Adaeze Efobi: Nigeria’s certified nurse turned taekwondo teacher

It’s not precisely regular for a nurse to spend her time kicking and punching folks – however then Adaeze Efobi is not any abnormal medic.

Efobi fell in love with taekwondo whereas watching it on tv aged seven, however didn’t have the chance to compete till she was 22.

”I informed my dad and mom I used to be concerned with taekwondo however again then they believed martial arts had been a type of hooliganism,” Efobi informed BBC Sport Africa.

“I performed basketball and soccer and likewise participated in race strolling whereas in secondary college.”

Born and introduced up in Lagos, it was solely as soon as Efobi was settled at Ebonyi State College, the place she was finding out for a nursing diploma, that she was in a position to realise a childhood dream.

“In my second 12 months, my classmates had been having a soccer match with one other class. I simply appeared throughout and noticed a bunch of scholars doing taekwondo, sporting their dobok [uniform] and their belts,” Efobi remembered.

“I went to their coaching session, did the required paperwork and began. I discovered that the fervour I had on the tender age of seven was nonetheless there.”

Now each a professional nurse and taekwondo teacher, Efobi believes the game has helped her in life, notably concerning self-discipline.

“Rising up as a baby, I couldn’t specific myself however I needed to endure a variety of coaching to right that,” she mentioned.

“I discovered that mature folks use their mouth, they do not use their arms. That is self-discipline, and I began making it half and parcel of my life.

“I’m a greater individual if I examine myself now to how I used to be earlier than. Breaking by means of these limitations, I noticed myself doing sure issues that amazed me and my household after they discovered that I used to be doing taekwondo.”

Bringing nursing into taekwondo

Nigerian taekwondo grandmaster Ferguson Oluigbo believes Efobi has an edge over fellow fighters given her background in nursing.

“I’m a day she is going to go together with the nationwide group to the Olympics – not simply as a colleague however as a medical skilled,” Oluigbo mentioned.

“She goes to compete and he or she can also be going to be on the bottom aiding the medical group. She understands what is going to occur to your leg when you’re doing taekwondo – totally different from a nurse or a physician who doesn’t know something about sports activities.

“She goes to say ‘no, that factor you might be touching isn’t the ache, that is the place the ache is coming from’ as a result of she understands it.”

Oluigbo is an skilled coach of Olympians, having been among the many instructors who helped Chika Chukwumerije win a bronze medal on the 2008 Beijing Video games.

Efobi, in the meantime, has received a number of middleweight titles and hopes to grow to be nationwide champion in her class.

She additionally competes in poomsae – a non-combat model of the martial artwork the place you run by means of a sequence of strikes and assaults – and instructs at a Pan African Martial Arts Worldwide (Panamai) college, the place she will be able to mix the 2 issues she loves most.

“I’m following my ardour, which is being a taekwondo teacher, however I’m bringing nursing into taekwondo – I handle accidents throughout taekwondo coaching,” she mentioned.

“I imagine being a nurse is with the ability to assist folks and you do not have to work within the hospital to assist folks. I can work in an organization, a health club or wherever I need to.

“Because the saying goes, do what makes you content; I really like nursing and I’ve a robust ardour for taekwondo.”

Saving lives and constructing a legacy

Efobi works as a cell nurse and remembers one explicit incident that had a profound affect on her want to assist others.

“I used to be getting back from treating a baby and there was this motorcyclist who had been hit by a automotive,” she mentioned.

“I witnessed the incident and I used to be within the midst of individuals, pushing them again, making an attempt to make them not contact him.

“I used to be speaking to him, reassuring him, checking for damaged bones. He was bleeding.

“My thoughts was in chaos. It was like ‘he is bleeding, you do not have gloves’. However I needed to save his life.

“What I did was dangerous. Ideally, I should not be touching physique fluids with out gloves. I simply needed to improvise, took clothes, tore it and demobilised the positioning.

“He had a fracture. I moved it considerably to tie the limbs collectively. Another passers-by and I took him to the closest hospital. I’m comfortable the person lived to see one other day.”

Efobi hopes her mixed life experiences can resonate far and broad as she encounters a various vary of sufferers in her nursing profession and trains folks from white belt to black belt in taekwondo.

“Ultimately, I need to have a legacy the place some day we in our Panamai faculties in West Africa will all come collectively to see all of the masters and grandmasters the organisation has produced,” she mentioned.

“I see us sitting down and all people in an image. It is a factor of pleasure.”