North Shore Renaissance Teen To Represent Team USA In Karate At Jewish Olympics

HIGHLAND PARK, IL — Amid the challenges and isolation of the coronavirus pandemic, one local high schooler has been able to tune in to her passions and share them with the world, from performing and martial arts to a focus on science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM.

Julie Kerpel, a junior at Highland Park High School, is a third-generation karate black belt, a Zumba instructor, a part-time employee of a Belgium-based nonprofit that encourages girls' in science and a section leader in the school band — among other things — on top of keeping up with advanced placement classes and a group of close friends.

"I obviously am very busy and very booked on my calendar, but whatever I find important, I will always make time for it. I will always make time for my passions," Kerpel told Patch.

"It is a lot. It's early morning meetings for Brussels, and late nights of doing homework, but it's all worth it because I'm able to do what I love and do what I'm passionate about," she said. "I'm really fortunate to be in a community that supports me having all these passions, and my parents are so supportive and loving, and they have given me every opportunity they could possibly give me, and how could I not do everything I love in such an incredible environment? And so I make time for what's important, and it has worked out so far."

Kerpel said she has always wanted to be an engineer and plans on pursuing a career in the field after college. At the moment, she is taking an elective at HPHS about civil engineering and architecture and is especially interested in structural engineering, she said.

"For the longest time, math and physics were very natural to me. And when I was little, my dad told me the story of how my brother and I were playing with blocks and my brother would make this really creative tower that was not structurally sound whatsoever, and when I would build, I would have symmetrical squares that were very sturdy and very structured," Kerpel said.

"I found beauty in that symmetry and in that ability to be able to calculate something and know it will work," she added. "That's why I love math and physics and engineering so much, because it makes the world makes sense to me.

"Physics, it gives me the rules and the equations to know that this is why the ball flies at this speed and why the roof is staying over my head, and as I walk through life I see physics and math and just these laws of nature at work, and it gives me a sense of peace and calmness to know why it works."

In October 2020, Kerpel became a volunteer ambassador for Greenlight for Girls, a nonprofit based in Brussels that aims to inspire girls to pursue the study of STEM subjects. Each ambassador designs and pursues their own projects and promotes local STEM initiatives. In February, Kerpel was hired on as ambassador coordinator for the group.

"With these projects, we like to say that the sky is the limit, and we just want our ambassadors to follow their passions, and it's my job to help think of a project that can do that," Kerpel said.

Most of the girls with whom she coordinates are based in other countries.

"It's really inspiring to see girls all over the world who love STEM as much as I do," she said.

But before she embarks on her senior year of high school, Kerpel, a third-generation black belt, is due to represent Team USA in July at the World Maccabiah Games in Israel. The quadrennial competition for Jewish athletes, often called the "Jewish Olympics," was postponed from last year.

Kerpel started karate at the local park district when she was about 6 years old and began training with Jeff Kohn of North Shore Dojo in Glenview at age 10 before diving deeper into martial arts last year.

"For a while it was just something that I did once a week because my mom wanted me to, because she was black belt and she wanted my brother and I to also earn our black belts," she said. "But then with the pandemic, a lot of my other activities were slowed down or paused, and I was really able to spend a lot of energy and time at karate, and I just fell in love with the sport all over again."

Kerpel trained every day for weeks, she said, and started helping teach classes. She earned a black belt in November 2020 and a senpai, or teacher's, degree in June.

"I think it was a change in my mindset. Because when I was just starting out in karate, it was always, 'Oh I'm doing this because my mom wants me to get a black belt,' and then that's all changed from, 'My mom wants me to,' to, 'I want to get to black belt,' and that mental switch really motivated me a lot and maybe just keep going and going and pushing myself farther," she said.

"Then once I got my black belt I was like, 'let's keep doing this, I want to keep growing,' and it wasn't about a belt rank anymore it was about being the best karate person I could be and improving every single day."

In-person competitions were halted due to the coronavirus pandemic. But as soon as Kerpel had a chance to get back on the mat, she took it.

"I was like, 'I want to be there. I want to compete. I want to see how I compare to other girls my age so I can learn my strengths and my weaknesses, and see what I can improve upon,'" she said.

In September, she came in third place at the 2021 USA Karate national championships in the 16-year-old division for advanced kumite. The discipline of kumite involves combat with an opponent, while kata is a solo presentation of form.

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Kerpel said the mindset of kumite is complicated and chaotic, but that Kohn, her sensai, had helped break down the 2-minute match into manageable 15-second increments.

"So for example, the first 15 seconds of a match I just bounce around and try to gauge my opponent and try to see her strengths and her weaknesses, and then the next 15 seconds I fake a little bit and I see how she reacts, and it's described as a chess game," she explained.

"So there's a lot of thoughts in my head of what attack should I do, when should I do that attack, save my energy, keep fighting, be aggressive, so it's just a lot of thoughts at one time."

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After training at Ballet Makai in Highland Park since the age of 2, Kerpel said she has recognized many connections between martial arts and performing arts.

"There's a specific way you want to have your posture for dancing, and it's sometimes verbatim what I'm told in karate and in ballet of: shoulders back, chest up, pelvis under. And I started ballet years before I started karate, so I had that strong base of posture and balance and my karate helped my ballet for power and for jumps," Kerpel said.

"There is a lot of crossover between the two," she added. "Sometimes I'm told no karate kicks in ballet and I'm told that I'm dancing in kata, but once I find that balance, it's really great to have both arts forms complement each other."

Kerpel has not only followed her mother and grandmother's footsteps into the field of martial arts, she also inherited their passion for taking part in Zumba fitness classes. It began when her mother would bring her along to classes at about age 4. Her mom would bring coloring books to keep her busy.

"But I would see all the Zumba ladies having so much fun and having a party and I just wanted to join," she said.

Kerpel's mother and grandmother became instructors, and as soon as she was old enough, she did too. During the early days of the coronavirus outbreak in Illinois, she taught classes for kids remotely and raised thousands of dollars for the Moraine Township Food Bank with Zoom-based Zumba classes.

"It's been a really great experience to be able to connect with my mom and grandma through Zumba and through dance," Kerpel said.

Kerpel is also involved in school-sponsored activities, including tutoring, volunteering and as the leader of the flute section in band, speaking to Highland Park Patch after wrapping up rehearsal for this year's "Stuntz" student-produced musical at HPHS, the theme of which she described as the Academy Awards meets a murder mystery.

The accomplished teen also finds time to have fun with her friends. They worked their way through Marvel movies last summer and get together for activities such as "Powerpoint Nights" — a trend that began on TikTok and has been furthered by the ubiquity of meeting via video-teleconferencing during the pandemic — in which participants prepare presentations about often-lighthearted subjects of their choosing and vote on a winner.

"I have this really, really great group of girls that we've been close friends since the beginning of freshman year," she said, "and I'm so incredibly fortunate to call them my friends."

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