Sayaka Torra

Sayaka Torra began studying judo at the young age of 5 and is currently a sixth degree black belt. She is a 7-time Senior National Champion, represented the United States at 3 World Championships (2001, 2003, 2005), and was a member of the 2008 Olympic Team in Beijing. Sayaka also won a silver medal at the 2000 Junior World Championships in Tunis, Tunisia. She graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a B.A. in Mass Communications and a minor in Japanese. Since retiring from competitive judo, Sayaka now leads the competitor’s classes at the East Bay Judo Institute and works as a business operations manager for Humintell, a psychology-based company out of El Cerrito, CA. She, her husband, and son live in the east bay with their two cats, and multiple beehives.