No two paths to the Olympics are ever the identical, however one thing feels particularly distinctive about Sunny Choi’s. A former aggressive gymnast and Ivy League grad-turned-executive at Estée Lauder, 35-year-old Choi is now one of many inaugural athletes competing in breaking (colloquially referred to as breakdancing) this summer season within the 2024 Olympics.
Choi found breaking in school, and she or he doesn’t understate the game’s position in her life. “Breaking has been the catalyst for so much of my personal growth,” she tells SheKnows, although it took her years to belief herself and her expertise sufficient to do it full-time. It wasn’t till 2022, after Choi completed second on the World Video games, that she took the leap.
Whereas it wasn’t a straightforward transfer, it was clearly the suitable one, and never solely as a result of Choi is now Olympic-bound. “When I was working in corporate, it’s almost like you’re rewarded for showing up and being a robot, not having emotions, not letting any of that get in the way, just working, working, working, working,” Choi displays. Breaking, she says, is the other. “As a breaker, it’s all about self expression,” she explains. “It’s about being you and figuring out who that person is and what that person looks like on the floor and what that person looks like off the floor too, because it all combines. It’s all one, because this is an art. It’s a dance.”
Choi appreciates that breaking requires her to faucet into the truest, deepest a part of herself, as a result of her life hasn’t all the time allowed for that. From childhood as much as the company job, Choi remembers battling psychological well being as she pushed herself to chase the traditional thought of success.
“I was in every single AP class you could possibly enroll in, in my high school,” Choi remembers. “I was a really high-performing gymnast. I got into an Ivy League. I went to Wharton. I didn’t even want to do business, but it was because I knew I’d be financially stable afterwards.” Trying again, Choi can see the sample. “I had been for so long suppressing my personal desires in order to check off all the boxes that I thought would make me successful in life… I was just trekking forward, shoving things aside, putting those blinders on and a little happy face and showing up to work every single day.”
The sample took its toll as Choi skilled “cycles of burnout and depression,” she says. “It was just really, really tough.”
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She began remedythe place she discovered, firstly, the vocabulary that helped her categorical her struggles for the primary time. “Growing up in a more conservative household within an immigrant family,” Choi says, “we didn’t talk about mental health, so I didn’t know how to talk about it… I didn’t even know that this was something that you were supposed to talk about.”
Whereas the subject is much less taboo now, Choi notes that even at present, not all communities are fully open about it. For her half, Choi now makes psychological well being a precedence. Along with remedy, she additionally “resets” by occurring no-phone walks along with her canine and her boyfriend, and by taking 10-second “micro breaks” all through the day to verify in with herself. Sizzling vinyasa yoga can also be a great way to quiet her mind. “It’s a really good hour where I’m just, like, sweating my existence out, and so you can’t really think,” she says.
One other psychological well being instrument? Cooking, particularly candy treats. Choi not too long ago partnered with the Unbelievable Egg to share the recipe for one among her favorites, a frozen custardand for the model’s upcoming Meant to Be Damaged marketing campaign, which she says speaks to her personal non-linear journey. “It’s about making those mistakes,” she says. “It’s about not seeing those as failure, but seeing it all as lessons and opportunities.”
That concern of failure was maybe the principle hurdle that stored Choi from embracing breaking. “Finally choosing myself and choosing what was going to make me happy — that’s kind of been the theme of my journey to the Olympics,” she says now. “Really digging deep and figuring out what it was that was stopping me and getting over that.” Now she’s heading to Paris, absolutely appreciative of every part it took to get right here. Whether or not she comes house with a medal or not, “in my eyes,” she says, “there’s no way I can fail at the Games.”
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