Yuna Kim

Yuna Kim's final pose (Google Images)

When I was younger, I hated practicing piano and I didn't really work hard on my English when I first came to America. But that changed when I heard my hero say,"Work hard and give your best effort and you will get the best results," and "DO NOT give up." and "You can do anything." My hero is a Korean figure skater named Yuna Kim. You may know her, you might not. Let me tell you more about her.

Yuna was born on September 5th, 1990. She was born in Bucheon, Gyeonggi. She moved to Gunpo when she was six years old. She still lives in Gunpo to this day. She first started skating when she was 7 years old. When she was 14, she got chosen to represent Korea for figure skating. When she was about 6th grade or 7th grade, there was no one in Korea who could beat Yuna at figure skating. The first game that she competed in nationally, she won gold medals. When she was a junior, she met a Japanese figure skater named Mao Asada and their relationship went from her junior year to senior year. In 2007, Yuna was 16 years old. She could've won if she did what she normally did but the injury that she had since she was a junior kept her from getting the gold medal. Even though she had a bad back condition, she never gave up and did surprisingly well on her short program but did a little poorly in the long. She eventually got 3rd place. In 2008, she won the silver. Then at last in 2009, she won the gold medal!! Last year in 2010, she won the gold medal in the Olympics at Vancouver.

I think Yuna is my hero because she has showed the whole country of Korea and me what it looks like if you don't give up. I remember once when Yuna came on this talk show and she was explaining how she came to be so good at figure skating. She was talking about how sometimes she fell (which was a lot) and how she tried hard not to show tears to anyone. She got up every time even when she was badly hurt and she said that she practiced for more than 10 hours a day. She said that the practice helped her to be better and told people who were watching the show to practice really hard and give their best effort and they will hopefully get the results they were looking for.

When she said those words, I decided to work hard. I tried hard to work with my vocabulary and my pronunciation with my dad at home. I practiced whenever I could and did it every day for about 40 minutes to an hour. A few months later, I could speak English pretty well. Another thing I decided to work hard on was to play really well on the piano. I've been playing piano for a long time now. I still despise playing the piano but whenever I think of her words, I keep thinking how I should try hard to get better every time. I think there have been other heroes over the years, but the hero that I remember the most is Yuna Kim. Yuna Kim will always be a hero to me.