Zelda: Woman Warrior

Warrior is my namesake. I live the life of the warrior, one of honor and ferocious love.

Martial Arts is a cornerstone of who I am. Karate has given me the life long gift of practice, and has shown me how to cultivate profound discipline and joy. It has taught me the gift of surrender, the ability to give myself completely to movement and to the daily practice and to step outside of my thoughts, feelings, opinions, ego and say “osu.”

So how did we get here? When I was 5 years old my brother wanted to be a Power Ranger and I wanted to do everything my brother did, so my mother signed the whole family up for Karate. It was never the plan to open a Karate School, but my mother has always been a visionary. I trained throughout my childhood at World Oyama Karate Headquarters in NYC under Soshu Shigeru Oyama and later when that dojo dissolved, I earned my shodan (first degree black belt) in 8th grade under the training of my mother, then my sensei, when we were a part of Kanreikai Karate. I returned to training seriously in my early twenties and began competing in kata (forms) and full contact fighting. It was then that I began my journey as a warrior, a lieutenant in my mother’s mission to create a karate school where people were elevated, they trained hard, and were loved deeply. For 10 years it was my honor to stand at her side and to develop myself as a warrior and teacher. I earned Nidan (second degree black belt) in 2014 and Sandan (third degree black bet) as well as the rank of Sensei in 2019 when my first generation of students became Black Belts.

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