Brenda Porfirio Da Silva was born into a unique wushu family that has nurtured her talent and love of the sport from a young age, reports iwuf.org. Her father is a former Brazilian champion and taolu coach. João Ferreira da Silva Júnior himself has contributed much to Brazil’s wushu development over the past decades.
He owns a prominent wushu school in Brazil where he trains many young athletes, and as the father of now two national champions, he fondly remembers his daughter’s sport beginnings.
“Brenda was born in the school,” he recalls. “When she was 4, she used to say that she did not like wushu and she wanted to dance classic ballet. And I reacted positively. When she was 5, she started ballet classes. However, she attended two classes and on the day of the 3rd class, she came up to me and said: “Dad, may I come to your school? May I train wushu?” And then she began her wushu career. I changed my timetable and started a group of little girls. We spend most part of the day together in the wushu school. She grew up watching her brother training and improving.”
#iwufofficial Brenda Porfirio Da Silva – Brazil’s Luminous, Rising Young Star #wushuhttps://t.co/ikhYxTGCzX pic.twitter.com/V5kYHjBfHL
— IWUF Official (@IWUFOfficial) December 31, 2019
Brenda’s big brother, Brandon Porfirio da Silva, was a guiding light and a key figure in her development as an athlete. As a 16-time Brazilian national champion and long-time anchoring member of the Brazilian national wushu team, Brandon continually nurtured his sister’s talent as they grew up training and competing together.
Brandon said: “You plant the seeds and they grow, the flowers bloom and give more fruits that fall to the ground and consequently grow more trees. I believe that inside my family everything was as natural as this process. I am a fruit from my mom and my dad, as Brenda is. Nature took care of everything in our school and Brenda just bloomed. I see in that even though her competition style has a lot of resemblance to mine, it was her own choice to start training wushu. I was there with her, in the school, training to reach for my dreams. Maybe she got some of those dreams for herself, feeling the energy that I transmitted there, and this gave her some purpose in her life.”
