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By Katrina Margolis
Hometown Weekly Reporter
Growing up in a town such as Medfield, it can be easy to forget that the outside world is not always as safe. Katie Zona, a recently graduated Medfield High School student, took a self-defense class at Medfield High during her sophomore year and not only fell in love with it, but realized the importance of all women knowing how to protect themselves. Now, at 17, she is one of the youngest certified self-defense instructors in the area and plans on continuing to be involved as she enters Boston College in the fall.
After taking the course with Ms. Renauld as a sophomore, her junior year felt as if something was lacking. “Senior year, I decided to become an instructor like Ms. Renaud. I basically set up a training session to be certified,” Zona said. “I set it up in Caboskill, New York - totally random, but it was the closest one - and I did it over the summer going into my senior year, last summer. It was a three-day, 30-hour course. I went with my mom and we stayed at the hotel and I went every day and spent time with all of the people who wanted to get trained.”
Zona was the youngest person there, surrounded by mostly 30-year-olds. “Technically, you have to be 18 to teach a course, and I’m 17. In June, I’ll be 18. So this year, I aided Ms. Renaud in her personal safety course.”
The class consists of two parts; a classroom portion and the physical part. Zona said that the classroom piece is “almost more important than the physical piece. It’s all about risk reduction, awareness and prevention,” she elaborated. “Risk reduction is putting yourself in a situation where you can prevent certain things from happening. If you’re walking down the street, are you going to be alone? Do you have a lot of stuff in your hands? Awareness is about always being aware. These are just little things.” This part of the course was two times a week for two weeks.
While Zona had a tremendous amount of fun helping Ms. Renaud, she can’t wait to begin to teach her own course when she turns 18. “I’m probably going to set that up through Medfield. At the end, you can do a simulation which is with trained people - they’re called aggressors - and you can fight them and they’re wearing gear and it’s okay, so I’d need to get them.”
As Zona continues on to college, she hopes to continue on with her passion. “I’d love to work with the campus police!” she said. “I haven’t talked to them about it yet, but I would love to, and I plan on doing that if they let me.”
One can never be too young to learn how to be safe, and Zona understands the importance of what she’s doing.
“I think it’s so important that everyone knows, us women know, how to protect ourselves. I think we should all know how to defend ourselves.”
