Today we’d like to introduce you to Alex Wong.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I started martial arts in 2004 at a Taekwondo school in Chattanooga, TN. My parents wanted me to try martial arts because I was a very shy kid and needed to build confidence. The first six months I absolutely hated taking classes and wanted to quit but decided to keep trying it a little longer. A few years later I reached my 1st-degree black belt and loved training and competing in sparring. Unfortunately shortly after achieving my black belt my current school had to close down. For the next few years, I trained off and on with some instructors but nothing consistent.
When I was 19 years old it had come to a point where either I had to give up on my dream of trying to compete at a high level due to lack of training and coaching or try to train myself and see where it would take me. I decided to continue to train myself in hopes of one day being able to still try to compete in high-level tournaments. During this time I decided to document my self-training journey on YouTube to share and hold myself accountable which has now grown to 125,000 subscribers from people all over the world. After five years of training myself, I met my current coach Grandmaster Chung at a local scrimmage in Atlanta who invited me to be an instructor at TONCHU Martial Arts and also offered to coach me in competitions. Fast forward to now I am currently a full-time instructor teaching martial arts for a living and also pursuing my dream of making the USA Taekwondo Team and competing internationally.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has definitely been challenging. Spending those five years training myself in a basement just hoping to one day have a school to train at and a coach to help me reach a high level tested my discipline on how bad I really wanted that. There were plenty of times I wanted to give it up but part of me wanted to just keep at it in case one day an opportunity came my way. Although it was extremely difficult I will say going through those tough years of training alone has made me appreciate what I have now and I never take that for granted.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Right now I am a full-time instructor teaching kids and adults martial arts. Along with that I also create content on YouTube to help share my knowledge and teach people martial arts around the world. I’m most proud of how far I’ve come. From being an 11 years old needing to build confidence and not even enjoying martial arts at first, to then having to make the decision to train myself, and now where I am today, teaching people here in Atlanta and also reaching people around the world through my social media. I think one thing that sets me apart from others is my work ethic. In my free time from teaching, I’m either creating content for social media or training for competitions. Every day I’m either teaching or training -sometimes I’m doing both.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
What matters most to me is having a purpose. Whether I am teaching and helping shape someone’s life in class, giving someone tips on how to kick on the other side of the world through a YouTube video, or going through a tough training session preparing for a big competition, I love helping someone work towards reaching a goal or working on my own personal goals. And although all these things can be physically and mentally exhausting I couldn’t imagine not having these things fulfilling my drive and purpose in life.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.AlexWongTKD.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/alexwongtkd
- Youtube: www.YouTube.com/AlexWongTKD
