Alyssa Cochnar, co-owner of Gold Star Martial Arts in Seward, Crete and Lincoln, recently achieved one of her lifelong goals by becoming a master instructor of martial arts.
The Dorchester native attended a master’s ceremony in Little Rock, Arkansas, where she was officially dubbed.
“We had a great trip. My dad and I started off the week at an ATA Leadership Camp at Winthrop Rockefeller Institute, which also included a hike at Petit Jean State Park,” Cochnar said. “Then we went to Little Rock for my masters’s ceremony. I had family and some students come to watch in person, and then a lot of our students watched the live stream.”
Reaching mastership isn’t an easy process. Cochnar said once an American Taekwondo Association member reaches the rank of sixth-degree black belt, they could be eligible to become a master instructor the following year as long as they’ve met all requirements to be considered to start the master process.
“Once they’ve been approved to start the process, there is a year of physical and mental training,” she said.
Reaching mastership is something that Cochnar has wanted to do for a long time.
“It’s a long-term goal I set for myself as a young black belt,” she said. “I mapped out when I would test for each of my black belt ranks, setting each of those as a goal that would lead me to earn my mastership someday.”
In the future, Cochnar is looking to obtain her seventh-degree black belt.
Along with hitting one of her lifelong goals, Cochnar said obtaining mastership will help her when she teaches at Gold Star.
“The Mastership process includes a lot of research and reflection which has allowed me to look at things from yet another perspective,” she said. “I have a learning mindset and I love passing that on to others.”
Although her title has changed, Cochnar wanted to make it clear that she is still the same person.
“It’s a little funny because my dad went through the mastership process last year and has already been Master Cochnar this whole past year,” she said. “So the debate had been what will we have our students call me since he is already associated with Master Cochnar, so we came up with Miss Master Cochnar.”
Cochnar also wanted to remind people that, just like in the mastership process, Gold Star does more than just physical teaching.
“We are a life-skills learning center and I love seeing our students grow into confident leaders,” she said.
