We were lucky to catch up with Alysha Cancino recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Alysha, thanks for joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I started learning martial arts from a young age of 4. My father owned Ascend Martial Arts – formerly Cancino’s Black Belt Academy – so I was already surrounded in an environment that gives me opportunities to be my best self. Although it was a family business, my parents never pressured me to start martial arts. It was something I wanted to do on my own. The rest is history from there.

I would say it’s thanks to first my family for pushing the core beliefs I should be practicing and teaching me who are the best people to surround myself with. That, along with martial arts – helped me learn not only how to be in control of my body, but also to be in control of my emotions. The most essential skill I’ve learned is applying myself every single day. Meaning to be a role model for everyone around me and to improve myself. Whether that improvement is the most trivial thing like remembering to drive the speed limit because I’m in no rush.

I did take a six year break from martial arts once I turned six-years-old. But the time off taught me a lesson that I wouldn’t want to skip out on. Coming back to my training, I regretted stopping while everyone else continued and decided to better themselves. Then I realized that everything happens for a reason. I learned what other activities and hobbies were out there. And most importantly, I learned to never regret any decisions I make. Because my biggest regret was stopping. It would be likely to say that training continuously may have sped up my learning process, but the possibilities are too endless to name if I did go down that road. Would I love martial arts as much as I do today? Would I still be the person who I am without the extra exploration? I’ve learned too much outside of martial arts that ended up helping me apply more skills into the craft itself.

The time I took not learning martial arts could be considered an obstacle to learning more. However, I think the biggest obstacle was myself. I often times get stuck in my head and question if what I’m doing is really the best for myself. In turn, I let the days pass by with no actual progress on any tasks I needed to get done. This is a cycle that happens, unfortunately, and I’m not going to say it won’t happen again in the future. However, I feel like every time I stumble upon this rock, I figure out a better, healthier way to overcome it. In the end, I’m more comfortable in my skin and embracing who I am as a self-actualizing person.

Alysha, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Alysha Cancino. I was born and raised in Reno, Nevada and I’m currently working as a martial arts instructor at Ascend Martial Arts. I’ve been doing martial arts for over ten years and I’m a fourth degree black belt as of writing this. I like to do other things like dancing, reading, and anything video related. I graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno with a Bachelors in Journalism with an emphasis in Video and Media Production on December 2024.

I got into martial arts because of self interest, not because my father owned Ascend Martial Arts (though it may have been a contributing factor). I’m the producer, co-videographer, and editor for our school’s mini documentaries that get posted on YouTube. My main job is to teach families – children and adults alike – martial arts and essential life skills so they feel the most confident in their day to day lives. I’m most proud of seeing everyone’s growth in the school whether I was a part of it or not. It reminds me of how I used to be the timid, shy kid on the playground growing up, and now I’m here. Besides that, I am proud of myself for graduating college while still doing my job to inspire my students that they can achieve anything so long as they want it.

Thanks to what I do, I’m able to not be so nervous when trying new things for myself. Before, I revolved my identity completely around martial arts. But I was able to find another healthy hobby like dance to expose my body in other ways martial arts can’t. The two activities work so well side by side with each other that I can no longer let go of either.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Ultimately, the mission driving my creative journey is to be the healthiest I can be mentally and physically in the long run. I was a pretty depressed and awkward teenager growing up, but I learned how to cope and be honest in the best ways possible. I have an amazing relationship with my parents and siblings, I’m able to open up to my friends, I can have a professional, yet friendly rapport with my students, and also be able to have appropriate self-recharging time. I know I am on the right path because everything that I’ve done up until this point is because of the decisions I made for myself. And I also know if I continue doing what I do, then I can be an even better person who is there for everyone, and especially herself – for a REALLY long time.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

A story I can never fail to share about myself is when I competed in my first ATA World Championships in July 2018. I competed for three events – forms, weapons, and sparring. The first two events were forms and weapons, and I unfortunately did not place in either events. The losses resulted in me feeling low in my confidence. However, I had my friend in the school, Leanne, hype me up and tell me that it wasn’t over yet. After I got my head in the game, I won all of my matches until it was the very last one. My heart raced, the entire day was getting to me, my adrenaline pumped like there was no tomorrow.

I won the match 5-0. I earned my first taekwondo world title in sparring.

To this day, I can never forget the excitement, relief, and joy I felt when the judges called the match over. I was tired and ready to be done with the day. But I taught myself that day that it’s not over until it’s over. Of course, everyone else around me who cheered me on and supported me helped me tremendously. However, at the end of the day, it’s my win. And it was won through resilience.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @azcancino, @ascendmartialarts
• Facebook: Alysha Cancino
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alysha-cancino/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ascendmartialarts

Image Credits

Ascend Martial Arts, Reynolds School of Journalism, Lexi Waisanen, Linda Hurkmans