Karate kids: Sibling rivalry fuels Jennifer and Zaine Jeffres national championship success

A general idea from the book “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell is that to become great at something, humans need to spend around 10,000 hours of their lives concentrating on that thing. 

That seems to be the principle siblings Jennifer and Zaine Jeffres are taking when it comes to karate. 

“They’re both so dedicated to their training, which is incredible, considering they started less than a year ago,” said Stoneybrook Karate Sensei Gian Paul Rivera — or as his students call him, Sensei GP. “The even crazier thing was that within a month of starting the sport, they committed to six days a week of practice, if not more.

“That’s incredible when you think more about it,” he said. “Every single one of those six or more sessions is at least two hours long. For an 8-year-old (Zaine) and a 10-year-old (Jennifer), that’s a lot of hours to commit to — not just because they have to be on top of finishing all of their schoolwork and other responsibilities they may have, but also, it’s a lot of hours the two need to be focused on developing as athletes. But because they love being here, because they love the activity, it is easier for them to stay locked in during those long practice sessions and to make sure they do all they can to get their schoolwork done, so they can make sure they can be here.”

The commitment the two, and really their family as a whole, have shown to the sport doesn’t stop at practicing. Their father, Shane Jeffres, is one of the parent volunteer coaches at the dojo, and the youngest Jeffres child, Ryleigh, also has begun training at Stoneybrook Karate and will begin competing next AAU season. 

Add to that a rigorous travel schedule for competitions, and it’s safe to say the Jeffres are West Orange’s karate kids.

“These two, as beginners, have traveled more and competed more than I think any other beginners from our gym in at least eight or nine years,” Rivera said. “That type of commitment came really fast, but hats off to them for following through on that commitment. Like, these guys went to Vegas for the North American Open their first international event within just six months of competing.”

For Zaine though, the traveling from competition to competition is the best part. 

“I love the traveling to different places for tournaments part of it the most,” Zaine Jeffres said. “There’s a tournament coming up in Georgia, and my sisters and I are going, and I’m really excited for it.”

This hyper-dedicated, 10,000-hour approach the two oldest Jeffres children have taken to their training and competing has seemed to work pretty well: Jennifer won the three gold medals, in the three disciplines offered at the AAU National Championships — Kobudo, Kata and Kumite — winning in the beginner, U10 category for each, making her a Grand National Champion, while Zaine won a national title in the beginner, U8 category for Kata and finished third in Kobudo. 

“It feels great to win these medals because of all the practice and work Sensei GP had us do,” Jennifer said. “When you win something that you actually worked for, it’s cool. It feels like I actually got something like a reward for something that I actually did. Like, when you practice every single day and every single week and every single month for two hours straight, fighting or doing Kata, doing Kobudo, and you win something like nationals, it feels like I’m getting a reward for the work and things we learned from the senseis.”

Supervised sibling rivalry 

A big reason the two national champions have excelled in the sport — and what has driven them to be so committed to the process of sharpening their karate skills — is their mostly friendly, sometimes in need of supervision, sibling rivalry.  

“They’re ultra-competitive with each other,” Rivera said. “They don’t like losing to each other, which is why they’re really good at being partnered together. Now, we do have to make sure they are supervised, right? Because they’re siblings, every once in a while they fire each other up, and it can get a little distracting. They’ll start talking, and we have to turn our attention to them and just get them back on focus.”

That motivation to one-up each other is clear on both sides of the relationship. 

“Well, I like beating her in Kumite,” Zaine said. “Sometimes, she wins, and I don’t like losing to her.”

Jennifer, however, doesn’t recall only winning sometimes against her little bro. Her recollection is more similar to the famous DJ Khaled song: “All I Do Is Win.” 

“I always win,” she said in response to her Kumite matches against Zaine. For reference, Kumite, which is what most people probably think of when they think of a karate competition, is one of the disciplines of karate the AAU offers in their competitions. It is basically a scored sparring contest between two fighters. 

As iron sharpens iron, Jeffres also sharpens Jeffres — in more ways than one. Their differing styles allow the other to grow in the sport. 

“They’re more similar than not in Kata and Kobudo, which are the forms categories of karate,” Rivera said. “They both turn on the attitude, they both turn on the power, they both make it look like, ‘Hey, I’m running my form. It’s not just me doing a dance. I’m out here, and I look like I’m fighting, I look like if I would have hit you, it would have hurt.’"

“But when it comes to sparring, Kumite, the two fight completely differently,” he said. “Jennifer is a little bit more patient — which patient finds the easy points. So, she’ll wait, she’ll find a perfect opening, she’ll time it, and when the right chance comes, she’ll find that perfect spot and throw whatever technique she needs to throw, and usually it’ll land. Zaine, on the other hand, he’s a bit more aggressive … in life, he wants to go, go, go. So, when he finally has that outlet with Kumite, he’s ready. So, he fights aggressively, he wants to go in, he wants to hit hard, and it works for him a lot of times. But when he throws something heavy and it doesn’t necessarily work out the best for him, he’s grown to be able to adapt to the situation. When he misses something like that or even if he gives away a silly point, he doesn’t beat himself up over it. He’s usually been able to lock back in, refocus and realize that he still has time on the clock, so let’s go find a way to win this.”

As the old boxing saying goes, styles make fights and, although, these two seemingly opposite sparring approaches make for an entertaining training session, what it really does is require each of the siblings to react and learn how to deal with their countering styles. 

On one end, Zaine’s aggression could be overwhelming for Jennifer, if he’s able to land his heavier techniques. On the opposite end, if Zaine can’t do that, Jennifer’s patient and potent approach can take advantage of the opening little bro gives her and she’ll tire him out. Constantly going through those types of training sessions teaches each of them how to get better at dealing with opposite approaches, while fine-tuning their own. 

Still, though the two have polarizing styles, they agree on something fundamental in their karate journeys: The goal is to reach the pinnacle of the sport by earning a black belt. 

“My dream for karate is to keep on going until I get my black belt,” Jennifer said. “Because I really want to teach people the sport. I want to help teach students all the cool things my senseis have taught me, especially when they’re new. … I’ve met this girl at competitions that’s like 15 years old and she’s a coach and an official because she’s a black belt. I want to do that, too.”