BAGUIO CITY, Philippines — For Jones Llabres Inso, balance has always meant more than a perfect stance — it is also the quiet discipline of daily training, the tug-of-war between lectures and practice halls, and the patience to wait a decade for a moment that would finally turn silver into gold.
At 28, the former Saint Louis University BS Mechanical Engineering student from Aurora Hill stood atop the podium of the Southeast Asian Games, ending a ten-year gold drought for the Philippines in men’s wushu taolu.
At the Fashion Island Mall in Bangkok, Thailand, Inso delivered a breakthrough performance in Wushu Taolu Taiji Chuan, scoring 19.563 overall. It was the country’s first men’s gold in the sport since 2015.
For Inso, the victory completed a long arc, having come close before by garnering silver medals in 2019 and 2021.
But this time, everything aligned.
“The SEA Games were the biggest multisport event I knew as a child. Dreaming of participating and actually winning feels so fulfilling,” he said.
Inso’s journey began almost accidentally. At ten years old, summers were meant for fitness, not medals. His mother, noticing children his age practicing taolu while she trained in taichi, brought Jones and his siblings along. What started as a casual routine grew into a lifelong passion.
Still, the path wasn’t straight as he paused training in high school and returned to college initially for scholarships until a turning point arrived: an endorsement to the national team by former SEA Games champion Daniel Parantac.
“It became a path for self-discovery. I told myself I’d go as far as I could while I can,” Inso recalled.
The hardest battles, he says, weren’t fought on the competition floor because in taolu, an individual performs one routine at a time, make or break.
Preparation is everything and juggling engineering coursework with elite training demanded what felt like two full lives, he explained.
“I had to give 100% to school and another 100% to wushu,” he stressed as exhaustion, physical and mental, often knocked him down.
What lifted him back up was his circle: family, friends, teammates, and coaches who never doubted his capability. Those years taught him a simple truth: progress is always upward and forward.
“Standing on the top of the podium, singing our national anthem… that was my dream,” Inso disclosed.
Since joining the national team, he had carried that image with him. In Bangkok, it finally became real.
To aspiring athletes, Inso breaks the myth of complexity as he shares that Wushu is “easy” in principle and encourages them to train daily, stay teachable and be consistent because behind the simplicity lies relentless work.
“Every setback was a learning experience. Every success was a fruit of labor,” he says adding that luck may open doors, but consistency keeps you inside the room.
Inso hopes that the next generation be given the opportunity and chance to showcase and polish what’s already there. His own story proves it: stay ready long enough, and when the stage appears, balance can turn into gold. — Danielyn Abela (PIO-Intern)/gabykeith
