Lebanon's 12-year-old martial arts prodigy, Joshua Aguirre , has again brought home gold medals at a national competition, and for the second year in a row, he qualified for the AAU National team as he continues to work towards his goal of one day competing in the Olympics.
Aguirre and his mother, Milena Escolar, were in Fort Lauderdale from June 30 to July 4 for the 2024 AAU Taekwondo National Championship, where he competed in a number of events, bringing home a total of six medals and three additional awards.
Competing on the first day in point sparring, his first year doing so, Aguirre placed first in his division, qualifying him for the sparring AAU National Team.
He has been training in point sparring for the last several months with Miguel 'Thunderkick' Lopez.
Some of his matches, he said, were won by point-gap, meaning the match was ended because he was nine points ahead of his competitor.
Both he and his mom are anxiously waiting to see if he has also qualified this year for the forms team.
Despite an injury he suffered late last year, he planned to begin training for point sparring earlier this year, something that he had earlier decided to put off because of his age and size.
Going through the injury, he said, was tough. It was the first time he wasn't able to train the way that he wanted to, but he described it as somewhat of a transformative period for his progress.
"But overall, I think it really help me improve how I see things in a different way, how I think of things in a different way. Like, for example, I started to work harder after the injury because I wanted to get better immediately, so I could do what I wanted to do. That helped me be able to improve on everything, my technique, my well-being."
In the two days of competition that followed, Aguirre competed in creative weapons forms, traditional weapons forms, traditional forms, Tang Soo Do and open division, receiving gold medals in those events as well.
He also received the traditional forms best male athlete of the year during the events gala awards, was named the grand champion in point sparring for his age group and received the indomitable spirit award.
The year that Aguirre is 15, he will be able qualify to compete in the junior division, which will allow him to begin to aggregate points, gained from medaling at qualifying events, towards going to the Olympics.
Because his birthday is in December, it is likely that he will be one of the youngest people competing in the junior division when the time comes, according to Escolar.
While the path is still relatively unclear, the earliest Olympic games he would be able to qualify for would be the 2028 Summer Olympics, held in Los Angeles, California.
"I feel very confident. I feel focused, I feel calm that I can achieve anything that I put my mind to. Being the youngest in the group, I feel like it's more of an advantage because i'll have more energy and more endurance," he said. "It truly just depends. I never feel scared, I never feel afraid, I never feel uncalm. I just focus on the task at hand"
Beyond the Olympics, Aguirre is still looking toward one day opening his own studio and building his foundation, Joshua Aguirre Foundation . Recently, the foundation has been able to donate equipment to in-need martial arts students in Columbia.
On Aug. 3, he will be out with the foundation holding an exercise activity for kids during that annual Back-to-School Festival .
Daniel Larlham Jr. is a reporter for the Lebanon Daily News. Reach him at DLarlham@LDNews.com or on X @djlarlham.
This article originally appeared on Lebanon Daily News: Lebanon martial arts phenom brings home gold, qualifies for AAU National Team
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