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A Life in Taekwondo

A story of faith, perseverance, and a heart warming experience of one man's quest for a World Champion title in Taekwondo.

by Mr. John D'Anna
4th Degree Black Belt

"May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you oh God, our strength and our redeemer."

A couple of weeks ago, Pastor Sara spoke of the many hats we all wear, and as I thought about it, it really is true.  In my own life, some of you know me as a marginally competent usher or a member of the Staff Parish Relations Committee or as a Stephen Minister.

Most of you know that I wear other hats as well: husband, father, family ATM machine, and long-suffering newspaper editor. But what you may not know is that I’ve been practicing Taekwondo for 23 years, which by my U of A Wildcat math is half my life.

Dave thought it might be interesting for me to share some of my experiences along with the lessons I’ve learned in the martial arts. I hope you think so too, so here we go.

Lesson No. 1: Getting knocked out hurts. A lot. So does having your jaw dislocated. And your ribs cracked.

Lesson No. 2: Your wife will have no sympathy for these injuries because after all, you volunteered to get into the ring.

Lesson No. 3: The reason your wife doesn’t want your trophies in the house is because she’s so proud of them that she wants to give the neighbors a chance to see them every time the kids leave the garage door open.

So what is taekwondo? In the American Taekwondo Association, we teach our students that taekwondo is a martial art that trains people physically and mentally. Literally, it is a Korean phrase meaning “way of the hand and foot.”

It really boils down to Korean Karate, and I’ve been practicing it since 1983. I’m a fourth-degree black belt, and I hope that some time in the next couple of years I’ll be able to test for my fifth degree.

Before I go any further, I’d like to introduce some special people in my life. Seventh Degree Black Belt Master Mark Kaup Lee is here as is sixth degree Black Belt Master Michelle Landgren Lee. I’ve known them both for more than 20 years, and they continue to be role models for me. Thank you so much for coming today.

I’d also like to introduce Donald Garcia, a 5^th degree black belt who I’ve known since he was 11 years old. I was once his teacher, and now he has surpassed me in rank and gets to teach this old dog new tricks. Just among the three of them there are 18 degrees of black belt, so I think we have any crowd control issues covered.

Anyway, back to Taekwondo. There are a number of different disciplines in taekwondo, including forms or katas, weapons, board breaking and sparring. You already saw some board breaking, and we’ll see some forms in a bit, but here’s a taste of sparring from one of my matches at last year’s World Championships in Little Rock.

(Note:  Photo missing)
The guy I’m sparring is Mr. Mark Hale, an awesome Fifth-degree black belt from Oklahoma.

I was going to have Kim speed up the video to make me look better, but there you have it. That’s what I did on my summer vacation. I beat Mr. Hale that day 5-0, won a couple of more matches and then lost in the final. I still carried home a trophy that’s as tall as our acolyte, so it was a pretty good day.

Speaking of good days, it was exactly a year ago this week that eight of us stood before you in Ross Hall and received our commissions as Stephen Ministers.

I mention that because some months before that, when I decided after much prayer to enter the program, I said it was the first time that I had felt the Holy Spirit actually working within me, pushing me to do something.

But now that I’ve had that experience, I can look back over my life and see that maybe it was just the first time I was AWARE that I was being moved by the Holy Spirit.

Twenty-three years ago, I was fresh out of college and in my first newspaper job. I worked hard and I played harder. I relished the role of hard-bitten, hard-drinking newsman. Moderation wasn’t exactly in my vocabulary, and neither was discipline. I had a pretty big chip on my shoulder, and in short, it would have been very easy for me to have gone down a very different path in my life.

Growing up in a military family, we moved around a lot. I was often the new kid in school, which meant getting beaten up a lot. I wasn’t very athletic and often fantasized about how different things would be if I could learn judo or karate.

My mom tried to teach me to box once, but she did it in our front yard, which means every kid in the neighborhood saw it. I never lived that down until we moved.

When I was in high school, we moved to Japan. I didn’t get beaten up, so I didn’t really need the karate, but I remember going down to the beach early one morning and seeing a group of kendo practicioners going through their katas in perfect unison.

Their movements were so smooth and graceful, powerful and precise. When they yelled their ki-ais in unison, it echoed with raw courage. Most of them were my age, but the way they weilded their wooden swords showed a sense of confidence, purpose and commitment that I definitely lacked. 

