amount of research, adapting and working together behind the scenes to find what is right for her—protecting her hip from further injury while keeping her body strong, supporting her rehabilitation and preparing her as best we can for the operation ahead.
There isn't a ready-made training programme for her.
We try things. We listen to her body. We change things when we need to. We find exercises she can safely do and then find ways of making them challenging enough that she still feels like the athlete she is.
And believe me...
She does NOT want an easy session. 😂🔥
If anything, she's usually asking for more.
🥊 Bag rounds
🔥 Battle ropes
💪 Strength work
🥊 Pads
🔥 Conditioning circuits
💪 Rehabilitation work
She'll finish with exhausted arms, a red face and a smile because she knows she's worked.
I'm not proud of her because she never struggles.
I'm proud of her because I know how much she DOES struggle—and I watch her find her way back every single time.
At 11, she should have been stepping onto a World Championship stage.
An injury took that opportunity away from her.
So she adapted.
She learned something completely new.
And eventually she stepped onto that World Championship stage anyway.
Now she's facing another huge chapter: surgery and rehabilitation.
We don't know exactly what that journey will look like yet.
But we do know how we'll approach it.
We'll research.
We'll adapt.
We'll work together.
We'll have the bad weeks.
We'll make the most of the good ones.
We'll celebrate every bit of progress, however small.
And when something gets in the way...
we'll find another way. 💜
Because if the last three years have taught us anything, it's this:
You can change this girl's path.
You can put obstacles in front of her.
You can even take away the plan she'd worked so hard for.
But you can't take away the fighter. 🥊
From missing her first World Championships...
to becoming a World silver medallist in Niagara Falls.
To being back inspiring more novas and younger students in her leadership role where she was sorely missed.
And her story isn't finished yet. This is just the beginning 💜
