Kendyl Roberts is a sophomore at Badin High School, not only that, she is a blackbelt in karate and has been doing it for nine years.

Robert’s karate story started when she was only seven years old. She watched a show that inspired her to join karate.

“I was seven years old and I wanted to start because I saw this show called “Kickin It” and I thought it looked really cool so it made me want to do Karate,” Roberts said.

Roberts is a very hard worker, she practices five days a week and she has been to many tournaments including Nationals where she placed 1st. A normal tournament usually takes about several hours and can be pretty lengthy.

“A normal tournament usually starts off by signing in, waiting, getting called to staging, waiting some more, practice and compete, wait, compete again, get medals, photos, go home,” Roberts said.

Karate is a very challenging, demanding sport that takes a lot of hard work and perseverance which Roberts has. To get where she is now, she had to practice a lot.

“Normal practices include football for warm up, kata (routine), bunkai (practice fighting in real life scenarios), and questions afterwards,” Roberts said.

Roberts has many memories with Karate and it is a very significant part of her life.

“Karate is more than a sport to me. It’s my life. I’ve made several of my life time friends from karate. Some of my favorite memories are from karate. It makes me happy. It’s something I’m going to be doing for the rest of my life. I love karate, it’s who I am,” Roberts said.