Whenever we would go to a Japanese festival, I would always gravitate to the karate demonstrations and would be captivated watching these young men break bricks and boards with bare hands and flying kicks.

I always wanted to try it, but we moved around so much that I wouldn’t be able to stay with it. When I was in college, there was a club on campus, but I was working my way through school and didn’t really think I had the time or the money for it.

But once those regular paychecks started rolling in after graduation, I no longer had an excuse. In September of 1983, I was working the night shift as a reporter, and a woman I worked with came in with her teenage daughter.

Maybe it was a coincidence, or maybe it was the Holy Spirit at work, but they were both wearing taekwondo uniforms and had just come from practice. Here was this middle-aged woman -- the gardening columnist no less -- and she was taking karate. If she could do it, why couldn’t I?

I asked her about it, and she invited me to her studio, and I signed up that night to train with a second degree black belt named Bill Babin. He is a seventh degree black belt, a senior master now, and he is still my instructor.

When I first joined, one of the things that attracted me to Taekwondo was the oath we recited at the beginning and end of every class. From the most junior white belt to the highest ranking black belt, we would pledge Courtesy, Integrity, Perseverance, Self Control, Indomitable Spirit, Victory.

Those six tenets were derived from the ancient code of the Hwa Rang, who were a class of warrior literati who unified the three kingdoms of  the Korean Peninsula in 700 AD, more than 500 years before any Samurai code was ever established in ancient Japan.

All are words to live by, but I think my favorite is indomitable spirit. The Korean phrase is “baekchul boolgool.” Two years ago, I had to opportunity to travel to Korea for an international tournament, and one of the masters saw the phrase embroidered in Korean on my belt. He looked at it approvingly and said, “This very good. Mean ‘cut 100 times, never break. Cut 1,000 times, never break.” It’s a great concept, especially for all of us who’ve ever experienced setbacks in our lives. Cut 1,000 times, never break.

I’ve been fortunate enough to encounter all kinds of little nuggets of wisdom like that in Taekwondo. 

Many years ago, Korean Taekwondo master Sun Kyu-Shim wrote a book called “Promise and Fulfillment in Taekwondo.” I don’t remember everything it says, but there was one phrase that stuck with me. “That which seems impossible today can be achieved or even surpassed tomorrow if the spirit is daring and the will is persevering.”

If the spirit is daring and the will is persevering. Isn’t that a great turn of phrase? The late Grand Master H.U. Lee, who founded the American Taekwondo Association nearly 40 years ago,  had a variation on that phrase: “Today impossible…tomorrow possible.”

Apparently his will wasn’t that persevering when it came to improving his English, but his message is clear. We each have it within us not only to confront adversity and to overcome it, but to achieve our dreams. Today, the phrase “today not possible…tomorrow, possible” appears on the medals we are awarded at World Championships every year.

When I first put on a white belt all those years ago, I don’t think I ever dreamed that I would ever win one of those medals. Or that I would even become a black belt. Or an instructor. Or an eight-time state champion. Or a three-time world medalist.

In fact, stepping in to the ring against a defending world champion was about the last thing I could have imagined my self doing. Fortunately, the ATA doesn’t really expect much from you as a white belt. Your first kata or form has only 18 moves, all basic kicks and punches, and you don’t start sparring for several months.

I’ve enlisted the help of Josef Henry to give you a little demonstration. Joseph is 11 years old, and he’s a first degree black belt. By the way, the Lees are Joseph’s instructors.

But here is that basic form – 18 moves. Josef demo here.

All the moves are pretty simple, so simple even a caveman can do it – but they are the basic building blocks of taekwondo, front kick, high block, low block, side kick, punch.

The next form has 23 moves. The next one 28. By the time you get ready to test for your first-degree black belt, you have to remember nine forms, the longest of which has more than 40 moves. Joseph’s First Degree Black Belt form has 81 moves.

My current form has 84 moves and takes a little over two minutes to get through. It’s an elaborately choreographed imaginary fight scene. Forms were never my specialty, however. I like real fights.

In the old days, we used to go bare knuckled and bare footed. The only protection you had was a mouth piece, a groin cup and all those thousands of blocking drills you practiced in class.

