Omani Woman Taekwondo Black Belt

Here's a nice little human interest story today in the Tribune about an Omani woman who's literally kicking ass.

Its really great to see someone getting past the all too typical response a lot of Omani girls get when trying to be strong and independent: "but my brother (or father, Huscand, Uncle, or Mother) was dead against it".

Well done Ms. Warda Al Jabry. Fantastic.

In love with taekwondo

The mindset must change, the sport is not as violent as is made out to be, black belt Warda tells Sneha Chandy.

WHEN Warda Al Jabry went home with a black eye after a taekwondo joust, her mother couldn’t ‘take’ it anymore. “You will never go back,” she thundered. The gutsy girl has put her body through a lot. “I’ve fractured every toe,” she says flippantly. She even hurt her back when after bounding into the air she landed on her back instead of supporting her weight on her hands. Even the doctors had enough of piecing her back together. “They told me they don’t want to see me as a patient again!,” she laughs. But injuries have never halted Warda in her taekwondo tracks, the first Omani woman to get a black belt, in 2003.

Spunky Warda stealthily started taekwondo classes in 1999. “I always wanted to enrol in martial arts classes, but my brother was dead against it. He’s into karate but he couldn’t stomach the idea of his sister indulging in such ‘unfeminine’ activities. One fine day I tagged along with a classmate in college to join a karate class. But my brother held me back. I waited till I started working and then joined taekwondo classes. My brother had no idea what I was up to.”

She played hide-and-seek for a while till the day he accidentally saw her all tough and feisty in her martial arts uniform. Needless to say, the brother and sister had a mini duel.

“Later on, he gradually accepted it when he saw I was good at it. Now he’s proud of me and supports me whole-heartedly.”
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