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I earned a black belt when I was in high school. And I did a lot of boxing and full contact karate in college.

It wasn't until I went to Korea out of high school and got exposed to the martial arts for the first time and was just completely enamored with the physical ability of the martial arts and making my black belt.

I started doing martial arts when I was about 7, and I got my second degree black belt when I was 19. So I have my second degree black belt, but I've never used it, and I had to stop when I got 'Instant Star' because I couldn't train.

I grew up doing martial arts, and I'm a second-degree black belt.

I started taekwondo at 5 or 6 years old and did a bunch of kick-boxing later, too. Eventually I became a black belt and coached as well. I did some basketball and softball growing up, but most of my activity was martial arts.

There's a number of years that went by going from a white belt to a black belt. And I think, in a similar respect, years go by with your maturation process, and it's just as important to be disciplined with that as it was in karate.

When I was nine, my father said 'You can take piano lessons or do karate' - I had a black belt and was competing before I was 19.

My father was one of the first Tae Kwon Do Masters to come to the states in the '60s. He had one of the first all-African-American fighting teams, and I was basically raised in a karate studio since I was 3. It's part of my blood, competing, and all that stuff was responsible for a lot of me just growing up.

I got into Taekwondo when I was nine, and I started training Muay Thai and Brazilian Jujitsu later in life.