Pauline Lopez rose to fame after representing the Philippines in Taekwondo. Now, she is inspiring a new wave of trailblazers.
Pauline Lopez walks through the streets of Bonifacio Global City with long, confident strides. It isn’t just because she has a tall frame, the kind that gives Taekwondo practitioners like herself a reach advantage; it’s simply because she is in the BGC area quite often.
She leads us to THE LAB, a martial arts gym located in the center of Bonifacio High Street that offers training programs for boxing, Muay Thai, and MMA. This is where Pauline, a Southeast Asian gold-medalist for Taekwondo, often trains. Every trainer in the gym knows who she is beyond her accolades. Even the kwek kwek vendor who frequents the place knows her usual order.
Another group of individuals who know Pauline well are the kids who sign up for her Taekwondo lessons at THE LAB.
Pauline Lopez started training young jins in 2022, over a decade since she first competed internationally and started gaining recognition — though her foray into coaching came quite unexpectedly.
“It was in 2021, I fell out of love with the sport,” Pauline shared with The GAME, “Not because of you know who’s supporting me or what. I think I got a little bit burnt out, and I felt like maybe in some way or form, the sport didn’t love me back. I sacrificed so much, and I couldn’t accept like, oh my gosh, why is this not happening to me? So I needed to take a step back, I needed to kind of breathe for a second.”
That’s when she and her team of managers decided to shift her focus elsewhere. In looking for a new way to channel her passionate energy, she created her brand SHERO.
What started as a podcast called SHERO Talk, a podcast dedicated to sharing the inspiring stories of Filipinas, turned into a full-fledged brand that, in the words of their Instagram bio, “aims to empower women and the youth to pursue their dreams and goals.”
“I think I was nudged in the right direction, not just from my manager but my support system, which is my family and friends. And of course, praying helped me to [realize] that I’m forever going to be an athlete. I’m not stopping, but let’s navigate a little bit — how can we give back?”
Shortly after this brief chapter of reflection, Pauline taught her first-ever class, teaching Taekwondo to young kids. She admits that she felt nervous at the beginning, which may come as a surprise, given that she has competed against some of the top jins in the region. But just a few hours with these kids were enough to spark a new kind of inspiration she had not previously felt before.
“It’s always more than sports,” she realized. “[So I thought], what can you do to give back with your influence, with your power, no matter how small or big?”
Working for her dreams
Like many of the kids who sign up for her SHERO Taekwondo classes, Pauline Lopez knows what it’s like to feel the need to prove oneself. From the very beginning of her career, it was the doubters who fueled her — but it came as a surprise to discover that the first person who had doubts was her father.
A former Taekwondoin himself who also represented the Philippines, Pauline’s dad introduced her to the sport at an early age, but preferred for her to spectate rather than participate. He suffered a bad foot injury just before a major competition, and when he moved to the United States, Pauline shared, “he vowed to never teach his kids Taekwondo because he got into a bad accident.” Apart from this, the Filipina also recalled another reason that incited his doubt: “Because it’s a guy’s sport, so [he thought], ‘You’re a girl and you don’t do this.’
“But of course, as a middle child, I think I have this stubborn bone in my body. One, you can’t tell me no, and two, you can’t tell me no just because I’m a girl. So I said no.”
For Pauline, no hurdle was ever too high to overcome, so not even her own father was going to stop her. Living in California, she went on to take classes in local gyms, and in those early days, she quickly discovered that this isn’t actually a “guy’s sport” like her dad once believed.
“The whole of the sport is actually inclusive,” she said. Thankfully, her dad eventually came around, too, and even ended up becoming her coach.
Pauline was only nine years old when she realized that Taekwondo could be more than just a hobby.
“At the young age of nine, I saw a Filipino from the Philippines compete in the Olympics, when I was kind of aware of what the Olympics were, and so I said, ‘I want to do that. I don’t know how, but I want to make it to the international stage. And that’s what made me stick to it. I really wanted to pursue something big.”
As a headstrong individual with a powerful resolve, Pauline put her dream into action. She spent hours training and competing until she finally got her first big break.
Still living in the United States, at 13 years old, her parents received an important call that would shift the trajectory of her life. Over the phone, they were told that Pauline was invited to represent the Philippines in the Asian Games.
“I said, ‘What? Like, are you sure? Are you okay?’” she recalled in jest, looking back with a fond laugh. “So I left. My high school was just so supportive of all athletes, and even though no one knew what Zoom was, no one knew what Skype school was, but they did that, because they supported people’s dreams.”
From there, a young Pauline left her family and her hometown for the Philippines, a country still foreign to her at the time, and trained for her first major competition: the 2010 Asian Games.
She was only 14 years old at the time, making her the youngest athlete representing the Philippines at the Asian Games in Guangzhou, China, and she competed with women twice her age.
“I just remember being present, just happy to be there,” she can still recall. “I still didn’t care about endorsements, and it was just so freeing. And of course, it hurt to lose…But it ignited this fire in me — I don’t care what I have to do, even if I have to sacrifice moving from LA to the Philippines, I’ll do it.”
