Tyler Stollings may not be in any art or sports teams in Musselman high, but instead, he is still involved in a unique activity outside of school: mixed martial arts! Mixed martial arts is a combination of the best parts of other martial arts. The thing that made him want to join martial arts was the cool moves he saw in anime.

Tyler’s martial arts routine is to do many stretches for an entire hour, and then do the day’s activity for another hour. The activity varies depending on the day. The activities Tyler participates in are sparring, meditating, and practicing. Tyler has also learned a lot of moves in the dojo. Some of those moves being the spin kick, the tornado round kick, the monkey throw, and the moon kick.

Some of the moves are very hard to perform, but you only learn the harder ones once you gain higher rank belts. The further you progress through the belts, the harder it is to get the next one. The belts in order (at Tyler’s dojo) are white, gold, green, blue, red, brown, junior black, black, and advanced black 1st-5th degrees. Tyler currently has a black belt.

The martial arts dojo that Tyler goes to is the JMHS dojo in Shepherdstown. There are no requirements to enter the class. Tyler loves going to martial arts class, and rates it 10/10. He highly recommends it. When asked about the benefits of martial arts, he said “It helps physically, mentally, and defensively.”

Other than martial arts, Tyler likes the color white, enjoys eating buffalo chicken wings, playing Minecraft, attending school(gym especially), and carrots. He does not like bread, gravity, or water.