MANSFIELD – For her next trick, Natalie Hershberger will compete with a patch over one eye and one arm tied behind her back.

That was the running joke among coaches at the USA Taekwondo National Championships earlier this month in Detroit as the 13-year-old Mansfielder won a light heavyweight crown in dominating fashion while limited to kicking with one leg.

It was Natalie's fourth USAT title and seventh national championship, but first without use of all of her limbs.

After winning a Spanish Open title in March, a sore left foot from executing a spinning kick in the first of her four matches wasn't getting any better. What was thought to be a deep bruise turned out to be a chipped bone.

Natalie was in a boot for eight weeks. Her doctor told her she could compete at nationals as long as she didn't use her left foot.

So Natalie channeled her inner pro wrestler. She trained with her father/coach, Chris Hershberger, to throw fake kicks with the foot.


"We practiced missing on purpose so that people would think 'She's kicking with two legs; she must be OK,'" Chris Hershberger said. "Every day for three weeks, we sparred at least 20 rounds. I told her 'Natalie, this is a habit (landing kicks with her left leg) you're going to have to put on pause.'"

Natalie cried out of frustration, but knew that if opponents found out she was hurt they would take advantage.

"We had to play a little bit of a game there, psychologically," Chris Hershberger said. "I had no idea what to expect, but she just cleaned the division out."

Natalie won all three of her bouts in convincing fashion.

"I could only (fake kick) if I was farther away, because if I was too close, I could risk (connecting) and getting hurt again," she said. "You had to have a lot of control with it and have your mind right. I wanted to use it to kick so bad, but I had to remember I couldn't."

As bad luck would have it, Natalie had experience kicking with only one leg. She broke her other foot last year training for the AAU Team Trials, where she point-gapped (the equivalent of invoking a mercy rule) all of her opponents to earn her spot in the Spanish Open.


Injury-free until these broken feet, part of Natalie's misfortune has been attributed to a growth spurt. Natalie has shot up in the last year from 5-foot-5 to where she is pushing 5-9. Her doctor believes she will eventually get to 5-11 or 6 foot. Her dad is 6-4 and older brother, Cameron, an accomplished martial artist himself, is 6-5.

Tall is good in her sport, so that's the silver lining for Natalie.

"Having long legs and a good reach is really helpful," she said. "I hope I'm a lot taller because that would be a really good advantage."

The bad news wasn't limited to Natalie's feet. Although her latest title earned her a spot on Team USA for the World Championships in Egypt, the U.S. and several other countries are boycotting because of a security reasons and will compete at the Pan-American Championships in Costa Rica next month.

The only other time Natalie would be eligible to compete in the World Championships is 2020, but she's hopeful of landing a spot in the Tokyo Olympics that year instead.

"it's  real bummer because I was really looking forward to going to the Worlds," she said, "but it's better (not to) for safety reasons."

The goal now is to get back to kicking with both feet. No fake stuff.

"I'm so proud of her," Chris Hershberger said. "(Nationals) was the first time I thought, man, there's a chance she won't win. Not because I didn't believe in her, but because I saw what she went through the previous 10 weeks.

"We tried to make up for the lack of kicking and sparring with a lot of conditioning and core work. Coaches came up to me and said, 'Man, she's just so strong. She just manhandles everyone in the ring.' That's one of the reasons, because of all the conditioning."