What is the Black Belt Foundation and who started it? The Black Belt Foundation is an organization meant for helping kids who join karate because many kids do not have enough money to enter tournaments or they don’t have transportation. It was started by me. I am a first degree black belt trained by Master Rob Nelson at Ultimate Martial Arts in Brainerd, Minnesota. I have been training for 5 years—since I was five years old. Why was The Black Belt Foundation started? I want to help my school become a tournament school. The county I live in is the poorest in the state. They are nice people and they need help to go to tournaments even though they would never ask. Tournaments can cost a lot of money, but they are important. They make you feel you are a winner and that you can do anything in the world. A lot of kids from my karate school didn’t go to the tournament we all should have gone to in April. When and how did you start it? I just started it this summer. I went by the bank. I had about $186 dollars from my Crow Wing County Fair money because I won the talent contest. I won $100. My brother Saxon had earned $11 dollars because of his prize winning rabbits and my sister Kendall had earned $75 because she came in second at the talent contest. What do you hope it will accomplish? I have a Twitter account, YouTube account, and a Facebook page. I hope to teach karate and to teach a class in Brainerd, Minnesota’s community education program. Also, I hope to establish a product line on a website I am building that will raise me enough money so I can ‘adopt’ a karate kid. I want to sponsor community education and to sponsor my karate school. I hope to do a lock-in fundraiser where we do karate and jiu-jitsu all night and watch other people who are professionals do it too! I want to have an auction and to have a practice tournament. And, I hope to have a recruiting goal and I want to encourage people to have open practice and raise money so that people can go to tournaments. What are your next activities? I want to become a grand master of ultimate martial arts and to win at the top 10 tournaments in the United States like the Diamond Nationals, the U.S Capitol Classics, and the Warrior Cup. And what we want to do is to help kids get more discipline. It is better than military school and you will get to see your children be a champion. That’s what a parent would do. Parents want to feel so much that their kids are better at school than they think, and karate can help a lot. I think that karate is all about discipline, respect, manners, confidence, focus and I think it can teach you to defend yourself from bullies and teach you not to be a bully and to have great lives and to have fun while doing it. I also think those skills are important to become winners not just in school, but also in karate and in any other sport. What can you tell us about the sport “karate?” Here, watch a demo video! If you want to learn more about karate, you can usually find a school near your home if you are in the United States.
