My name is Stefania Vomiero, and I was a Canada’s Best Karate student for over twelve years. I achieved my first-degree black belt (Shodan) in 2016 and then my second-degree black belt (Nidan) in 2018. Once I achieved my black belt, I was a Karate Instructor for over six years, becoming a Senior Karate Instructor or Sempai in 2021.
I am now in my second year of law school. However, before I ever wanted to become a lawyer, my loftiest dream was to be a Canada’s Best Karate black belt. I feel strongly that the skills and attributes that I developed throughout twelve years of karate training, have contributed to my capacity to begin to pursue my legal career with diligence and determination.
Not only do I personally draw on these skills everyday as I approach the challenges of law school and beginning a legal career, but my experience in karate remains among the most popular topics during interviews as I approach the legal job market.
Lawyers regularly ask me about my experience in karate, as it is well-recognized that karate fosters incredible focus, discipline and strength of character in its participants. When I am asked about karate, by a potential employer or anyone else, I cannot help but recommend that anyone that is looking for a sport or activity to put their children in consider karate, particularly Canada’s Best Karate if they are local, because of the qualities and skills it cultivated in me.
I truly believe that participating in martial arts shapes your way of life, and that it never really leaves you even after you have moved on to other pursuits. I’ve endeavored to share how my experience as a student of karate has shaped my life as an adult and provided me with a unique skill set to pursue my goal of becoming a lawyer.
Focus: “Focus your eyes, focus your mind, focus your body.”
Karate is a sport that develops focus and discipline unlike any other. In karate class, the instructor is constantly encouraging students to maintain their focus on their techniques and training. We practiced the same techniques many times, but karate-ka know that practice makes perfect and that our goal is not just to learn a technique but to master it.
A common phrase that instructors use to help students regain focus in karate class is, “Focus your eyes, focus your mind, focus your body.” Focus on the direction you are going, focus on the technique you are performing, focus on what you want your body to do. The ability to focus for long periods of time is also incredibly important in law school, where we are expected to read, absorb and understand hundreds of pages of cases and documents every week in addition to a fairly rigorous class schedule.
I know that the capacity to focus that I developed in karate serves me well in law school, and will continue to be important in the practice of law itself, where mastery of legal concepts, rather than surface-level familiarity, is important for success.
The Black Belt Attitude: Always do your best!
People hear “black belt attitude” and might not realize that this mindset is not just for black belts, but for every student looking to better themselves. All students are encouraged to perform every technique, form, self-defense or sparring drill to the best of their ability at all times.
The first line of the student creed at Canada’s Best Karate, recited every day before class, is “My goal is to become the best person I can be.” Students are encouraged to bring their best selves to class every day, to practice at home to improve their skills, and to be receptive to feedback crucial to their improvement. Students are also encouraged to continue to set and achieve new goals.
These are important qualities for law students and lawyers, and for life more generally. Being encouraged from a young age to always do my best has been impactful in my life in two major ways. To this day, I feel incredible resistance against not putting my best effort into all of my endeavors. It’s not possible for me to do things “half-way”. Additionally, I take tremendous comfort in knowing that I have done my best, even if I do not achieve the outcome I hoped for. Because I trust in my capacity to work incredibly hard to achieve my goals, I know that there is little else I can ask of myself beyond bringing my best self to every task that I undertake.
Working to your maximum capacity is like a muscle that must be flexed and developed to understand what you are capable of achieving. Participating in karate, because of the numerous opportunities available to set and achieve new goals, simply allows students and practitioners more “reps” to strengthen that muscle.
Personal Responsibility
Personal responsibility at Canada’s Best Karate begins early, starting with completing the Black Belt Responsibility Chores Checklist. This creates opportunities to motivate young students to apply the responsibility from their karate training into other areas of their daily lives as well.
As I advanced in my training, these lessons in responsibility lead to developing discipline as well. In preparation to test for my black belt, I went out on runs to improve my endurance every day for months, in addition to my class attendance. I knew that I was responsible for ensuring that I was prepared, mentally and physically for the challenge of completing the Black Belt Test.
Similarly, law school is an exercise in discipline and personal responsibility. Often times, the majority of our grade for a class rests in the result of our final exam. As exam season approaches, a student that has not kept up with their work will oftentimes be overwhelmed and unable to learn the entire semester’s content in the last couple of weeks before exams.
A sense of personal responsibility is important because it empowers young people and adults alike to understand that anyone can work towards the outcomes that they want to achieve, and that they have real power in affecting these outcomes.
Healthy Competition
I strongly believe in healthy competition, which is fostered in both karate and in the legal profession. The parallel I draw here is that high achievers need to be sharpened by other high achievers.
In karate, competitions (of the healthy variety) abound. Whether it be in warm-up drills, sparring, forms competitions, grappling, or “king/queen of the ring”, there is a competitive element to karate that entails the physical meeting of adversaries (generally friend rather than foe) to determine a winner.
These are important lessons for both children and adults. Experiencing losing in a safe and reassuring environment builds resilience, and allows children and teens to understand not only the joy of pursuing a win but how to graciously lose as well, and most importantly, work towards improving to hopefully win in the future.
Law school is similarly quite competitive, where students are ranked in each of the classes they take against other students, and everyone is competing for jobs and grades. It is unlikely that you will make it through law school without some disappointments.
However, the most important ingredients for me in embracing this competitive environment have been the ability to accept a disappointing outcome, self-assess and learn from my mistakes, and come back stronger and more confident in my ability to succeed moving forward.
It’s hard for those of us driven to win to accept a loss, but we often learn so much more from our failures, and I am always seeking ways to be better, a perspective I learned in karate that I carry with me in law school and beyond.
Final Thoughts
I feel incredibly grateful for the opportunities that I have had thus far, both to train and develop important life skills at an amazing dojo like Canada's Best Karate, and to go to law school and pursue my dream of becoming a lawyer. I truly feel that my karate training has been instrumental in preparing me to pursue a legal career. I know that I will continue to draw on the skills I developed throughout many years training in karate as I continue to work towards my goal of becoming the best lawyer I can be!