A fourth-degree black belt in Taekwondo writes Rayna Vallandingham in her Instagram bio with 3.7 million followers, she is also the 13-time world champion! She traces her ancestry to India, as her mother hails from there, while she has a Dutch-origin father, leaving her looking nothing like a fully Indian or fully Dutch. At 21, she can take down a man twice her size.
This is because she has been practising Taekwondo at the age of 2, encouraged by her grandfather. By the age of 8, she won her first American Taekwondo Association World Championship and became one of the youngest black belts to achieve this feat. She has earned 13 American Taekwondo Association world titles in traditional combat and weapons like bo staff and nun chucks.
A Shy Kid To World Champion In a recent interview, she shared that she was a shy kid, and this is why she was put into martial arts that would break out of her shell. She revealed that in the beginning, she would hide under a bench in the dojo for 6 months before taking her first class. Outside her school and her Taekwondo class, she spent most of her time with her grandfather.
She said that she trained all day before she started kindergarten. After she joined the school, she would come back to school and return for martial arts training in the evening. And the hard work paid off.
When she was only 9, she broke the world record for the most world titles won in a single year. It was 6 in total, and with a 'triple crown' by winning first place in a.
