“It’s definitely the secret, but you can hear it a hundred times, a million times, but before you really understand what it is, it will never work for you,” she said. “My experience, what I have in martial arts, is so deep, and it’s not only my experience, but I listen a lot. I listen to my coach and what his experience is. (Coach) Pavel (Fedotov) has so many years in martial arts, so many different types of martial arts, and of course his experience means a lot for me and it brings a lot to my experience. Martial arts is my life and I don’t need one typical thing to say this is what motivates me. I don’t need it because martial arts by itself is self-motivating. This lifestyle I have – train, travel and exploring something new every time, meeting different people, sharing some experience with them and listening to them, I think it’s something that also gives me a lot of motivation.”
So about that trip…
Shevchenko, along with Fedotov and her sister Antonina, took off from Las Vegas and by the time we spoke on December 21, the trio had hit Arizona, New Mexico, Tennessee and Louisiana.
“I don’t know where we’re gonna be next because it’s not something that we planned in advance,” she said. “We literally go to the hotel in the evening, open the map and look at what destination is next. Nothing is planned.”
She did particularly enjoy driving along the Mississippi River, a place she read about in her formative years.
“That came from my childhood because when I was growing up, I was reading the books of Mark Twain a lot, and he was always speaking about Mississippi and how it was adventurous,” Shevchenko said. “Since then, I had this dream to see it. I didn’t know how it was gonna be because I thought at first it would be by boat to cross from south to north, but this time we decided to travel by car, and I’m very happy with what we’re doing right now. The love for travel and adventure is from the very, very beginning. I don’t know where it was born, but it’s always been with me.”
