I want to expand the world- Covid-19 and women’s martial arts (2) Koto Hiraoka

Being Corona and women’s martial arts, this is a series of interviews with people involved in women’s martial arts. This time, we interviewed Koto Hiraoka, who will be competing in REBELS for the first time on August 30, 2020.

Covid-19 and female kickboxer

I asked, “How has Corona changed since the epidemic? I replied, “I can’t do sparring with other people anymore. So far, I’m no different from other athletes. What was different was that she said, “It was good to have time to think.

The reason why I said that is because of her previous fight, where she lost to the champion Momi at RISE GIRLS POWER 2 on February 11, 2020, and failed to win the title. Hiraoka was beaten and defeated in a heated battle, but she says that this defeat changed her.
“I started to think more than before,” she said. The change was that she started to think a lot more about how to build her game and my daily training. This was spurred on by Covid-19.
“I couldn’t spar or train with other people in Covid-19, and I couldn’t go to the gym anymore, so I started to look at myself differently.”
In her professional debut, Hiraoka fought KANA, who is now the first K-1 World GP Women’s Flyweight Champion, and lost by KO.
Since that fight,” I’ve been thinking a lot.”

Hiraoka began practicing Kyokushin Karate at the age of nine and has won the Kyokushin Kaikan All Japan Women’s Weight Class Championship (2014) and the Kyokushin Kaikan U.S. Weight Class Championship (2015). With these achievements, she made her professional debut, but the result was a KO loss, and since that fight, she says she has been thinking a lot. Since then, she has been thinking a lot. The long period of time was a period of adjustment for Hiraoka to reevaluate herself.

Expand overseas？

Hiraoka has talked about her ambition to expand overseas, having spent three years studying martial arts in New York and Hawaii starting in 2010, and her interest in foreign countries seems endless. In women’s kickboxing, ONE Championship is actively developing with top athletes from around the world. Stump Fairtex, who recently (July 31) won her MMA bout against Sunitha Srisun at ONE110 No Surrender, is also active in kickboxing. 52.2kg. (*ONE atomweight is 47.7 to 52.2 kg; RISE atomweight, where Hiraoka mainly fights, is under 46 kg.

In her REBELS debut on August 30, how has Hiraoka changed after Corona?