Although Lopez was eliminated in her second match in the Asian Games, she is no stranger to the feeling of success. She went on to win gold medals in the 2013 Asian Youth Games, the 2015 Southeast Asian Games, and the 2016 Asian Taekwondo Championships. She also later found the victory she craved at the 2018 Asian Games, when she secured a bronze medal in the Women’s 57kg event.
But her most notable competition of all? The 2019 Southeast Asian Games, hosted in the Philippines.
“Memorable tournament,” she emphasized with a hint of pride. “My parents came home, it was the first really big international tournament they’ve ever watched with me representing the country. They sacrificed so much and they worked so hard, so I said, ‘If they can make it out, this is it.’”
As though she manifested it for herself, Pauline ultimately won the gold medal for her event that year.
“It was memorable, yes, because of the gold and the honor of representing the country, but it also was because it became a family event. It still gives me goosebumps talking about it because I didn’t know that was going to be my last [tournament].”
The other side of the dojang
When Pauline Lopez won the gold medal at the 2019 SEA Games, in front of her fellow Filipinos, in front of her family, she wrapped herself with the Philippine flag and burst into tears. She was the image of a dream realized.
It’s a romantic image that she can always go back to — but the road leading up to that victory was not quite as picture-perfect. Like all athletes, she endured all the hardships that came with her sport: overcoming the doubters, moving away from her family, facing numerous losses, and countless hours spent in the dojang.
But now that she is on the other side of the mat, coaching young kids between the ages of four and 18, she hopes to use what she’s learned to make the journey a little bit easier for them.
“I never thought I’d be a coach,” Pauline admitted. “But once you’re a coach, you don’t just see the sport of Taekwondo. In totality, you see [how the Philippines’ sports industry] has grown. Now I’m seeing it: there are athletes from provinces going to Manila on full-ride scholarships, and they’re becoming pro athletes. So I see that sports is a career. Kids, even in Taekwondo, can dream big.
“And I feel like it’s my job, my responsibility to empower these young athletes to let them know that they can dream big — even bigger than me.”
Pauline Lopez is no stranger to fostering dreams. She was only nine years old when she started to dream about competing internationally, and she put in the work to make that dream come true. Dreams may come with a price, but she wants her students to know that it is possible to make them come true.
Since she taught her first-ever class, SHERO has grown into a much bigger platform over the years. Today, her classes, which take place on the weekends and on select weekday afternoons, can reach up to 80 students at a time. She also now has three more coaches by her side, two of whom are a part of the national team and their respective school varsity teams.
“[Our classes] have a mixture of boys and girls — but more girls!” Pauline told us in excitement. “The way I coach is I try to introduce holistic approaches, coming from a Psychology background, and growing up as an athlete, we didn’t have that.
“I always had tough love and tough training. But you have to have a different approach for everyone, and that’s something I’m trying to address here in our circle.”
And Pauline’s circle is about to get even bigger.
In the meantime, she has been coaching classes for her students in different martial arts gyms around the Metro, but later this year, she is set for an upgrade. The brand new SHERO Taekwondo Studio will be opening in the heart of BGC, to make the sport even more accessible to even more kids.
She proudly shared her motivation behind this big move: “I had to believe in myself and take that risk and say, ‘It is time. This is an investment in not just yourself, but in the bigger picture, which is athletes and young girls in the sport.’
“So it’s a journey, it’s a lot of trial and error, a lot of lessons. I mean you’re not just a coach, you are a business owner, you are handling a bunch of kids and parents, but then again, I always look back and think of the values I learned in sports, on how it’s making me a better person, a better woman on how to navigate these challenges.”
Planting the seeds of ambition
This is just the beginning of what Pauline Lopez hopes to accomplish in the next stage of her career.
“Right now, my immediate goal is opening a school, but more than that, it’s actually giving an opportunity to kids who don’t have access to the sport. Once we open the space, I was talking to my brand manager and I said, ‘I really want to have a program where we do scholarships because that’s what I had growing up.’
“I didn’t pay for a single class, and thank you to my coach, to my dad, who really sacrificed. I didn’t pay for a single class, and he sent me to competitions, and I wouldn’t be where I am now without it.
“Growing up, we weren’t rich, we weren’t wealthy. I couldn’t afford competitions, but he believed in me, and I want to do that for someone else.”
In the same way she pushes her students to, Pauline still continues to dream big. She wants to see other young Filipino athletes realize their goals, and if she can play a part in that journey, no matter how big or small, to her, that is already another win she can add to her list of accolades.
But more than anything, Pauline wants to help these young kids feel empowered to achieve whatever they set their minds to, whether it’s on the dojang or off of it.
“I have students who say, ‘Coach Pau, I wanna be just like you.’ I always stop them and say, ‘No, be better.’”
Text ANNIKA CANIZA
Photography KIERAN PUNAY of KLIQ INC.
Creative Direction CAS ASEOCHE
Shot on Location THE LAB, BGC
Production Coordination ANTHONY MENDOZA
Special Thanks VIRTUAL PLAYGROUND