By Matt Stout
Staff Writer

Dakota Krol (above) of Auburn warms up during a session at Tokyo Joe’s in Nashua. In the fall of 2004, doctors discovered that Krol, now 10, was blind in his right eye. Since then, with the help of a contact lens, he’s earned the title of overall national champion in his age group in both fighting and forms. Right, Krol enjoys a watergun fight following his training. (Hooksett Banner/Bruce Preston)

At 10 years old, Dakota Krol has a vision. The six days a week of practice, the 30 or more tournaments a year, the countless hours spent training at home ­ they all foster that vision and help him see it more clearly.

Krol, an Auburn native, fights with a first-degree black belt in karate, but one day, he wants to earn a 10th-degree belt.

Bobby LaMattina ­ owner of Tokyo Joe’s, the studio where Krol trains, and a 10th-degree black belt grand master -- recognizes it, too. He sees it in Krol’s focus, energy and enthusiasm.

“He’s one of those kids that sleeps, eats and breathes martial arts,” LaMattina said.

Again, it’s that vision.

If Krol didn’t have that vision, there’s a chance he would have none at all. In the fall of 2004, nearly five years and several belts into his karate training, Krol entered the school nurse’s office at the Auburn Village School for a routine eye check-up.

The exam she used tested at no more than 20/200 vision. His left eye was perfect, better than perfect even, at 20/10. The other wouldn’t even register.

“I could barely make out the chart,” Krol said, “never mind the letters on it.”

Taken to Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston, Krol underwent several more tests. One in particular had him wear 3-D glasses to pick out three-dimensional shapes on a piece of paper. Of the dozen there, he saw three or four. Doctors diagnosed his right eye at 20/400. In other words, he was legally blind in that eye.

“Karate takes a lot of depth perception when you’re fighting,” said Krol’s mother, Heidi. “Afterward, the doctors were like, ‘He wins? He actually hits his target?’”

Indeed, Krol won. That year, Krol claimed the state title in his age division in both open forms ­ a performance a participant creates himself consisting of a kick- and punch-combinations and acrobatic moves ­ and advanced fighting.

At nationals, he earned a bronze-medal finish in both areas, and for the points he earned throughout all the year’s tournaments, he was named overall national champion in fighting.

Doctors later said his condition, called amblyopia, went undetected for years mainly because there were no outward signs of a lazy eye.

Now using a contact that’s improved his vision to 20/40 and a full face guard that acts as a visor when he fights, Krol has proven even better.

In 2005, after months of eye therapy, he reclaimed both his state titles, earned a gold-medal finish in open-forms at nationals and added to his trophy case the title as overall national champion in forms and fighting.

He’ll look to defend his crowns when, after months of tournaments, he returns to nationals this November in Warwick, R.I.

“He has that goal to do everything that he wants to do, and he’s doing everything he can to achieve it,” said Todd Waardenburg, the senior instructor at Tokyo Joe’s in Derry and a fourth-degree black belt. “To him, I think it’s just second nature.”

That’s the only real explanation for Krol’s perseverance. Doctors told Krol and his parents most children don’t realize they have eye problems until the age of 10. Now, without his contact, Krol said he can only see shadows and blackness, though in the months before his diagnosis, Heidi Krol remembers him mentioning some fuzzy vision.

Oddly enough, in the years before and after his diagnosis, Krol hasn’t lost a step in school, holding an A average in the fifth grade, and he’s excelled at other sports like baseball and hockey. He just never liked them as much as karate.

Since earning his black belt last November, he’s also helped teaching classes at Tokyo Joe’s and has trained the last four years with LaMattina himself, both on forms and fighting and even with weapons. The only thing missing sometimes is the funding from sponsors to help get Krol to tournaments that are, on average, more than a two-hour drive away.

Yet, he finds a way, like he’s always done.

“Sometimes a child can feel like they’ve peaked, but I think the driving force for Dakota is the fact that he has a lot of great role models,” LaMattina said, referring to both his parents, Heidi and Gary, and the number of world champions he’s trained with, including Jadi Tention, Reggie Perry and Raymond Daniels.

“And he has a vision,” he added. “His vision is to be an adult world champion.”