They had the courage to start. They dared to dream. Gidday, I'm Steve. In 2014, an AMP scholarship helped me pursue my dream ` inspiring kids to love our ocean. Junior world tae kwon do champ Frances Lloyd's dream is to show the world she can do it again and defend her title. With an AMP scholarship now under her belt and the biggest smile on her face, this awesome young 15-year-old's well on her way. FUNKY MUSIC The world champs in Italy. It was amazing. I didn't think that I'd ever win. I was 15. I was going over for experience. I had no idea what was gonna be there. I had no idea who I was fighting, be it Germany, Argentina. I didn't know how high I was gonna have to jump or how hard I was gonna have to hit the boards. I didn't actually realise that I'd won until my coach came over and said, 'You've just got gold.' And I just crumbled to the ground, and I was just, like, crying and, you know, it was crazy. But the world champs is what I do; it's not who I am. BIRDS SING BANGING BANGING CONTINUES I know that what I'm doing is hard, and the fact that I'm able to do it and it's not easy gives me that boost. This is my conditioning. If I don't do this, then hitting the boards will hurt. So it hurts now; it doesn't hurt later. It's gonna push me to my limits, but if it was easy, everyone could do it, and I'm not everyone. I'm Frances. And I want it to get to a point like now, like, my hand's, like, vibrating a little bit. Like, the bones are moving. And that's what I want. I want it to feel hot, cos then I know it's working. Frances has got a bit of mongrel in her. She's from a farm. (LAUGHS) So, yeah, she's got that` that fighting spirit. She's got that mongrel. I was always one of those girls that was down on the back field playing rugby with the boys. I was never up playing hopscotch or anything. Skipping? (SCOFFS) Nah. No way! (LAUGHS) Who needs to skip when you can tackle big boys? When I first started tae kwon do, it was just another everyday thing that I did. Once I'd been doing it for four or five years, I just (SNAPS FINGERS) clicked. I was like, 'Worlds is right there. I have to grade to black belt to be able to do it, and I wanna do it.' I like individual sports. Tae kwon do was an individual sport, and I like that because I only have to rely on myself, and I can push myself, and I can break myself without having to blame anyone else or being blamed for something that I did. This one right here, this was the first one I'd ever won. It's not even a first place. It's a sportsmanship award. It's probably the most important one. Last year, I got best overall junior female black belt. This was the first tournament that I'd represented myself as a black belt in in NZ. I wasn't seen as the new girl any more. I was seen as that girl that went overseas and blew everyone out of the water. And... it was almost as if... everyone was looking at me and... I had to do everything right. Pretty scary. OK, this one reminds me of how much AMP has helped me, and it's just an honour to have been chosen by them to live my dream as world champ. I'm putting this scholarship towards my travel over to Budapest at the end of the year. We're also using it to get up to Auckland every Sunday to train with the squad, and I'll be able to put more time into my training instead of fundraising and... spending all that time trying to gather the money together. This is the first medal that I ever won. It was in the Star Series in Auckland 2010. I actually got concussed while I was winning this. I got kicked, and I fell over and hit my head. I always keep it by my bedside, because it reminds me of where I've come from and how far I still have to go. And all these medals up here, there's quite a few golds in there, but I never look for the gold. I look for the bronze, I look for the silver, because the silver and the bronze is the 'almost'. You just need a little bit of almost. Sometimes it gets hard, though. You see a lot of gold and you get really excited. But then you've gotta step back, look and then you see that you did have almosts, and you think about those times, and then that gets you to those golds. (SIGHS) This one probably has the most meaning currently for me. Holding this up in front of my whole team was just breathtaking. It was just surreal. It meant so much. I don't know how to explain it into words. GENTLE MUSIC BIRDS SING GENTLE MUSIC Frances is really humble about things. No one at her school knew that she was junior world champion, women's world champion, because she didn't tell anybody. And it wasn't because she was embarrassed. It's just that she didn't think that... she... needed that big-ups, that praise, all that stuff, because she just went over there and did what she did, you know? It's her job to go over there and do that with the team, and, yeah, she was just doing her job. I didn't tell my school for ages about my title. I didn't really want them to know. I am a world champion, but I don't like to be called that, because I'm Frances, and I wanna just stay Frances. I wanna be known as that really tall chick that everyone has a laugh with, not that world champion. 