Presenting the Champion: Sensei Sheri Ingram-Angwin
At the tender age of 4, Sheri Ingram Angwin stepped into her first karate class.
“They had no kids’ classes,” she explained. “So I learned karate with a bunch of adults.”
The little girl who loved karate grew into a 6th degree black belt with a seemingly endless list of honors and accomplishments. She competed on the U.S. fighting team that defeated England in 1993 and took 3rd place in the Isshinryu World Championships in Kata in 1997. And she won the gold medal at the 2000 AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) National Karate Championships.
“I’ll never forget the great feeling I had when I won the gold,” she said with a smile.
She was a part of the U.S. team to compete at the World Championships in Scotland; a team comprised of the top 5 women and 9 men karate champs from throughout the United States. She then went on to win the gold medal in fighting at the 2001 National Championships in New Orleans — making it the second year in a row that she reigned as the National Champion in the Women’s Lightweight Division. She is Florida’s Regional AAU Referee, and also has assumed this position at the global level — an honor earned by only a handful of women.
“Some people still have a problem with women serving as AAU referees at the world level,” she revealed.
Sensei Sheri, as her students call her, also was named the 2005 Sensei of the Year by the U.I.K.A. (United Isshinryu Karate Association).
It perhaps comes as no surprise that Ingram Angwin’s love of karate is inherited. Her parents, John and Cindy Ingram, were themselves karate champs who assumed ownership of the Tampa Bay area school where they first learned the art.
“My grandmother was a spitfire too. She worked the desk at the karate center and we gave her a pink belt,” she said with a chuckle. “I come from a long line of strong women.”
Now Sensei Sheri Ingram Angwin runs Ingram’s Karate Center — which includes three locations and 420 students — along with lifelong Ingram’s student and instructor Jennifer Davenport.
“Sometimes people will walk into the center and ask when he will be available, meaning the owner of the studio,” she said. “I tell them she’s right here.”
Ingram Angwin now teaches a group of students that range from toddlers to seniors, and is currently instructing an 80-year-old woman in weapons training.
“We’re an extended family,” she said.
And within this extended fighting family, both male and female students are always encouraged to be their best.
“I don’t think of students in terms of their gender,” she said. “I try not to focus on differences. We’re all human, and whatever we do we always strive to be the best in our field.”
“Isn’t that in itself empowering to women?” she asked.
Yes, Sensei Sheri — we agree.:)
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