Today we wear all kinds of hand pads, foot pads, chest protectors, and headgear. But it’s still the same basic drill: you and the other guy in the ring, and may the best person win. It’s the purest form of competition I know. Your skills and experience against your opponent’s skills and experience.

In Japanese martial arts, there is an opening bow called “gassho.” It is an expression of inner harmony and the humble acknowledgement that everything that came before us, all of our ancestors, all their wisdom, all their experiences and all of our own life’s wisdom and experience have brought us to this place, to this moment.

I try to think about that every time I step into the ring, whether it’s at a local tournament or at World Championships. It sort of helps me to calm the butterflies in the pit of my stomach, which I still get before every tournament.

I think it was Muhammed Ali who said that everybody gets butterflies in their stomach – the trick is teaching them how to fly in formation. I think that advice ought to apply to giving a sermon as well.

Anyway, these days, I try not to think about the outcome of a match or how the pairings will eventually work out. There’s a Zen parable about people who keep both eyes focused on their destination will have no eyes with which to find the path.

I’m particularly fond of Zen parables. Some of you may have heard of Joe Hyams. He was a Hollywood screenwriter who wrote the movie Brubaker but was probably better known for being Mr. Elke Sommer. Hyams had a lifelong interest in the martial arts and was a friend and student of the legendary Bruce Lee. He wrote a book called Zen in the Martial Arts, which has become a classic among martial artists.

In the book, he speaks of a lesson in which the master draws two lines of equal length in the sand, one representing the master and the other for the student. He asks the student how it's possible make the master's line shorter.

The student proposes a variety of ideas from cutting the master's line in half to erasing part of it. "Those would work," replied the master, "or you could just lengthen your line."

You could just lengthen your line. I found out what that means a few years back. In 2000, I qualified for World Championships in sparring for only the second time in my life.

Having recently turned 40, I was in a new division, and sort of came out of nowhere to win a silver medal. Now most folks would have been happy with a silver, but to me it just meant I was one point away from being a world champ.

Being that close made me want it all that much more. Maybe too much, but if I was going to be a World Champ, I had to start getting serious. Almost all of the guys in my division are fulltime instructors and school owners. They do taekwondo every day for a living, and they’re very good at it. I, on the other hand, have a desk job, and taekwondo is more of an avocation. I don’t always have the time to train the way I would like.

In any case, the next year a guy named David Rueckert, who’s also from the Phoenix area,  moved into my division. Mr. Rueckert was one of these guys who is always on. You know the type – loud, boisterous, ebullient, whatever you want to call it. And he had the swagger of a three-time world champ, which he was. Plus he had a really good roundhouse kick, which I always seemed to walk into at just the wrong moment.

It’s not that my skills were that bad, it’s just that his were that good. It seemed like we were always facing each other in regional tournaments. I’d beat him occasionally, but for every match I’d win, he’d win three.

It got to the point where he had me completely psyched out. Which, with his exuberant personality, made me really start to not like him. I didn’t like feeling like that, but I really didn’t like getting beat.

It got to the point where I would actually dread getting into the ring with him. People told me they could see me literally deflate when the pairings were announced and our names were called together – I was beaten before I’d even stepped into the ring.

It got to the point where I’d hope he’d get paired up with someone else who would take him out so I wouldn’t have to face him. And it’s not very Christian of me, but I’ll admit this. I started hoping bad stuff would happen to him. Nothing too serious mind you. Just let him miss his plane or get hung up in traffic and not get to the competition on time. That never seemed to happen though.

At World Championships in 2002, we were paired up in the first round. I had trained and competed and worked through injuries all year to qualify and then traveled 1,500 miles to Little Rock, Ark., only to face a guy from Phoenix. And not just any guy. Rueckert.

He beat me 5-0 in what seemed like only seconds.

I was embarrassed and felt like I didn’t deserve to be there. Heck, I felt like I didn’t even deserve to be a black belt. I wasn’t having fun anymore.

I’d look around, and other people never seemed to feel as bad as I did when they got beat. My friend Bart Del Rio is a five-time world champ. One year at Worlds, I did a jump round kick and nailed him in the head at the buzzer to win the match. It spun his headgear completely around, and knocked him into the first row of chairs. He got up laughing and hugged me and seemed to really be enjoying the fact that I’d gotten off such a great shot – even though it was at his expense.

Why couldn’t I be like that? Where was my daring spirit and my persevering will?

