Gallery > Events - Banquet May 10, 2009

Karate BC’s Inspirational Athlete of the Year Brendan Whieldon.

Karate BC’s Inspirational Athlete of the Year –
Who is Brendan Whieldon?

by Shannon Whieldon

Anyone who looks will find his hand in more pies than a baker.

He comforts bereaved parents, speaks to politicians and stands up for children in need. He is an aberration, even among the unique. One minute he can be arguing with a teacher; the next, he is using his allowance to buy a teddy bear to cheer up a sick child.

After 7 rounds of chemotherapy for an incurable form of childhood cancer, medicine had all but given-up. But Brendan, too weak to walk, said he could heal himself with karate.

When asked, “Why do you do karate?” it’s an easy answer – “to save my life.”

He can show you his book, he trains everyday at home because he knows after 100 rounds of chemotherapy, over 900 days of treatment, karate will do what medicine can’t.

He’s a kid. He’d like to win a medal or grade for a belt but he knows it’s the training itself that will save him. For the past three years he’s introduced karate to the children in his class. He’s given up his recess to help the learning disabled because “they need one-on-one”. He’s given up his allowance because “she’s poor but loves karate, it’s all she has” and he wants her to train. He knows some children’s lives are far more difficult than his own.

He finished his homework on a stretcher in ER the night his best friend broke Brendan’s jaw from a perfectly executed mawashi-geri. He told the doctor, “I’ve never been sick a day in my life – I’m an athlete”, and never thought to miss his next karate class as he stood, front of the line, face-brace intact, hair falling out from his latest chemo. It can be difficult for some as they can only see his deficits, his weakness, or his fatigue. But for those who know him, who train beside him – those who know they could not do what he does, day after day; they see his courage and feel his spirit. He makes us laugh.

Brendan is a living example of the power of the mind. He lives by the true meaning of the spirit of karate-do. A boy with passion, a creator of good luck and an inspiration to those whose lives he touches. Brendan; he is “a little dynamo.”