'Don't talk to the world champion.' ALARM BEEPS Monday, I'll wake up, 6 o'clock. Bus at quarter past 7. I'll go to school. School finishes at 3.20. Come home. Do homework. Jobs around the house. Go out on to the farm, do stuff out there, and then leave at 5 for training. The mini kids class goes for about 40 minutes. And then I've got my own training from 6 to 8'clock, and then I come home, eat dinner, and then I go straight to bed. Tuesday, get up a 6 o'clock. I might go for a run. I might not. Depends how I'm feeling. Bus, quarter past 7. Normal day at school, but I won't come home on the bus. I'll to the gym. We do arms. We do legs. We do everything that I need to be strong for my competition. Come home. Do my homework, then dinner, then bed. I'll go for a run on a Wednesday. I've got this very hilly 5K track that really kills me. But it's a good kill. Like,... it pushes me to my limits, which I need. Thursday, 6 o'clock wake-up call, as always. Bus, and then I'll go to school. Straight after school, gym training is from 3 to 5. Then I've got a mini kids till 6, and then I've got my own training. So I start out my day at 6 o'clock. My day goes till 8. I come home. I'm usually too tired to talk, and I just go to sleep. Friday, rest day. Saturday it's just family day, so I'll just hang out with my family, and I usually go watch my brother play rugby, cos he's really good at it. Sunday, I've got a 4am wake-up call. (SIGHS) Out of here by quarter to 5. And I have to be up in Auckland by 8 o'clock. I have a two-hour training with my high-performance squad, which consists of high-intensity sparring or high-intensity specialty. So I have time with my coaches to go over technique and anything I need to work on during the week at training. Monday morning it starts again. (CHUCKLES) It's pretty hard out. UPBEAT MUSIC, ALARM BEEPS 1 INTRIGUING MUSIC Morgan takes Frances to Auckland early on a Sunday morning, probably about 4 o'clock-ish to get there for 8 o'clock training. Morning, Franna. Come on. Time to get up. We gotta go to training. Sometimes it does require a poke and a 'get up', like, 'Get out of bed, Frances.' She's a teenage girl who gets tired, who gets grumpy, who sometimes loses the plot, which is normal, you know? I'd be worried if she didn't. I'd be like, 'Ooh.' I'm so tired. But, no, she does need a prod occasionally and a little reminder of, you know, 'You chose to do tae kwon do. Up you get. It's time.' That just shows the commitment that my dad has. Because I'm only 16, I don't have a licence, so he needs to get me there every Sunday. Takes the time out of his week to run me to all of these trainings. That time in the car travelling to Auckland and home again, it is nice for them to have that, because then they get to talk, without arguing, and it's lovely. And sometimes Frances will come home and tell me about the conversation she's had with her dad, travelling up and back and how they laughed and how much fun they've had. Morgan doesn't tell me things like that, though. (CHUCKLES) Which is OK. Fine. Talk about school, tae kwon do, play a lot of games, listen to a lot of music. I try to give her a little bit of guidance here and there where I can. My dad is... infuriating. He gets me really angry, but, honestly, I couldn't think of anyone else to share my sport with, because he wants the best for me, and his little bits of advice that he gives me and everything, I know is always to benefit me, even though I might not want it at that time. Like, in the middle of training he'll come up to me and say, 'Oh, you need to do this.' And I'll be like... smile and wave. I see it my way. I tell her it my way, and she goes, 'No.' Cos I'm Dad, it's always no. She's quite stubborn like her dad. Actually, they're quite similar people. Too much like me probably. We're both as stubborn as each other. Morgan loves her to pieces. She's his girl, but he'll probably never tell her that. (CHUCKLES) And she does love her dad. She loves him a lot, you know. And she'll probably never tell him that either! But I can see it. Yeah. Once I started to train with the high-performance crew, I realised that this is a whole new level of tae kwon do, and I love it. She's a gifted athlete. She really is. And it's got not so much to do with her height ` that's an important feature ` but it's because she just keeps trying. She's not untouchable. She gets knocked down. She gets hit around. But she's got a lot of heart. My role mainly has been getting her to black belt. And once she got to black belt, she passed out of my area of instructing. My role now is to make sure she stays on track, doesn't get a fat head, and she remembers where she came from. BOARD CLATTERS Tae kwon do isn't just a martial art; it's a way of life. Tae kwon do actually means 'foot hand way'. INTRIGUING MUSIC There are four disciplines in tae kwon do, which are specialities, power, sparring and patterns. Breaking is the mental aspect in tae kwon do. You have to condition your body and you have to condition your mind, otherwise you're not gonna be very good at it. In the 18 months preparing for Italy, I broke over 500 boards a week. Just getting myself in that rhythm, getting myself technically correct, so that when it came to the day, I didn't need to stress, because my body knew what to do. Specialty is the jumping up and kicking things way up in the air. You need to be really physically fit for this one, because it's all about jumping up as high as you can. Some people think that breaking and specialty aren't really the main parts of tae kwon do. Like, patterns and sparring always comes first. But those two are my favourite, because I'm a specialty girl. I love breaking things. It's just what I do. In sparring, you're put in a ring verse another person. It's touch contact. A punch to the head or the body is one point, a kick to the head is three points, and a kick to the body is two points. I started sparring when I was about 7 or 8, and I was a little peewee, and I was so frightened to get in the ring, because you get in the ring with someone that you don't know, and you're hitting them and they're hitting you. And I actually used to get quite upset, because... I didn't want to get hit, and I didn't want to hit the other person. But once I realised that I wasn't actually fully punching them out and I was just touch contact, then I actually grew to enjoy what I was doing in the ring. No matter who you're