Leap of Faith from White to Black
It was a game of thrones at the Nevada Taekwondo Club.
Sweat beaded on her forehead, her shoulders crouched low behind her raised fists. Eyes narrowed on the enemy with a focus so sharp it could puncture steel. She was on the brink of exhaustion, but that wasn’t going to stop her.
After all, she had a black belt around her waist.
“Say jak!” With the boom of the master’s voice, she kicked into gear.
Yet, she waited. She circled her enemy like a vulture with her feet bouncing on the mat, sizing him up. Her opponent rushed for a kick and she swiftly slid to avoid it. Then, in an explosion of action, she lunged forward with a kick, then another, and another — left, right. The dojang echoed with the snaps of her foot against his padded armor. She was a hurricane.
And then —
“Time!” The master stepped into the ring, separated the two. He pointed at her, “Winner!”
Faith Machuca was the king of the hill — or, rather, the queen.
She fought against several opponents of varying color belts before exhaustion got the best of her. Still, it wasn’t easy to knock her down.
It never has been.
The road to black belt is not an easy task, and it showed no mercy, especially for University of Nevada, Reno freshman Faith Machuca. Her experience predicted that it would normally take three to four years to earn the prestigious black belt in Taekwondo. Her journey took nearly seven years. Met with a huge setback, it would’ve been logical to quit. Yet, she fought forward.
Growing up, she has always been active, taking up water-skiing, fishing, snowboarding, and off-roading — just the usual. So it’s not a surprise that martial arts remains a significant portion of her daily life. Machuca began her training in Las Vegas. Though she remembers practicing since she was four years old, she admits to one thing that kept her going: her obsession with Nickelodeon’s Avatar: the Last Airbender.
“The show featured a lot of martial arts, and I wanted to do what the characters on the show were doing. So, my mom signed me up for Taekwondo and it was all over from there.”
Her passion for the sport grew as the years went on, and so did her ambition to compete in major tournaments. The school she had originally attended catered family-friendly, physical fitness martial arts rather than focus training for competition. So, after three years of training with that school, she decided she wanted to compete seriously. She moved to a school associated with the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) where she could specifically train to compete in major tournaments. By that time, she had earned her brown belt in her original school, two ranks away from achieving her black belt.
But, there was a catch. She had to restart down at a white belt level.
“You don’t understand how upset I was,” Machuca said. “I remember crying [about it]. But, I realized, it didn’t matter so much what belt you wore…It was the effort. You gotta work for what you want.”
Despite the setback, Machuca definitely achieved her goal: competition. Nothing could slow her down. If anything, this stoked her passion to train harder. She competed in her first tournament with her green belt at her new school, and she was unstoppable.
“Yeah — I have quite a bit of gold medals.”
ROAD TO BLACK BELT
The white belt was tied around her waist for six months. It was time.
“You’ve got this — you’ve got the strength, you’re just kidding yourself.” Her master held the wooden board out with tense arms, waiting encouragingly.
“No, I’m gonna break my foot.”
The little girl stared at the board, the only thing standing between her and her yellow belt. She was clearly afraid, but she was determined. The small girl picked up her leg and kicked — only to have her foot bounce clean off the surface with a soft tap!
Again: tap! And again: tap!
Three strikes and she’s out. The board was still intact, so the belt was staying for another week.
But not if she could help it. Each week she failed, her board grew harder, petrifying, making it more difficult for her to break through. She wasn’t going to let that happen. After practice, she stood again in front of the board, her master holding it up.
Forty-five minutes of trial and error later, crack!
Four-year-old Faith Machuca had just broken her first wooden board in Taekwondo.
Fast forward five years later, she found herself standing before a cinder block.
“For your first dan black belt test, you have to break a cinder block regardless of your age, and if you can’t do it, you don’t pass,” Machuca said, now seventeen, recalling her experience. Because of such a difficult physical demand, not many young children at her age can break the cinder block.
Yet, at 9 years old, Machuca had worked tirelessly through the ranks, competing and training, with her eyes fixed on the black belt.
“That was really hard to train for. It’s hard to keep me motivated for certain things…but Taekwondo, I’ve always been motivated. Taekwondo was my entire life and world.”
Fueled by an obsession to compete and physically see herself improve, Machuca kept going. The color belt system of Taekwondo provided tangible proof of improvement and effort through the ranks. After all, the belts are earned, not purchased.
“If you’re a black belt, people know you’ve put at least four years into the sport.”
The criteria to become a first degree (or “dan”) black belt? There are many: know all forms from every color belt rank and perform them flawlessly, memorize philosophies and recite them, spar for three rounds, deliver a speech, and break a cinder block.
No problem.
Four-year-old Faith would have run away from the cinder block. But every time Machuca tightened her black belt around her waist for practice with Nevada, everyone knows that yeah, she broke it.
“It was crazy. That was definitely one of the highlights of my life.”
With her name engraved in golden letters, the black belt was hers.
THE WAY OF FIST AND FOOT: A LEARNING PROCESS
With her black belt, Machuca said her journey influenced her as a person. She described herself as a “really bad kid” until she began to see a change in herself when she was 10 years old. She began to treat others differently and hold herself to a higher standard. Machuca doesn’t know what kind of person she would be without Taekwondo.
“I can’t just fly under the radar and call it a day with no one paying attention,” she said. “People do care what you think. Not in a bad, self conscious way, but more of a respectful way. People are gonna look at you regardless of your age, your gender, your personal life, background…because you’re gonna have that black belt around your waist. So I can’t let them down.”
Unfortunately, during her high school years, Machuca endured a long four-year hiatus, with her parents pushing her to build her resume with other activities. Back then, there was only one thing on it: Taekwondo. She began doing school sports such as track and field, cross country, and golf, hoping it would impress colleges. But when she returned to her beloved sport the summer after her graduation, she couldn’t have been more relieved.
Being away made her realize that she’s “doing this for the rest of my life, or until I’m physically unable to do it.”
Now a freshman at the University of Nevada, Reno, she continues to practice martial arts with the Nevada Taekwondo Club, a community she has grown to love. Trying to balance responsibilities as a college student and training in the martial arts puts her priorities in order: Taekwondo first, study later.
“If I could marry Taekwondo, I would. I love that sport.”
Though she already has her black belt, Machuca isn’t slowing down. Within the next semester, she will test for her second dan black belt. Master Ron Tanner of First Taekwondo has been teaching classes for the Nevada Taekwondo club, and he sees her relentless dedication.
“As a person, she’s a dork,” he said. “As a martial artist, she’s very good, and she’s very deserving of that belt promotion. She’s probably more committed to Taekwondo than she is with anything else in her life.”
While Machuca had several masters along the road to black belt, Taekwondo remains her primary teacher. It had taught her discipline, respect, and perseverance. According to Master Tanner, perhaps the most important lesson the sport has taught her — and can teach anybody — is learning how to take a hit. Boy does she know.
“Life throws punches at everybody,” Master Tanner said. “Coming [to Taekwondo] and learning how to take a physical punch prepares you to take the punches and the kicks that life will throw at you. [You] learn that when you get punched or kicked, you don’t go down for the count. You have to get back up, you have to fight back and you have to keep fighting.”
Faith Machuca definitely hasn’t stopped and probably never will.
