Girls get kick out of sports

<p>It took a few times for the girls crowded into the wrestling room at Santa Rosa Junior College to voice their “kihops,” or spirit shouts, with full throat as they moved through their new tae kwon do steps Saturday.</p><p>That’s typical, instructor Monica Miramontez said later.</p><p>“That’s probably the hardest thing to teach, in either adults or the children,” and could be symptomatic of a culture that favors soft voices, she said. “The hardest thing is to teach them to hear their own voice.”</p><p>But before long, the 30 or so girls, ages 8 to 12, were belting out their yells convincingly as they pivoted, kicked and punched rapid-fire at the air.</p><p>It was the first time the Korean martial art has been offered on the smorgasbord of events available at the Girls Sports Expo. Saturday’s 12th annual expo featured 12 events.</p><p>The growing confidence of the girls involved with the moves and mood of the class provided a larger metaphor for the comfort with which organizers hope the girls will approach sports and physical activity.</p><p>Besides traditional sports such as soccer, basketball, softball and swimming, the 210 young athletes who turned out tried everything from hip-hop and cheerleading to karate and track and field.</p><p>Fencing, as always, was hugely popular.</p><p>“It was so great,” said Mia Johannson, a Proctor Terrace third-grader.</p><p>“You get to poke people with swords,” said fellow 8-year-old Bridget Hiatt.</p><p>The event is sponsored by the Girl Scouts of Northern California, the Women’s Sports Foundation and Santa Rosa Junior College.</p><p>The point is to interest girls in making physical fitness part of their daily lives, said Penny Hastings, expo founder and a Santa Rosa women’s sportswriter.</p><p>Hastings started the first one after reading about a study that indicated women who didn’t exercise by age 10 had only about a 10 percent chance of being physically active adults.</p><p>Though the event regularly drew upward of 500 girls after its debut, the numbers have diminished somewhat in recent years, a possible result, Hastings said, of scheduling needs that now put it right after the busy holiday season.</p><p>Those attending were enthusiastic and filled up four, 50-minute sessions. “It was great,” Strawberry School sixth-grader Kayla Bailey said. “It gives you choices.”</p><p>Four friends from Lincoln Elementary School on Santa Rosa’s West Ninth Street said they had a blast trying activities such as swimming, karate and hip-hop.</p><p>“It was the best day ever,” said one of them, Mariela Romero, 10.</p><p>“More fun,” added Laticia Martinez, another Lincoln fourth-grader, “than just staying at home watching TV.”</p>