By Phil Jarratt
To her dad and family friends she’s the pocket rocket.
To her mates at Karate Noosa she’s known as Speedy. To avoid confusion here let’s just call Sophia Innis national champion.
Sophia, 13, from Peregian Springs, is one of a new breed of local sporting juniors winning national honours this month, from the dojos of Rockhampton to the surf beaches of Port Macquarie.
But Sophia was first, winning individual gold and team silver at the Australian Karate Federation National Championship in Rockhampton over the first weekend of August, competing in her age group (12/13) and fighting in the under 42kg division.
In addition to her gold medal in kumite (sparring), Sophia won a silver medal in teams’ kumite, and placed a respectable fourth in kata (forms) in this, her first competition at national level, following cancellations of the nationals during Covid.
Not that Speedy let the grass grow under her feet.
She’s consistently won gold for both kumite and kata at regional and state level over the past four years.
Standing only 148cm tall and weighing just 32kgs, Sophia is invariably one of the smallest competitors in her age group but, according to coach Bryan Dukas, only hardens her resolve to be better at her craft.
Sophia, who had to fight a 60kg girl in the open teams division at the nationals, added, “The bigger girls are a bit slower, so it’s not too bad. You just have to watch your head. But I’ve never had a black eye or broken a bone.”
Although it wasn’t her initial choice – she just tagged along with twin brother Seb and his mates – Sophia began her martial arts training at the age of six and started training seriously in Shotokan Karate in 2017 with classes at her school, St Andrews Anglican College, conducted by Bryan Dukas’s Karate Noosa.
This led to her training at the Noosa dojo, and her passion developed from there.
Readers of Ron Lane’s sports columns in Noosa Today will be familiar with the profound influence that South African sensei Bryan Dukas has had on the Noosa karate community since his arrival six years ago, and Sophia is the perfect example.
He said, “The big change came when she started training here in the dojo with the bulk of our students. That was a real turning point, and as she’s matured she’s taken it more seriously.
“I was expecting big things from her at the nationals, to be honest.
“We were hoping for a semi-final finish but when she got into the finals and beat the current Australian champion it was incredible. She’s extremely dedicated, never complains about long training sessions.
“As a coach, I value the fact that she never questions what I’m teaching her, she trusts the process. In the coming couple of years I think she’ll be a fixture on the Australian team.”
But the speedy pocket rocket is by no means a one-trick pony.
“I have other sports too,” she said.
“I surf and I’m good at running but I choose to do karate.
“I’m a perfectionist and karate is such a hard sport to learn that it challenges me all the time. Everything is really hard.
“If you train every day there’s still so much you have to work on. Kumite is what I’m better at. That’s sparring for points.
“Kata is harder because it’s about movements that you have to perform, like a dance. Kumite just came naturally to me. I guess in my spirit I’m a fighter.”
Having recently passed her first (of three) brown belt gradings, Sophia is hoping to achieve the coveted black belt grading next year, while also representing at the Shotokan World Championships in Tokyo in November 2023, and the Oceanic Championships and World Youth Games in 2024.
Will there still be time for school?
Sophia says: “Of course. It would be cool to go professional when I get older, but I want to study the science of the body when I go to university and maybe I’d become a karate instructor at the same time. I think I can combine my sporting and academic life.”
I don’t doubt that for a second.
As dad Norm Innis, a former chair of Surfing Australia says: “She trains four or five days a week, and if it was up to her, that would probably be seven days a week, twice a day.
“But she never neglects her school work. There’s no pressure on her, she’s just doing what she loves.”
