Sunny Choi

Meet Sunny Choi. Her story is one of my favorite from this year’s Olympics.

Sunny is a Korean American b-girl and a member of the inaugural USA breaking team. She was born in Tennessee and raised in Kentucky. After watching the 1992 Olympics, she fell in love with gymnastics, practicing up to 25 hours a week in high school and even joining the gymnastics team at UPenn. However, knee injuries during her freshman year forced her to quit.

As fate would have it, she discovered breaking one night while walking around campus. She was captivated by the b-girls and b-boys flipping, spinning, and freezing in acrobatic poses. Fast forward to 2020, when breaking was announced as an Olympic sport. At the time, Sunny was working in corporate America, where she felt like a lifeless robot. But breaking was anything but robotic.

Determined to pursue the Olympics, Sunny worked with a strength and conditioning coach, practiced hot yoga, and trained intensely in breaking. Her biggest breakthrough came when she started working with a therapist, learning to take 10-second micro-breaks. “Having to learn to be gentle, kind, and compassionate with myself has been one of the most difficult, but also one of the best, lessons I’ve learned,” she said.

Last year, she quit her corporate job and will make her Olympic debut next week at 36 years old. Go Sunny! I love how when one door closed, she opened another—putting her mental health first and pursuing what makes her happy! @make.us.visible

Size: 8 x 10