Professor Ricardo “Franjinha” Miller celebrated December with a little miracle of multiplication: the number of black belts among his students practically doubled. He gained ten black belts in a single day.
The miracle is easily explained, of course, by the hard and high-quality work, in an ample and comfortable in an equally city.
Led by Franjinha and his aces Jeff Glover and Bill Cooper, the party at Paragon Academy of Santa Barbara, California took place on the 5th and saw the promotion of his first black belt woman, gold-medal collector Katrina Weilbacher.
“I’m extremely honored to be the Franjinha Miller’s first black belt, and I believe I’m the youngest black belt in the USA, at 24 (but I could be wrong)!” wrote Katrina. “Paragon has been an enormous part of my life for nearly six years now, and they will always be my family. I thank him and everyone at the academy, I certainly wouldn’t be the person I am without them,” stated Katrina.
Congratulations to all the new black belts Sean Apperson, Sean Conley, Takeo Kingi, Alfred Prado, Josh Noblin, Toby Noblin, Andrew Broznya, Chris Lovato, Mitch Yount and Katrina Weilbacher. Good luck to all in this new trajectory, with great challenges and greater responsibility!
Bill Cooper speaks to new black belts, Sean Apperson, while Katrina shows her new belt to Franjinha, Jeff Glover and the whole team at the Santa Barbara academy. Photo: Publicity.