A fight for faith: How a world champion martial artist became a youth minister
Surrender was never an option for Carolina Muñoz.
As a fighter standing at five feet tall exactly, her opponents have always been bigger than her. As a youth minister at Our Lady of Mount Virgin Church in Garfield, many of the teenagers in her group tower over her. What stands out about Muñoz is her confidence. She can command a room with a few well-aimed words about faith and control the ring with a precision of punches. In either situation, she undisputedly believes in a victorious result.
That confidence made her a world champion in taekwondo. Its shattering made her a champion for Christ.
When Muñoz first arrived in the United States from Ecuador at three years old, she was a very shy child. It wasn’t until her mother introduced her to martial arts at the age of six, after witnessing what the classes did for her older brother’s confidence, that something changed in her.
“My mother didn’t so much put me [in the classes] but pushed me into the room because I was clinging to her leg,” she recalled. “I was crying the first week of classes, but then I realized how fun it was and how good it did me. And I discovered I was a natural athlete when it came to martial arts.”
Her natural talent and love for the sport saw her become a dominant athlete throughout her childhood and teenage years. With every win her confidence grew. She even began teaching martial arts as she became older. In teaching, Muñoz found another love – one that, later in life, became a love for teaching youth.
But as a teenager and an immigrant minor, she realized that there was one playing field that was not quite equal. Muñoz was a Dreamer – a minor who immigrated under the DREAM Act – and by the time she was 16, she found that she could not apply for college or get a car.
In response to this, one of Muñoz’s high school teachers challenged her to speak about her experience as a Dreamer. Her confidence from martial arts and teaching translated well to public speaking, and soon she was sharing her experience with hundreds at Princeton University, Fairleigh Dickinson University, and Elizabeth City Hall.
On top of that, Muñoz was now fighting nationally. Taekwondo was firmly first in her life, before faith, family, or friends.
“My identity was martial arts,” she said. “Leading up to my world championship, I sacrificed a lot. A lot of time with family, a lot of time with friends. I didn’t go out. For instance, on Sunday when my whole family would get together, I would instead go train for hours and hours. I knew my path at that moment and I was so hungry for it.”
While her family did not agree with the violence of fighting or the time it took away, they always supported her. And even though faith was not at the forefront of Muñoz’s mind then, it was her devout Catholic family that reminded her of God amid the success. Her mother, especially, had a way of gently bringing Jesus to her daughter.
“In any conversation that I have with my mom, she brings up Jesus and her faith,” she said. “Even though my faith wasn’t as strong as it is today, she was still feeding me — planting the seed and watering it. There was wisdom in the approach that my parents had, because if you force something upon someone, it’s not going to be well received. They just kept giving me these tidbits here and there.”
After immigrating to the United States from Ecuador as a child, Carolina Muñoz fell in love with taekwondo and the confidence it gave her on and off of the mat. (Carolina Muñoz / Instagram)
Reaching the pinnacle
There was only one goal for Muñoz: to become an ATA Martial Arts World Champion.
“I worked so hard for years and years; I always had it in my mind ever since I was super young that I wanted to be a world champion,” she recalled. “There were points where I thought it wasn’t possible.”
Some of those points were financial. Not wanting her parents to pay the cost, Muñoz spent her late teenage years working to support her dream and then flying around the country by herself to various championships. It was lonely, especially when adversity struck.
In 2013, not long out of high school, she advanced as far as she ever had in her career. Muñoz was only weeks away from the World Championships, competing in Districts for a qualifying spot when she pulled her hamstring. She could not move, ending her run with bruises all over her leg and tears in her eyes.
She would be back a year later. But as she prepared for Districts, she was teaching a martial arts class and pulled the same hamstring again – this time with enough space ahead of Worlds.
“Like God was testing my perseverance,” she said.
Muñoz qualified for her first world championship in Little Rock, Ark. There were three separate categories in which she could win: forms, fighting, and weapons. She began with forms, where a fighter presents their technique.
“I was taking all this numbing cream and wrapping everything,” she remembered. “Because of my adrenaline, I didn’t really feel my hamstring.”
She performed what she considers her best-ever form technique but tied the three-time reigning world champion. The two would have to face off against each other for the title. A second round was the last thing Muñoz wanted; she was not sure her leg would hold up again.
“I just wanted to be one and done,” she said.
They performed their techniques again and waited to see who the judges would point towards to indicate the winner.
Simultaneously, one judge pointed at the reigning champion and the other two pointed at Muñoz. She was a world champion.
“I threw my hands over my head. I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “I felt like it was all worth it. All the injuries, all the late nights, all the skipping family events. Feeling the pain right after, that was awesome.”
