How Breeanna Wade Became a Black Belt in Karate Stepping into a dojo that is also used as a rec room, the smell of sweat instantly hits you like a slap in the face. The front entrance is blocked with shoes that were owned by little kids to older adults. You have to tip toe your way through the sea of shoes. You can see a big room full of karatekas, which is the Japanese term for karate students. There are several groups of karatekas all around the room and they all possess different colored belts. If you look towards the back, you can see a group of black belts on their knees surrounding a combat.
One of the fighters is a sixteen year old girl named Breeanna Wade. You can see the passion in her eyes as she high kicks her opponent on the side of the head. Her opponent instantly falls to the ground, making Breeanna the automatic winner of the combat. Of course, she had to go through many struggles get to where she is now. Let me tell you the story of how she got here, but to do that we have to go back to the beginning. Breeanna Wade was born on a sunny day to a proud Hispanic mother on May 21, 1999. She was born and raised in the hot city of Las Vegas, Nevada.
Breeanna grew up around her mother side of the family. Her mother has always been a strong influence in the life of Breeanna. Her mother and aunt had both attended martial arts classes when they were younger and they were great at it. When Breeanna was ten years old, her grandmother suggested that she should try a karate class at her local community center. She has loved karate since the day she first started. It is safe to say learning martial arts runs in her family. It was not always easy for Breeanna to attend the karate classes.
One of the struggles that she went through was that often she did not have the time to balance her school work with her karate class. She would get out of school at 4:30 P. M and try her best to finish her homework in time to attend class at 6:00pm. Also, the other karatekas weren’t the friendliest people. They would annoy her when they were trying to be dominant and bossy. And most of all, the strenuous workout often took their toll. On a daily basis, Breeanna had to stretch, do push-ups and perform planks. Most days she would struggle to get out of bed since she was extremely sore.
But none of this mattered because it was something that she loved to do. Breeanna was determined to move up in rank. As a result of her hard-work, Breeanna was constantly being promoted to a higher rank. There are nine ranks in karate: white being the lowest and black being the highest possible rank. Breeanna was now a brown belt, but she was eager to become a black belt. She began training daily for the eventful day when she would compete to acquire her black belt. At last her shihan, Japenese term for instructor, informed her that the following day she would participate in the combats to hopefully become a black belt.
Breeanna could barely contain her excitement. The day that she had been looking forward to was just hours away. Then came the big day. However, Breeanna did not get an ounce of sleep the night before due to the fact that she was exceedingly apprehensive. She walked into class with butterflies in her stomach. Before they began, Breeanna and her fellow karatekas were instructed by their shihan to compose an extensive essay about why they love karate. When the students had completed the essay, the shihan then had them run all 8 laps around the room.
Following directly after, Breeanna was called on stage to be tested on the techniques of self-defense that she was required to know by memory. She quickly reacted to the attacks from other mastered black belts. She successfully passed the challenge. The final challenge was one-on-one combat with a fellow brown belt. This opponent was chosen randomly by the shihan. Breeanna was to fight against a much older girl named Gretchen. At first Breeanna was intimidated by her age, but she knew that Gretchen was a weak fighter.
Everybody sat on the ground surrounding them. They bowed their head and began to fight. Breeanna immediately kicked her on the left shin to make her trip. She then tried to punch her on the face, but Gretchen dodged the punch. Before her opponent could realize it, Breeanna performed her signature move: the high kick to the side of the head. Gretchen fell directly to the floor with a loud thud. Breeanna jumped in the air with excitement because she won the fight, which meant that she would be receiving her black belt.
