About a month before the recent Australian Taekwondo Academy NSW State Championships, Fit-For-It Taekwondo Academy instructor David Jackson wasn't sure whether Harrison Kollias was quite ready for his first competition.
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But the nine-year-old smashed it at training, and then came out and won silver.
On the weekend he turned silver into gold, winning the 8-9 years boys yellow belt division at the Brisbane Taekwondo Open.
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"He did really well," Jackson said.
At the state titles winning his first fight but then running out of puff in his second, Kollias applied the lessons from that on Saturday.
"We tried to slow him down a little bit and pick his targets a little bit better and he listened well," Jackson said.
He went on to win both of his fights.
Best of three one-minute rounds, the Tamworth fighter "finished them off quickly", taking out the first two rounds in both.
Training out of the academy's Southside branch at the Southside Uniting Church Hall, Jackson said Kollias has been training with him for probably just under a year.
Up until just before the state titles though he had been just "plodding along in class".
"And then at training, he just started fighting hard out of nowhere - it was really amazing," he said.
"His parents said he's loving it and he wants to do this as his career."
Kollias was the only Fit-For-It student that competed in Brisbane.
The others are all focused on the Blue Mountains Taekwondo Championships coming up in September.
He will also go to that but will have to fight in a higher belt division.
"He's got grade testing next week, all the students have, so he'll have to jump up a belt division (to blue)," Jackson said.
"So it's going to be a little bit more of a challenge for him."
