Jaana’s Black Belt Journey

Every Black belt has a story to tell, and every story can inspire others to achieve their best. Here is Jaana’s story;

So Jaana, what brought you in the first place? Why did you join karate in the first place? Jaana or Mom, actually?

Jaana:

It was because of her.

Because of mom. And why did you bring her in? What were you looking for in here?

Mom

So I always feel that there are certain things that kids have to have, and it’ll be, one is the arts, one is language, and one is protecting themselves in whichever and wherever they go. And I think it is so important to learn a martial arts. And we live right across the street. And when we used to see everybody coming here and being happy with Master H and everybody in True Balance Karate, we thought, “Why don’t we give a try?” Janna wasn’t very keen about it, but once she came here, I think she thoroughly enjoyed how everything worked. And after eight years today, I would want to say that this is the best decision we have made together as a team.

We sure are her birth family. The TBK is her family. And I ideally feel grateful to each one of here, all the staff members, all her friends, that she can count them in her thicks and thins. And I’m completely grateful that this is a family away from our family. So I’m very grateful to each one of you here. And then this is the best decision I have made for my daughter. And wherever she goes, I know she can protect herself and she’s capable of knowing that she can protect herself. And that itself is a very big blessing, I would think.

Speaker 3:

And what kind of changes have you seen in Jaana since you guys started?

Speaker 4:

I have definitely seen that she has started trusting people more. She is a very reserved person, but when she’s here, she is herself. She talks to a lot of people. She considers this as a family so she wants to learn every time she’s here. She wants to grow, she wants to learn something new. And when she comes home, she’s very excited to say that, “Today I learned sword, today I learned this.” And again, of course she has a younger sister who’s following her footsteps. So definitely I can see Janna being a very good role model for her sister as well.

And Janna, what was a challenge? What was some time that along the path when you were like, “Oh, I don’t want to do it.” How did you get through it?

Jaana:

See. It was probably when it was in the middles of when I had my blue belt, because it was like, “Why am I still doing this? Why am I still here? Why?” It felt like it was so long and because blue belt, it takes one year and then you get black belt after that one year. So it felt like so long and it felt like, “Oh my goodness, why is this taking so long?” So I was like, “Ooh.” My really good friends helped me and got through it and it was really fun with them and they made it so much better.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely. Are you glad you got to the other side?

Jaana:

Yeah.