High school teacher Candace Daher sees too many teenage girls trying to keep up with the Kardashians instead of more suitable female role models.
She may not have the audience of a Hollywood socialite, but Daher has endured constant self-doubt and fought back — in life and in martial arts competitions — to be successful at home, in the gym and in her career.
Daher, 46, works in student support services at Springfield Collegiate Institute where she graduated in the late 1980s. When she was a student it was considered flirtatious if girls wore tight jeans, she said.
“Now we’re seeing girls where you’re seeing their thong underwear, their bras are exposed and it’s on a totally different level,” Daher said during her break on Friday. “I see these girls who are setting up really bad relationships with boyfriends, parents and other authority figures because they just don’t have that sense of self-worth.
“When you do see them, it’s every day with the false eyelashes and the mid-drift baring tops.”
Many of these girls will “fall into the trap” of showing off their bodies to get value, Daher said.
“If their bellies get too big, they show off their boobs,” she said. “When their boobs are sagging they put on more eyeliner.
“It’s a never-ending cycle that they’re never going to be good enough. The Kardashians are their yardstick. I would much rather have strong female athletes be their yardstick, or a successful businesswoman.
“It’s very disheartening for me. I would love to see them get strength and power from something they’re doing rather than something they were born with.”
Daher was a 16-year-old honours student and “anything but athletic” when she took up karate. She left the sport in her 20s to raise her two children, but picked it up again when her kids were old enough to participate.
In the last 12 years she’s trained in jiu jitsu, earning a purple belt while winning gold and silver medals in international competitions from 2007 to 2012.
It wasn’t easy as she has recovered from two knee surgeries. She also became a single mom in 2007, which left her “crippled with low self-esteem.”
While raising her two teenagers, she went back to university and earned her education degree. Daher credits her healthy lifestyle with giving her the strength to get back on her feet. It worked for her as an adult, but she knows it can work for youth as well.
“When you take on a martial art or anything like that your success is directly related to how hard you work, how much you learn or how much you care about getting better,” she said.
Jiu jitsu is more about strategy, speed and intensity than violence, Daher said.
“It’s very methodical,” Daher said. “It’s basically chess with your body and that’s why I like it.
“When you’re in the moment, you’re not thinking about anything else.”
Daher, who remarried three years ago, recently dropped 25 pounds in 12 weeks to prepare for this weekend’s IBJJF World Master’s Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Championship in Las Vegas.
Anyone looking to get started in martial arts should look for an established instructor who has a black belt in the art they are teaching, Daher said.
“If you go try a class, look to see if it’s mostly white belts and do they have any advanced belts who have skill,” she advised.
“If there is just white belts in there, why aren’t they retaining people?”