Wilton has a new gold medal-winning national martial arts champion, and she’s only 11-years-old.

At the beginning of July, rising seventh grader Emily Fields competed at the Taekwondo National Championships in San Jose, CA and won a gold medal in the 12-14 year old girls’ Board Breaking category. This is her second year in a row winning a medal at the Nationals, having received a bronze medal in Weapons last year.

Clearly, Emily was born to compete and win. She’s been studying martial arts since the age of 4, starting off with karate, and then switching over to tae kwon do when she was five. Her teacher is Master Jeong at the World Champion Taekwando Dojo in Ridgefield.

“She complained if we missed a class or if we were running late, even when she was little. Even now, at 11, I have to be on time and she gets everything ready. Usually that’s not her,” Emily’s mom, Rocio, laughs. “She’s usually really relaxed about everything. Everything else is secondary to tae kwon do, we can’t be late! It’s was just natural with her.”

Perhaps the drive was something Emily inherited from her mom, who also was a martial arts student as a child.

“I wanted to be a black belt, but I never got to the level she has, as a first degree black belt. It was scary to see how genetics plays a role in nature, to see that she has the same drive for martial arts. I never envisioned this when she was born but it’s exciting to see my daughter take one of my dreams and just fly with it.”

To watch their daughter compete and then triumph at the competitive level was even more thrilling for Rocio and her husband, Howard. “It was exciting because we could see her passion flourish into a higher level. For Emily, we felt it was right for her. She doesn’t get nervous about anything, so it was comforting to know that she could handle it, and it’s not something that would make her anxious. It was great to see her hard work is paying off. She takes lessons 3-4 times a week. To see her practice, even when we go to a store, she’s practicing and throwing kicks around!”

In order to participate in Nationals, Emily had to first qualify at the regionals during the Connecticut State Championships in East Haven last March; not only did she medal, but she won three golds, in Poomsae (Forms), Board Breaking and Weapons.

The whole family traveled to California, including Emily’s 9-year-old brother, R.J., to cheer her on as she competed in Board Breaking and Poomsae. Although she’s still 11 years old, Emily competed in the 12-14 year old class against older girls.

“That was concerning to us, especially at the end of the Breaking competition. After the girls compete, they call up the three winners, for gold, silver and bronze medals. At first, Emily wasn’t called up in the three, but then they also called Emily, so I was totally confused with four girls. But it turns out that there was a tie between two girls who got bronze. So when we saw that Emily earned gold we were just floored, especially because she was the youngest. She broke every single board. Only one other girl broke all the boards. That was just amazing!” recalls her mom.

According to Emily the most important skill required for such success in Breaking is accuracy. “It’s all about hitting the board in the right spot. You have to focus on the board and remember what you’re going to be breaking.” Emily broke 26 boards in succession to win the gold medal.

“I was definitely happy,” she said.

Competing is something that Emily really enjoys, but she says it’s a sport that’s always challenging to her, no matter what. “I never get bored. I like breaking the boards and learning these new, cool kicks. I learn interesting, hard-to-do kicks.”

Come October, Emily will face a test to see if she can progress up to second-degree black belt, something she’s training very hard to do. That’s in addition to being a seventh grader at Middlebrook who also swims and plays golf. Her friends are very supportive and help her with the balance.

“They called me a lot when I was in California, asking, ‘How are you doing?’ and ‘Did you get a medal?’”

She does have some advice for younger martial arts students:  “If you want to start off, it’s going to be really hard to quit because you see how much fun it is. It can take you great places and if you stick with it, you can get really far with it.”

As for going far with martial arts herself, Emily is hoping to continue competing in such national championships, but sadly, because Olympic-level competition involves sparring rather than skill competition, she says it’s likely she won’t pursue that.

“In sparring, there’s head contact and I don’t like doing that.”

Smart choices from a smart, skilled kid, especially one who isn’t quite sure what she wants to be when she grows up.

“Through my life, I want to stick with tae kwon do, but when I grow up my first choice is to be a teacher and my second choice is to be an engineer.”