AMPLIFY CLW/13th brings you Yaro Havelka, Owner of TOP Martial Arts Clearwater

13th Ave Media

Welcome to the 27th episode of Amplify Clearwater Show, powered by 13th Ave Media! We are very excited to take you on a journey to learn more about all of the incredible businesses, nonprofits, and community leaders. In this episode, we are featuring Yaro Havelka, Owner of TOP Martial Arts Clearwater!

Yaro is the owner of TOP Martial Arts. He’s been married to his wife Vickie Havelka for the last 15 wonderful years.

The self-defense style of martial arts they are teaching in their school is Korean Hapkido. Their weapon defense style of martial arts is Filipino Warrior Arts and only available for adults.

He was born in Czech Republic (actually former communist country Czechoslovakia). He started training Martial Arts at 14 years old because of his friend wanted to try martial arts classes. They both joined the beginner course, which was very hard and his friend quit after 2 months.

From the start of his training he’s really enjoyed learning martial arts. Around 1997, he moved to the USA, and came to Clearwater. "I remember vividly, I arrived in Clearwater at night and the next day went looking for a martial arts school. I found one in walking distance and that same day I joined. Funny thing is, it is the exact same studio I own now.”

Yaro purchased the studio about 15 year ago. At that time the studio didn’t have a lot of students; just enough to pay rent. Through the years they have extended their classes to kids and adults as well as an after-school program. Due to their expansion they outgrew their space and moved to a new location.

Yaro taught himself the English language from books and talking to others. In school he learned the Russian language for about 13 years and the technical German language. When he signed up for martial arts classes in Clearwater, he showed his instructor the word ‘training’ in the dictionary. To this day his instructor (Rick DeAquila) has fun telling this story.

His hobbies include training and continuing to learn martial arts and understand a lot of different styles of the art. He loves to occupy his mind by always learning something new. He has black belts from 7 different martial arts styles, as well as studying other styles. He also enjoys shooting guns with his favorite being sporting clay.

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