Jinri Park's road to becoming a Jiujitsu gold medalist

Apart from being a talented artist and gracing the cover on FHM Philippines' July issue, Korean star Jinri Park  can fiercely defeat you in Jiujitsu.

Jinri may know the ins and outs in the entertainment industry, but her life outside of it has far more action when she fell in love with Jiujitsu.

In a video posted on Ultimate Fitness' Facebook page, Jinri shared her journey on how she embarked on this new passion of hers.

The 29-year-old actress started in 2012. She said she first tried to do fight form, but she had bad leg coordination, since she said she was "never an athletic person to begin with." 

Several months into fight form, one coach pushed her to switch to Jiujitsu. And then five months into Jiujitsu, her coaches urged her to compete.

"A lot of the coaches were [saying] I should try out competing. It would be a different experience. You'll get more motivated. And I was so scared to compete because I knew I wasn't that level of joining a competiton. I know I would probably lose."

The road to earning her first gold medal in this sport wasn't a smooth one but Jinri determined to reach every goal she has set.

As time passed, her grit only became stronger so she started attending morning classes called "Jiujitsulog" with Ultimate Fitness' brown belter coach Jan Cortez.

Cortez shared how Jinri is "the more consistent student" of their class, the distance from Jinri's house to the gym did not become a road block for her to train daily.

"Initially it's kind of odd because of course I know Jinri, showbiz and all that. Jiujitsu is still a physical sport, you still get hurt, sometimes you get scratches here and there, but I think Jinri is a person who likes to learn," Cortez said.

Jinri lost on her first competition, but she did not let it get the best of her. It only made her thirsty for a medal.

"It really pushed me to think na for the next competition, I'm going to make sure I'm going to win. It really drove me and after that, I started coming to the morning class everyday. Sometimes I would train two times a day, because I was really hungry for that gold medal," Jinri said on the video.

Her passion and dedication earned her a gold medal on her next competition where she competed nationally.

"I joined the national competition, it's called Nationals and it's a pretty big competition in the Philippines and finally I won my gold medal there."

It didn't stop there, Jinri went abroad to compete internationally. During her trips to Europe, she would bring her gi and train wherever under different coaches.

"Actually sometimes, I gain more knowledge when I lose. If I lose I still win, because I'm going to gain more techniques and it's going to drive me to become a better Jiujitsuera," she said. — LA, GMA News