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Leah Ann Prosper trains at Spirit of the Dragon for the upcoming U.S. MMA Championship this summer.

Leah Ann Prosper is fighting her way to Florida. This summer, the nine-year-old mixed martial artist from Regina is heading to Orlando for the U.S. Open ISKA World Martial Arts Championship.

“I feel kind of scared but I know that I can try my hardest,” says Prosper, who took up Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) at the ripe old age of three.

She is a member at Spirit of the Dragon, a MMA gym in Regina, where she trains three days a week. When she’s not there, she also trains two hours a day at home with her dad, Jason.

“We spar, we do my forms and my dad throws a ball at me and I have to dodge it,” Leah says. “My dad wanted me to learn how to defend myself just in case.”

The youngster, whose mom is from Kawacatoose and dad is from One Arrow, is in Grade 4 and says her friends and family are proud of her reaching this far with a sport she loves doing.

“Lots of them are proud and excited for me to go,” she adds.

Sarah Prosper, Leah’s mom, says when Leah was born, her husband wanted to get her into this sport.

“As soon as we found out she was a girl, the very first thing he said is to get her into martial arts,” says Sarah.

Sarah and Jason have been waiting for this time to come for Leah to reach further in her dream.

“I’m very excited, I just can’t wait,” Sarah says.

The Prosper family are currently fundraising to reach their goal of $10,+000 to attend the championship.

“We sold squares for an Xbox and we had a merchandise bingo, an Indian taco sale. On the Facebook page, we are doing an art auction, we’re also going to be having steak nights, and we opened a ‘Go Fund Me’ fundraising page,” she says which racked up to $1,030 in four days. “There’s no can’t. We’ll reach our goal,” she adds.

The determined parents have four children ranging from 14-years old to two-year old twins. Sarah and Jason phoned around Regina to find Leah a martial arts training centre and found Spirit of the Dragon.

After some Aboriginal communities have learned that Leah will be competing in an international competition, people have been reaching out to the family asking for Leah to speak to the youth in their communities.

“One Arrow wants her to go and speak at their school and another reserve has contacted my mother [to ask us] to speak at their school,” she says.

Her advice to the parents is to support and dedicate your time for your child to reach their dreams even with the loads of work that comes with it. Leah’s advice to the youth who want to pursue a passion for MMA is to reach for what you want.

“If people say you can’t do it, don’t listen to them, they don’t really think that anybody can do anything,” she says.

Brian Parks, one of the head instructors at Spirit of the Dragon, says Leah started in the Fall of 2008.

“She has fire, she can turn it up and she’s very motivated and she likes to compete hard,” says Parks.

Parks says Spirit of the Dragon will be taking nine competitors to the championship, Leah being the youngest.

“We wish her the best. One of our coaches will be going with her making sure she’s well taken care of and looked after...from a student point of view,” he says. “We know she will do well, we hope she has fun there and is able to bring out some of that fire in her,” he adds.