Filipina boxer, known as Baby Dynamite Sport values sports more than music as she says sports gives opportunities to change lives.
Rica Aquino is a professional boxer and violinist, what makes her stand out is that she started out boxing later in life.
She said : “I wasn’t really allowed to watch sports because I was playing the violin, my parents were weary of me trying out sports seriously.”
Aquino still plays in an orchestra as a guest musician and teaches music online but her preference is sports over music.
She said : “Now that I can do both, I feel like I don’t need to choose but I would choose sports- because I can be a boxer or a sportscaster. Music is something I didn’t really choose, I feel like it was chosen for me. I chose sports.”
The challenge this Filipina boxer is facing is getting fights as there are not enough female professional boxers in the Philippines, so much so she must find fighters abroad.
She said: “Now compared to when I started two years ago there has been one new pro boxer, the number hasn’t really grown here..”
The professional boxer explained that in the Philippines before you can fight abroad you have to fight locally.
The MMA fighter also disclosed that through the training she does she feels empowered as a woman.
She said: “To be honest, I think I enjoy training more than fighting, fighting gives me jitters and I get a lot of feelings rolled into one but training is something I really enjoy.”
In her spare time, Rica Aquino coaches young girls to box for free. It’s her dream to have her own gym to teach the new female generation martial arts.
She said: “My goal is to start teaching younger girls so they can start the sport early, the trend here is that girls start the sport late as no one wants to train them. It’s kinda taboo here to take part in the sport.”
Rica Aquino shared that one of her reasons for wanting to coach boxing for free is because her coach never charged her and he has been coaching her every day since 2017.
As one of the few female boxers in the Philippines and the only athlete in her family, she finds it very important to coach young girls that are wishing to take up sports for whatever reason, whether that be self-defence or simply a passion for it.
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