Wong works her way to the top

By Maddie Yang,
BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–

After many years of preparation, senior Marissa Wong finally earned her third degree black belt in karate in December.

Karate is a form of martial arts, but Wong specifically practices Filipino martial arts at the dojo Inspire Martial Arts.

“I love the community at Inspire Martial Arts. I have made a lot of friends through karate and everyone there is so supportive of everyone else,” Wong said.

Wong started karate in 2007 after watching her younger brother’s classes.

“It looked like fun so I wanted to try it too,” Wong said.

There are 14 belts before black belt. To be eligible to test for the next belt students must earn all of the tips by passing each module. Belt tests are held at the end of each module.

After earning the student black belt, students attend prep class and have to do one out of two days of black belt test to pass.

Once a student gets to black belt there are degrees, starting with first, then second, then third, etc. Each test gets harder and students have to wait a certain amount of time before testing for the next black belt.

Wong waited two years to test for 2nd degree black belt and three years to test for 3rd degree black belt.

Wong dedicates much of her time into karate. She practices five times a week, everyday with a different schedule.

A normal class consists of a warm up and then students break up into their separate ranks (black belts, advanced, intermediates, beginners) to work on specific materials. Then the class ends with a finale, usually being exhaustion drills.

On Mondays after normal class, Wong attends Hyper, which is the advanced demo team.

“It’s my favorite class. We get to work on more advanced kicks and flips that we don’t normally do in class,” Wong said.

On Wednesdays after normal class Wong has an additional leadership class where she learns the material to teach the following week.

On Thursdays Wong has sparring for an hour where she works on specific techniques. On Saturdays she assists the Tigers class (3-6 year olds).

“They’re super fun and it helps me by giving me practice in teaching and how to talk to little kids,” Wong said.

Although Wong has had lots of fun with karate, she constantly looks for motivation to keep up the hard work.

“The biggest challenge is continually finding ways to improve because at this point it’s easy to just quit or slack off since I have learned everything multiple times.” Wong said.

Karate has played a big role in Wong’s life up until now. She even plans on continuing in college.

“At this point karate is more a lifestyle than a sport because it’s more than just self defense,” Wong said. “It’s more about giving back to the community through leadership and teaching than testing your knowledge.”