Lola Hennessey | Sport

Starting Karate began as a 7-year-old wanting to be like my older brother and has continued to be a sport I still love competing in 10 years later. My first World Karate Championship in Chile 2019 was during riots and a state of emergency where I placed 5th, was an experience I won’t forget.
While Karate is an individual sport, I am a part of a small Waikato club whose strength has been in our team, our coach and our training commitment. I have trained and travelled with the same group since I started competing and while they have all have left school now, we still train each morning and attend competitions together. I am lucky to have an amazing coach who is super committed to our success and goals.
While Karate is my main sport, I also enjoy being a part of our school 1st 11 Hockey Team which is a lot of fun and helps break up my karate training routine.
Every day showing up with a smile and loving what you get up for makes early morning trainings easy. I love to train hard and know the importance of having fun and a motivating environment to be successful. Sport also has taught me about discipline, disappointment, injury and learning from those experiences will help me in anything I do in life going forward.
Being a part of the team includes helping/coaching our younger high-performance members at tournaments. I love this part of my sport and enjoy their smiles of achievement by just getting out on the mat to fight!