North martial arts powerhouse excels in Taekwondo
60-year-old Pretoria North Taekwondoin is the sport instructer who trains students of all ages and believes 'great' can be 'awesome'
Anecke Viljoen of Pretoria North is a full-time Taekwondo instructor and one of the American Taekwondo Association (ATA) South Africa’s five executive members.
Taekwondo is a Korean martial art and combat sport involving punching and kicking techniques.
Viljoen describes herself as a positive go-getter, someone who works hard to make what they want happen.
The 60-year-old’s martial arts journey began in 2000 as a martial arts student. Three years later she changed styles and ended up at ATA, where she firmly resolved not to be “going anywhere”.
Picture: supplied
She said since her second win at the world championships, she wanted to give back to others what she experienced.
Viljoen is now one of the coaches that lead the South African Taekwondo team that will represent the country at the world championship in Phoenix, Arizona in the USA at the end of the month.
She said this is her first time as coach to the national team, as she normally fulfills the role of team manager and has done so for the past 15 years.
“This is a huge challenge for me, we in ATA are widespread through South Africa and every one of us is the coach of your own students to get ready for champs.”
Her favourite thing about coaching is to see the transformation of students, like a shy three-year-old boy with Down Syndrome turned world champ, or a 55-year-old lady being better than yesterday.
Viljoen’s breakout moment in her martial arts career was believing that she can be a martial artist and achieving it.
Picture: supplied
In 2007, she started her own academy in the Moot but said she now needs to get a bigger space but is nostalgic about her dojang (training hall).
With 35 black belts and 85 colour belts, Viljoen said she is running her development programme with 60 students at the Jacaranda Children’s Home.
She said her biggest influence has been ATA founder, Eternal Grand Master HU Lee. Even though she has never met him, his saying, “Today not possible, tomorrow possible” changed her life completely.
There are many people that have helped her throughout her journey but the belief her father has in her tops everything.
“My family is my luck, they support me 100%.”
Picture: supplied
Viljoen’s dream growing up was to “change the normal to awesome” and she believes she has achieved this.
“‘Do not be good, be great’ is a saying of one of my instructors, but my saying is, ‘why be great if you can be awesome?’’
One of her current hopes and dreams is to make a better expectation of tomorrow.
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