Carolina Muñoz poses in her taekwondo dobok following her world championship victory in 2014. (Carolina Muñoz / Instagram)
A different type of surrender
Nine years later, at Park Elite Boxing Academy in Roselle Park, Muñoz enters and bows. What was once the dojang where she grew up training as a taekwondo fighter is now her boxing gym, and where there was once a mat, there is now a ring. But she still bows before stepping in “as a sign of respect.”
She jumps right into her training routine, keeping pace with professional boxers, although Muñoz no longer competes officially after a life-altering moment in 2020.
That October, she was sparring with a man who far outweighed her, which was not an unusual scenario. But their legs got tangled and his full weight came down on her one leg stuck in an awkward position. The result was the worst pain of her life, a torn ACL, and months of recovery.
What happens when someone’s whole life is devoted to one thing and then it is taken away?
“I physically couldn’t walk,” she recalled. “I was a world champion who couldn’t kick over a box. For me that was wild. Because I didn’t have the martial arts, I had to ask the question of ‘Who am I really?’ And it was a wonderful time, although very hurtful. I was heartbroken. I was mentally drained every day.”
Muñoz recalls being angry all the time during her recovery, especially at God. But eventually that anger turned into questions, and those questions turned into prayer. For perhaps the first time, she contemplated a different type of surrender — the surrender in prayer.
“At that moment I felt so at peace,” she said. “I’m the type of person who likes to be in control, but it made me realize I’m so much more than a martial artist.”
Following an ACL injury, Carolina Muñoz took up boxing at Park Elite Boxing Academy in Roselle Park, which used to be her taekwondo dojang growing up. (Joe Jordan / Archdiocese of Newark)
Taking action
The ACL injury did not physically end her career. Muñoz recovered and could still attempt a return to competition if she wished – but that is no longer at the top of her priorities anymore.
“I thought everything that I learned in life was because of martial arts, but now it’s flip flopped,” she said. “Martial arts is maybe 10th on my list of who I am. First is being a daughter of Christ.”
Now she focuses on the two things that pulled her out of the depths of despair: her faith and boxing, which she turned to when she could not kick. For Muñoz, the two are not as different as they may seem.
She recently began the meditative practice of Lectio Divina with her mother almost every week. The two immerse themselves in a Scripture passage with the guidance of a priest and at the end of each meeting ask, “How can we make this reading into flesh? We become very specific with actions that we can take forward.”
The struggle in fulfilling these actions from Lectio is not the actions themselves but everything else in life that can derail the plan. The same thing applies to boxing for Muñoz.
“When I’m practicing in the ring, I get to apply a similar challenge,” she said. “The opponent in front of you is never really what you have to beat. It’s everything else.”
Carolina Muñoz with her youth group, Upper Room Youth, at Our Lady of Mount Virgin Church in Garfield. (Carolina Muñoz / Instagram)
Passing the faith on
The one constant in Muñoz’s life has been faith.
When she was 13, she asked her parish priest to start a youth group at her church. The priest created the group on the condition that it would be led by Muñoz’s parents, who were then joined by her older brother. From a young age, she saw the model that they set in nurturing the faith of the youth.
As she was evaluating her life after ACL surgery, the youth minister at Our Lady of Mount Virgin contacted her. She was leaving her position to move to Pennsylvania and, ironically, Muñoz was leaving Pennsylvania to move back to New Jersey. The timing felt providential.
“This was during COVID, so I wasn’t too confident about how it would work,” she said. “But I loved the idea of serving and I had done it before, co-leading the youth group at my mom’s parish. So, I said let’s do it.
“It’s become a second family with the main objective to get them closer to God each and every day,” she continued. “I challenge them and try to figure out their gifts, what God has given them.”
Of course, martial arts finds its way into many of the lessons. Muñoz can often be seen demonstrating some kicks or a combo of punches.
“We talk about bravery a lot,” she said. “I can think of many instances in martial arts when I had to be brave. I’m the smallest one. It takes bravery to show up and to get in the ring. It takes bravery to speak in front of hundreds of people.
So, I ask the teens all the time, ‘Who wants to volunteer? Or read at the Mass?’ And it’s crickets. So, then we talk about having courage and being brave and they’re like, ‘OK, I get it. Let me take that one step to becoming braver.’”
Often, it is Munoz’s little sister who is the first to volunteer in the group, continuing the family tradition of leading youth.
“I give them props all the time because it’s not easy to get up and read or to take the collections,” she said. “Those are the little wins that we can say build confidence.”
It’s a daily battle, but winning confidence in Christ is now the fight of Carolina Muñoz’s lifetime — a fight not of this world for the world champion.
You can follow Our Lady of Mount Virgin’s youth ministry, Upper Room Youth, on Instagram at @olmv_uryouth. To see more of Muñoz’s taekwondo and boxing journey, follow @stickyourkick on Instagram.
Featured image: Carolina Muñoz poses in her world championship taekwondo dobok in an updated 2022 photo. (Argenis Perez, courtesy Carolina Muñoz)
