In six weeks, Jenna Fernandez and Sabrina Roberts did something it would take most people two years to accomplish, but when they first started on the journey they weren’t so sure they made the right choice.

Weeks of waiting led up to a moment in the dark at Quantum Martial Arts in Seattle that neither Roberts or Fernandez would have ever anticipated.

“We were slowly walking up the stairs,” Roberts said. “All of a sudden we see 30 people standing in their gis (uniforms) holding candles. It was freezing.”

Not to mention it was pitch black, Fernandez pointed out, and ice cold since it was in the middle of the worst winter storm the area had experienced in more than a decade. The dojo operators had to turn off the heat because of the cameras, Fernandez explained.

“Then out of nowhere, Brenda!” Roberts said. “She’s like 5-4 with a shaved head. She has tattoos all up and down her arms, on her neck, her ears were gauged.”

Both girls were intimidated immediately by mixed martial arts instructor Brenda Brown, their coach for “MADE”, the MTV reality series they had to jump through what seemed like a hundred hoops to get onto only to wonder what they had gotten themselves into.

“We were so scared,” Fernandez said. “She was hard core. Very, very buff. She was doing all these crazy moves.”

Then Brown walked up to the girls, who had been instructed to kneel, stuck out her hand and said in a casual yet friendly voice, “Hi, I’m Brenda,” Fernandez recalled.

And that wasn’t even the beginning of what the girls, both students at Tahoma High School, describe as one of the most intense experiences of their lives.

It started out on a whim. MTV producers were at Tahoma High in September conducting auditions for the series. The girls were hanging out when they got a call about the auditions so they grabbed their head shots — both are singers and performers — and headed to the school.

“We waited four hours to audition,” Fernandez said. “They usually only let you audition as an individual. We decided to audition together. We walked in the door and started singing.”

Apparently the strategy worked. They were interviewed individually.

A few weeks later MTV called again, Roberts said, first trying Fernandez who had left her phone at home.

No worries, though, because they were shopping together so MTV producers were able to reach them on Roberts’ cell phone. They talked until the battery on her phone died, then until the battery on her mom’s phone died, then continued the conversation while the pair were out in Roberts’ car with the cell plugged into the car charger.

It was another two-and-a-half hours on the phone.

“We were like, ‘Wow, they’re really considering us,’” Roberts said. “It’s really exciting and the whole process was really cool.”

That hurdle was followed by a whole battery of tests, Fernandez said, with school officials contacted to find out what kind of students the girls were as well as conversations with their parents, then four days of preliminary filming in October.

After that there was a series of medical tests as well as a psychological to see if the girls could handle the stress that would be the six weeks of filming for “MADE”.

“We had to do a three hour psych test,” Fernandez said. “She asked me every single detail of my entire life.”

And even through all that, she said, they may not have ended up being selected.

A week later, though, they got a call that the green light had been given and soon they were going to be made into martial artists.

“Karate was the first thing we thought about,” Fernandez said. “I was like, ‘Sabrina, we could be Bruce Lee.’”

Filming began Dec. 15. Roberts, a sophomore, would spend all day at Tahoma while Fernandez, a senior, would be at the high school in the mornings then at Green River Community College the rest of the day.

Right after school they were expected to be at Quantum Martial Arts by 3 p.m. in Seattle. They would then spend five hours training while being filmed as well as doing interviews during and after practice sessions.

“It was an immersion experience,” Fernandez said. “They had this goal — they wanted us to change emotionally and mentally but physically, as well. They wanted us to step outside of our box. It was really enlightening.”

As part of the experience the pair went to a Japanese restaurant in the International District in Seattle where Fernandez has seafood for the first time in her life.

As much as that pushed her out of her comfort zone, Fernandez said one of the most humiliating and humbling experiences happened at Tahoma High, when they had to perform moves in front of the entire school.

That exercise was a punishment for the girls as part of a test known as a day of silent reflection for the girls. They couldn’t talk and it was particularly challenging for Fernandez, who says she sends and receives an average of 16,000 texts a month, but this day she had to turn off her LG env2 (cell phone).

In the end, it was Roberts who broke the no talk/text rule, leading up to the martial arts performance.

Another difficult test was the physical transformation. The girls went to a shop in Seattle store, Metro, where they had to select two outfits.

Then there was the hair dying.

Fernandez had fire-truck red highlights added to the bottom half of her hair while Roberts, who has dirty blonde hair, became a brunette with purple highlights.

“She was bawling when she first saw it,” Fernandez said.

At times having the cameras around was frustrating when classmates would try to get on camera or when it was distracting to have them in the classroom.

Both said they had to be careful with people because they didn’t know their motives.

Still, the entire experience was worthwhile, Fernandez said, and no one can take away the fact the girls hold high yellow belts which is something that takes most people who train a day or two a week two years to accomplish.

Fernandez had a pair of goals heading into the process.

“No. 1 was my independence,” Fernandez said. “I’m a daddy’s girl. I came to the point where I didn’t want to go to college because I didn’t want to be away from my parents. I also wanted to be looked at differently. We’re the ‘preppy singers.’”

Fernandez said that she feels like she’s ready to head off to college after this experience and will go to Central Washington University in the fall on a full scholarship.

And since the pair had two opportunities to show off their skills — the performance at school then a sparring match exhibition Jan. 28 — Fernandez said she’s noticed a change.

“Since the sparring match people treat us differently,” she said. “I don’t think I realized my own strength, physically and emotionally. We’re actually forces to be reckoned with.”

Roberts said she feels like she “got so much out of the experience.”

“So many things have changed,” she said. “The biggest thing that changed for me is how I act toward people. When we first met Brenda I was really scared of her. After we got more comfortable with her, she’s just really chill. That experience taught me about how we judge people when we first see them.”

Fernadez said she’s not a fan of MTV, but she has always enjoyed “MADE” and the message it imparts.

“When people see the episode they’re going to be inspired,” she said. “I hope that people at our school say, ‘Why can’t I do that? Why can’t I step out of the box?’”

Fernandez and Roberts’ episode of MADE is tentatively slated to air March 14. More information on the series can be found on www.made.mtv.com.