1st Degree Black Belt…check.

Magician…check

Competitive Dancer…check

Sophomore, Jasmine Shryock literally is juggling schoolwork with several extracurricular activities…well, maybe not “literally”, but she certainly keeps herself busy. Jasmine is involved in karate, dance, and magic. Shryock mentions how “this has been the year that I had the least extracurricular activities.”

Shryock is an adult 1st-degree black belt, which takes a lot of training and tedious testing to achieve. Becoming a 1st-degree black belt was one of Shryock’s greatest moments in karate. She has been practicing karate since she was five-years-old, making it 11 years that she has been partaking in the art, so pre-Cobra Kai. Shryock is planning to test for an adult 2nd-degree black belt in March. To accomplish this, she will need to participate in extensive physical and verbal testing.

This is all especially amazing because Jasmine was born with a motor delay called hypotonia, which is a muscular disorder causing hyper-flexible joints and low muscle tone. Her mom says, “She didn’t mind, though, she was content to sit and do puzzles, play games, and listen to us read her the same stories over and over. She also picked up sign language quite easily after watching baby sign language videos for only a week. So, although she was delayed in learning to crawl, walk, and talk, she was highly intelligent and quite precocious regarding her fine motor and problem-solving skills.”  Tenacity seems to run in the family.  Her mom explains that as soon as Jasmine was “able to walk, I enrolled her in dance, karate, and soccer.”

Dancing  has been a part of her life since the age of two. Jasmine is a competitive dancer with Danswest Dance Company and she is an assistant dance teacher there as well.  Currently, Shryock has dance practice for roughly 5 hours, Monday through Thursday. The type of dances she participates in are Jazz, Contemporary, Hip-Hop, Tap, and Lyrical. “I pretty much do it all,” Shryock says, although the genre of dance that she enjoys doing most is Tap.

With getting off of dance practice at 9 p.m., that does not leave her much time for school work. When asked about fitting homework into her schedule she responds, “I mostly do homework at night after dance, on weekends, or in my classes.”

And yes, Shryock is a magician! Her dad is actually a professional magician, traveling around the world for his work. Her mother is a magician assistant as well, so it only makes sense that Jasmine would have a trick or two up her own sleeve. She has a magic trick of her own that includes tap dancing while making objects light up. Her favorite types of magic tricks are illusions and close-up magic tricks with cups and balls. There is one illusion that her dad does called “Origami,” which is her most favorite magic trick. The Origami trick is where her mom gets into a box and her father sticks swords through the box.

Currently, she is a karate instructor and helps teach dance. Jasmine doesn’t plan to use any of her current skills for a future career, except maybe having a career in magic. Not only is Jasmine versatile, she’s also really nice.  Just be aware if you plan on making her mad – it could be a swift karate kick, but she could also Origami you!