This year’s Berkeley Institute valedictorian, Jasmyn Renfroe, 18, carries the nickname “Karate Chop”.

But she’s down with that, as it’s all in good fun.

At 16 years old she skipped a belt to reach the level of black belt. This June, she won the title of Blackbelt Women’s Forms Grand Champion and the Blackbelt Women’s Weapons Grand Champion at the 14th Lepercq Memorial Tournament held at the Pembroke Sunday School.

Miss Renfroe trains with Bermuda Shotokan Karate Do along with her older brother, Jordan, 19, and younger brother Jacari, 11. She loves to prove that whatever her brothers can do, she can do it better.

“I am in the same rank as Jordan,” she said. “Jacari is a brown belt and is trying very hard to catch up with me.”

Jasmyn started martial arts six years ago, because her siblings were doing it, and her father suggested she try it also.

“I was a bit resistant at first,” she said. “I didn’t know many other girls that were involved with martial arts.”

Not only was she resistant, she tried to keep her new sport a secret from her friends at school.

“Then, one of the martial arts teachers was teaching at my school and announced my involvement in assembly, so I thought ‘everyone knows now’. My friends starting calling me ‘Karate Kid” and the security guards were calling me “Karate Chop’” I didn’t mind; they were just joking around.”

She has tried nearly every sport, but the ones that have stuck have been karate, netball and basketball.

“What I like about karate is that it is just me,” she said. “I didn’t have to rely on a team as I did with netball and basketball. The outcome was totally dependent on what I chose to do. If I didn’t put in the work I wouldn’t be able to produce the results I wanted.”

Sadly, six years after starting martial arts, there still aren’t a lot of girls involved in Bermuda, that she knows.

“When I first started there were a few girls, but recently it has dropped down to me and this one other girl and she is younger than me,” said Miss Renfroe. “In tournaments if you do sparring you are matched by age and weight, but when I do tournaments I don’t do sparring because there is never anyone to spar against.

“In class, we are matched by rank, so I usually fight my older brother because he is the same rank and height, basically. I always beat him up.”

Her interest lies more in weapons than in sparring.

“I would like to see more girls involved,” she said. “The few girls that have been in the class with me have looked up to me because they were all younger.”

She graduated from the Berkeley Institute with a grade-point average (GPA) of 3.93. In September, she is off to the United World College in Costa Rica. She has been learning Spanish over the last couple of months to prepare.

“I have been told that Costa Rica has a really good martial arts programme, but it depends on what my school says. It is an International Baccalaureate (IB) school, so they might be really strict in how many activities we can and can’t do. It depends on my schedule.”

Her ultimate goal is to become a forensic scientist. She was inspired by television shows such as Law and Order and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

“The more I learned about it, the more interesting it became,” she said. “In 2012, I went to Washington DC for a ten day forensic science conference and that confirmed everything. I loved it.”

Miss Renfroe feels that martial arts has given her a sense of discipline that she can use to pursue her dreams.

“It has taught me respect, not only for my teacher, but also for my fellow students. It has also taught me how to be humble in the sport and have discipline. Even though you know that you can fight someone you have to have restraint, knowing you can do it, but you are not supposed to.”