Reyel Bowen has been drawing inspiration from his mentor Jermal Woolridge ahead of his medal mission at the Wushu World Championships in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Woolridge, who is taking an enforced break from the sport because of injury but has travelled with the team, became Bermuda’s first medal winner at the championships when he claimed silver in Lumpur, Malaysia, in 2013.

Bowen, who won a bronze at the Pan American Sanda Cup in Monterrey, Mexico, in September, said Woolridge’s “tough love” approach to dispensing advice had helped prepare his mind as he bids for a podium finish.

“I’m always looking to pick [Jermal’s] brain, Bowen said. “He doesn’t tell me what I want to hear, he tells me what I need to hear.

“Hopefully me and Sentwali [Woolridge] can become the second and third guys to medal for Bermuda. If I fight the way I’m supposed to I definitely think I can podium.”

Bowen, Sentwali Woolridge, the cousin of Jermal, and newcomer Krista Dyer arrived in Indonesia’s capital last weekend as part of the smallest team sent to the championships by the Bermuda Sanshou Association.

Woolridge, who is undefeated this year and defended his title at the Sanda Cup, and Bowen will compete in the male 75 and 85kg divisions while Dyer is in the female 65kg division.

“This is the competition I have been training for all year,” Bowen said. “It’s an honour to be competing at the championships and I’ll be up against the best of the best.”

Bowen returns to the championships as a far more “well-rounded and mature” fighter than he was in his hitherto only appearance at the biennial competition in 2007.

He took a brief hiatus from competing during the intervening years but insists his focus and determination has never been as fierce is it as now.

“I’ve prepared a lot more for these championships,” said Bowen, who came eighth in his division in 2009.

“I’ve been filling in holes all year long. I’ve done a lot of maturing since then and learned so much more about the fight game.”

The championships run until next Wednesday.