Nathan Stark 1st Degree Black Belt

My name is Nathan Stark. I am a 14 year old boy testing for 1st degree black belt and I have done Kungfu for over 8 years. For me Kungfu has not just been a class but a journey. It has taught me practice, discipline and resilience. Kungfu has taught me to work hard in math and persevere when it got difficult. It has helped me to work hard and push myself everyday guiding me through the years teaching me necessary skills.

I would like to speak about Kung Fu's overall positive impacts on my physical growth. I chose this since even to this day I work to improve my body every day. Throughout the years, Kung Fu has been a primary contributor to my physical health supporting my strength, balance, coordination, endurance and much more. To better explain, I have seen consistent improvements in areas like strength and endurance especially in these later years.

One example that demonstrates my growth is my running. Over the past couple months, my mile times have decreased significantly from 6 minutes and 46 seconds all the way down to 6 minutes and 14 seconds. This has been a huge improvement in my cardio showing how viable Kung Fu is to my physical capabilities. However, this didn't just come from Kung Fu alone, it came from slowly building my endurance overtime bringing me up to this point. In my opinion, many people can learn from my experience showing that Kung Fu is an excellent way to improve physical health. People can learn that the more you put in the more you get back reemphasizing the idea that hard work pays off. This can also teach that no matter what, as long as you stay consistent you will grow. Like I have said before, Kung Fu isn't just a class but a journey.

Overall, Kung Fu has had nothing but benefits to my physical growth being not just a class but a journey. Always having something new to teach, Kung Fu has life long benefits that anyone can learn from. I would like to thank my family for supporting me my whole life and Shifu Andy and Vincent for guiding me along the way.

Some final thoughts I would like to say is that consistency is progress no matter the speed.