#IFMAHerStory: Angela Mamic on Believing in Yourself
I was 21 when I tried Muaythai for the first time and in the beginning it was just a way to stay in shape.
I really enjoyed it, so I kept coming to more and more training sessions and one day the trainer asked me if I wanted to compete. At this point in time I had been doing Muaythai for two years. I was nervous but thought that it couldn´t hurt to give it a try. I won that fight and I wanted to fight again! I have always been a person that strives to be the best in what I do, e.g. in school and so on, so it came natural to me to keep improving and pushing myself in Muaythai as well. Even though at this time in my life it hadn’t even crossed my mind that I might one day compete in the Swedish Championship, even the less at IFMA World Championships.
I really wanted to fight but the problem was that there weren’t that many girls in my weight category. My trainer back then told me that he wanted me to lose weight so that I could fight in -67 kg to have more fight opportunities and according to him I was also too short to fight in 71 kg. I really tried to lose the weight that but it simply didn´t work out for me. A year passed and I continued to come to all training sessions, sadly I still didn’t get any fights.
I want to tell other women that “Even if other people don’t believe in you, you should always believe in yourself! I did and look at what I have accomplished so far.”
One day my former trainer called me to his office together with another fighter and he told us that we were pretty much useless as fighters and that we should quit fighting. He also told us that if we were lucky, that we might win the Swedish Championship but that we would never stand a chance at the World Championships.
After this I took a break from Muaythai to decide if I wanted to continue with it or not. Shortly after this I got the opportunity to work in another city and I decided to give Muaythai a last chance because I wasn´t ready to give up on it. After half a year at this new gym I got offered the spot in -75 kg in the Swedish National team (the spot in 71 kg was already taken)! Just as when I fought my first fight I wasn´t sure of what I was heading into, but I still managed to win silver at the IFMA World Championship in Jönköping, 2016. This was the first time that I competed in the IFMA World Championship but it definitely wasn´t going to be the last.
I have been part a of the Swedish National Team since Jönköping and I have been competing in several IFMA tournaments since then. My proudest moment so far was when I won Gold at the European Championship in Paris in 2017. This was my first international Gold, and I won it in front of my friends and family. They had all flown in from Sweden to cheer me on and It was amazing to have them with me.
I would say that Muaythai has shaped me into who I am today, that it has made me a stronger and a more confident person. It has also proved that I made the right choice by believing in myself and not quitting when other people told me I should.
Since my first trainer told me to quit as a fighter, I have won:
IFMA World Championship:
- Silver 2019 (Bangkok, Thailand)
- Silver 2018 (Cancun, Mexico)
- Silver 2017 (Minsk, Belarus)
- Silver 2016 (Jönköping, Sweden)
EMF European championship:
- Silver 2019 (Minsk, Belarus)
- Gold 2018 (Prague, Czech Republic)
- Gold 2017 (Paris, France)
- Silver 2016 (Split, Croatia)
Swedish championship:
- Gold 2021
- Gold 2020
- Gold 2019
- Gold 2018
Other
- Gold 2018 Antalya Open
This year (2021), I have been doing Muaythai for ten years and I look forward to seeing what Muaythai will give me in the next ten years to come!
I want to tell other women that “Even if other people don’t believe in you, you should always believe in yourself! I did and look at what I have accomplished so far.”