in the ring with, it's always intense, because you're in there to win. You're in there to beat your opponent, but not to beat them up. UPBEAT MUSIC Yep! CHILDREN GRUNT SOFTLY Yep! CHILDREN GRUNT SOFTLY The ability to give back in tae kwon do is very great. Because I've been overseas and I've had all this coaching from the top people in NZ, I love to give back to my students and anyone that's willing to listen, because I'm spreading the knowledge of tae kwon do, and that's all I want. Yep! I don't think she gets the glory or the fun out of being able to jump and kick high or beat somebody at sparring or whatever. She gets the fuzzies from teaching the kids to actually do a kick. It's the camaraderie and all that other side of it ` the empathy side. And she gets that much pleasure out of being friendly with everybody, and that sort of stuff is, I think, more Frances that being the world champ. It's more motivating to her than... being the world champ. What makes me happy is seeing the look on my students' faces when they accomplish something that they've been trying to do. That's what I look for ` their face. 1 TRACTOR ENGINE RUMBLES We live on a farm, so there's heaps of chores around. I help Granny and Grandad with the cows in calving season, which is usually July to September. So I'll go over, feed milk in the morning, feed meal in the afternoons, and once they are old enough to go out into the paddocks, I'll help Grandad move them round and feed out there as well. And then we sell them at 100kg. Growing up on a farm, it's given me so much knowledge about my surroundings. And I can incorporate what I've learned with my grandad in the back paddock into just everyday life. Living in the country teaches you the realer side of life. It gives me an edge of never giving up, because if you're chasing a cow down that paddock, it is not gonna give up. It's just gonna keep going. And that's what I kinda like to bring to my competition. I love being a country girl. I couldn't imagine myself as anything else. Training does come first, but I always make time for the farm, because it helps me to get away. It helps me to take a step back, recoup. Here, chook-chook. HENS SQUAWK FUNKY MUSIC Today we're at the Oceania Championships. People from Australia and the Cook Islands and Papua New Guinea have come to compete. I look forward to this competition because it gives me the opportunity to see where I'm at and where I need to go in a competition kind of way, because training isn't like getting on the floor. In this kind of atmosphere, in this kind of level, it's completely different. Nationals is just a step on the way to Budapest, and she's put that plan in place with national coaches. Budapest, in Hungary, is the next step towards Ireland. I'm feeling all right. I prepared myself as well as I could, so I just hope it was enough. I haven't been in a big tournament like this in a while. So I'm kind of a bit... I'm really nervous. (CHUCKLES) It's kinda just a weight of expectation on myself. I wanna do good. It is a really important day, because I can... get with my teammates again ` the ones that I'm going to Budapest with ` and I can see where they're at and I can see where I'm at. And it's basically a wake-up call to tell me... it's getting closer, and it's time to start working harder. FUNKY MUSIC Tight enough? Yep. Because I actually do the sport myself and understand what it's about, I've never been worried about her going in the ring or being hurt. AUDIENCE YELL Frances has struggled a lot with the sparring, cos she's actually very compassionate, and what she used to worry about the most was going in and hurting the other people. I've seen her in tears before going into the ring because she didn't want to hurt people. Come on, Frances! It's scoring points. It's not fighting. You gotta score the points. Yeah, I know, but it's hard when she's bawling, like... Yes, but this is what you gotta deal with. Side kick. Bang! Make the move. And if they move, you go again. There's nothing like being in there. No. Whatever we do at club is still not like that. That's what makes it awesome. FUNKY MUSIC AUDIENCE YELL Come on! FUNKY MUSIC CONTINUES I don't really care whether she medals or not. I said that to her when she went away to the last world champs ` 'Go and have fun. 'Just whatever happens on the day, happens on the day, and you gave it your best shot.' Now she's gotta try and peak on the day again. Come on. You can do it! Just like the other thousand people that are going there to do the same thing, so... you go and do what you can for the day, and if it's not good enough on the day, it's not good enough on the day. I'm proud of anyone that puts themselves in the ring to be able to do that. FUNKY MUSIC CHEERING, APPLAUSE My job with her is basically done. I'm just enjoying the time I still have with her while she still comes to training and is at club. When she gets a little older, goes to university, goes and does whatever, she'll go. Hope she'll always comes back. I hope you come back, Frances. She'll always come back. Tae kwon do is my life. (CHUCKLES) It's... my rock. It's... what gets me through everything, because it's something that I can always go back to. And I'm always gonna remember what tae kwon do has taught me, because those lessons are what's gonna get me through my life. She's just blossomed, really, in that last two or three years. But,... yeah, she was always gonna be a star in my eyes, anyway. REFLECTIVE MUSIC I don't like to be known as the world champion, because the world championships is what I do, it's not who I am. It's just Frances, because that's who I am. You know? You know what I mean? (CHUCKLES) INSPIRING MUSIC Captions by Ingrid Lauder. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016