I had to do something. I was spending too much money, time and effort on this to not have fun. Something within me had to change. I had to stop beating myself. I had to lengthen my line.

After awhile, I started to figure out how Rueckert was beating me and how to make him fight my fight instead of me always fighting his. He’d still win at regionals, but I wasn’t walking into nearly as many roundkicks anymore.

I started to feel myself wanting to spar him. Give him to me in the first round, give him to me in the finals. I don’t care. In order to be the best, you have to beat the best, and Rueckert was the best.

In 2004, my whole family came to Little Rock to watch me compete at Worlds. And wouldn’t you know it? Two guys from Phoenix get paired up, not in the first round, but the second. Me and Rueckert. Again. Only this time, this was the way I wanted it.

We started out pretty even and traded a couple of points. I went up a point and then he caught me with a punch to the eye that sent me to my knees. In taekwondo, you can kick to the head all day long, but punches to the face are strictly forbidden. In a tournament, it’ll cost you a penalty point. When I got up, the judges inexplicably decided not to award me a point for the foul.

My eye was already swelling badly and starting to close up. I should have been livid both over the illegal punch and for getting robbed of a point. But a sense of calm came over me. That’s OK, I told myself. I don’t want to win on a penalty point. I’ll win on my skill.

I could only see out of one eye, but I hung in there for the remaining minute of the match. When it was over, Rueckert picked me up and hugged me and screamed, I’m so proud of you! I’d beaten him 3-2, and he was as happy as I was. For once, I appreciated his exuberance.

I wound up losing in the semi-final round, but I’m probably as proud of that bronze medal as I am of anything I’ve done in taekwondo. That day, I beat the best. That day, I lengthened my line. That day my spirit was daring and my will was persevering.

As much as that medal means to me, I would gladly give it up – and all my other medals and trophies -- to be able to fight Dave Rueckert again. Two years ago, he was critically injured in a senseless drive-by shooting that left him permanently blind.

But you know what? He still continues to be an inspiration. He showed up to a tournament not long ago and though he couldn’t spar, he did his form, all 95 moves. I’ve been competing in the martial arts for a long time, but it was the first time I’ve ever seen a bunch of 6-foot tall 220 pound 4^th and 5^th degree black belts standing around with tears in their eyes.

His score wasn’t that good. In fact, it was terrible, but just the fact that he was even there was amazing. If the spirit is daring and the will is persevering...

So far, I’m having a pretty good tournament year. I don’t want to count my chickens, but I’ve probably got enough points already to qualify me for World Championships in June. Maybe this will be my year. Or maybe I’ll just wind up being the Moses of taekwondo and never reach the promised land. There are worse things I suppose.

In the meantime, I take a lot of comfort from our scripture reading today.

If you’ll remember, Joshua was Moses’ right-hand man and was chosen by God to lead his people to the promised land after Moses died on Mount Nebo. When you think about it, that had to be pretty daunting, probably even more daunting than getting in the ring with Master Lee here. And incidentally, somewhere there’s great video of him knocking me out.

Anyway, poor Joshua’s got to be thinking, “Dude, this is Moses. Holy Moses, the Ten Commandments, Red Sea, burning bush. Cecil B de Mille is gonna get Charlton Heston to play Moses, and you know who he’s gonna get to play me? John Derek. John Derek? He might as well go down to the bus station and shout hey, anybody wanna be in a movie?

But God has pretty high expectations for Joshua. Not only is he going to have to take over from Moses, he’s got to get the Israelites across the river Jordan. And when they do get to the land of Canaan, it’s not like they can just park their RV’s at the KOA, if you know what I mean.

There’s some pretty rough characters that need smiting first – all kinds of Canaanites, Hittites, Girgashites, Jebusites, Electrolytes and what-have-you-lites that aren’t exactly interested in turning over the keys to the promised land.

And there’s this little matter of a massively fortified city called Jericho, which the Lord tells Joshua that he’s got to fight with only a bunch of rams’ horns for weapons. Ram’s horns? Joshua’s got to be thinking, “Are you nuts?”

But the Lord said, “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go."

Joshua listened, and those walls came tumbling down.

Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified. Do not be discouraged. Isn’t it almost like God was telling Joshua that “That which seems impossible today can be achieved or surpassed if the spirit is daring and the will is persevering?”

Amen. 

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