Adalis Munoz is 3 time World Champion in Freestyle poomsae. She’s been Female Freestyle MVP in 2014 and 2018 World Championships and Bronze in the Summer World University Games.

The first World Poomsae Taekwondo Championships was celebrated in 2006. But freestyle poomsae had to wait until 2012 to make its first appearance in World Championships.

Probably if we see Poomsae in the Olympics, we’re gonna see it in a Freestyle way.

Because it is the most popular for the audience and is one of the sides of taekwondo growing most.

The competition consists of a “free” routine with certain compulsory elements, some moves, acrobacies, jump kicks and sparring steps.

Is an evolving discipline with a higher level each year. That’s why being a world champion must be a very hard achievement.

To be a three time World Champion must be quite harder.


Adalis is a sport lover. She started playing soccer and karate when she was younger and the moving to taekwondo.

Her first taekwondo class in life was with a Grand Master Myong Sok Namkung Mayes who was a very influential person for her taekwondo life.

She enjoyed so much her first class, that when it was over she didn’t want to get back home.

She loved so much all the kicks that the class was doing that she wanted to go straight to the advanced kicks and drills. That was her first contact with taekwondo.

GM Myong Sok Namking Mayes was a very strict instructor.

Adalis remembers when she was asked to do a technique 100 times as homework and she only did the half thinking her grandmaster wouldn't notice.

For her surprise she noticed it and made her do the 100 techniques plus another 100.

Self funding, self training, and self studying as an opportunity to grow.

For certain new disciplines, is hard to find support from governments and sports federations. So, the career of Adalis has been family funded.

Adalis beginnings in freestyle were not easy and of course not comfortable. She had to train outdoors in her home dojang.

A lesson for all of us. We don’t have to wait until we have the conditions.

We have to create the conditions.

And they also have made important decisions.

One thing that Adalis considers influenced a lot in her results is that she did homeschooling. That let her train the hours she required for high performance.

But that home schooling was not an obstacle for her future studies.

She is about to graduate from college and she says that self training and self studying make her more disciplined to do necessary stuff when she has to do it.

How to manage what you can’t control?

You can plan everything. You can think that you are ready for your competition. But you can’t control everything.

There are always things outside our control.

In her first World Championships Adalis injured her wrist at one of the first practice before the competition.

What would you do then? Start to cry?

She thought of all the people that trusted her. All the people that put that effort for her in the fundraising.

She modified her routine to perform with the injured wrist. And she won the first place. The World Championships.

Back in the US she had her wrist checked by a doctor and realized that it was broken.

To do that you must have certain adaptation capacity. Bravery also, that’s one of the strengths of Adalis that she is not afraid to perform certain acrobacies.
An usual common thing in successful athletes… Family support.

But there is another very important thing. If you are not an athlete with a multidisciplinary team behind you (and sometimes even if you are): Family support.

Like in our interview with Nikita Glasnovic, Adalis sport psychologist is her mom.

Always pushing her in a good way to be brave and to accomplish the goals she dreams of.

For example, for her first National Championships she didn’t want to do freestyle, even when she loved it.

She was afraid because she didn’t know the rules quite well.

Her mom convinced her to participate and she ended as 1st place earning her spot for the World Taekwondo Championships.

With her family, Adalis also teaches taekwondo in their dojang Texas Forge Taekwondo wand she also recently launched a YouTube channel where she teaches and share her World Class Poomsae experience.

I hope you will enjoy and learn from the adventure of Adalis. As you would hear, she is always looking for the next challenge.

Enjoy the interview.