TBT: TKD, kehd.

Photo credit: Richard Green

I reached out to a professional photographer that shot me doing Tae Kwon Do in 1985. I won the East Coast shortly thereafter. The idea is to put this on my son’s wall to inspire him. Actually this is not the photo for his wall. This is an outtake. This photo was never published before now. I hadn’t seen it until a week ago myself. How do you like it? I think it’s okay from a Kung Fu perspective which is what I was throwing at that moment. I was aiming for something dramatic. Maybe if Richard had pushed the button a few seconds earlier. My lower leg might have been higher. Air Tae Kwon Do was lowering the landing gear. The Captain has put on the No Smoking Sign. Fasten your seat belts. We’re coming in hot! However the point remains the same. Daddy is not just some old fart. He was the best martial artist on the East Coast when he was fifteen years old. For two seconds, Booster. We all can’t have a long run. In a sport that eclipsed four hundred years ago. Nobody cares in the first place. Maybe a few private school recruiters that want to retool you into a cross country runner. Or oarsman. That’s it. Richard Green is a very good photographer though. People appreciate his work. Even when he is shooting TKD. 32 years ago. He’s also very witty. He said, you look exactly the same except you’ve gained some weight! I can’t stay #1 in Tae Kwon Do forever. You need a coffin for that. And my whole life is after it. Thankfully! We had a lot of laughs. Talking to him also sparked an intellectual inquiry. What was that curious creature like? Kind of weird to think that I was a Tae Kwon Do champion that merited a professional photographer. A professional photographer that could unearth the negatives? Thirty two years after the fact! After one e-mail? Will you look at that? I was a memorable subject too? Hopefully all good memories. Richard assured me they were. Can I reach back and see my former self these days? I recall some of the highlights. And the lowlights. Plenty of those out there on the Tae Kwon Do road. Tournaments too numerous to count to get to that brief date with #1. Then we knock that crown right off his head. Victory isn’t what we teach in TKD. It’s defeat. The agony of it too. Down the ski slope you go. Yard sale time. Run him over with the snow machine too. We’ve all got a former self. But not many of us have one that could get height. And get nice and low too. I can find precious few TKD compatriots these days. Hardly a peep on social media. I guess the vast majority of us are just private citizens now. Tucked behind the wall in our fortified compounds. Or they’re dead. Or in prison. Or I have no clue. I have tried mightily to dig them up. Few of my TKD peers exist on the internet. Or they’re just in private mode on Google. Reading my Medium articles. I can’t even find them on Twitter. I figured there had to be a few hitters on Twitter. Still driving the Iroc, I see. Nice going handsome. Not even. A lot of them were actually illiterate which is a sad but true fact. I am not ashamed of my past. No need to cover my tracks. Tae Kwon Do gave me my entire life. However I had to leave it behind to get ahead. That’s the most interesting piece. I had to quit fighting at the top too. I was undefeated. That was part of the Devil’s bargain. I am finally #1 on the East Coast. Hooray! I have to quit? Wait, what! I also had to change enormously as a person. Which is incredibly difficult as anyone that has undergone massive personal change can attest. I was heading to a completely new, bright and positive place. However that’s not exactly what I wanted for myself. I was happy in TKD land. It’s working out just great. Except for the head injuries. I have some pretty deplorable grades. Riding shotgun with that. I’m all but flunking out of school. I’m winding up to beat up a bunch of bullies. For I don’t know. The fifth time. I am starting it this time too. I might be able to stagecraft it well enough to not get expelled. They started it! I probably can’t pull that out of the hat this time. I’ve already threatened everybody. I am honorable in that regard. Everyone knows I am good on my threats. I am very close to the fabled rail out of town. A rail that I have personally built. I have no remorse either. I built that rail. I plan to happily steam right down it. Choo, choo! One thing that my critics and supporters agree upon. I am at a very critical spot. This thing could go either way. Right here. Right now. I am going up. Or I am going down. As long as I win? I do not care. Because I am, in fact, number one on the East Coast in Tae Kwon Do right now. And I want to defend that. No matter the battle. No matter the location. If you boil me down to one thing. That’s what I want. I want to defend my title in a sport that peaked probably four hundred years ago in Asia. In some dirt field. Whatever. We all can’t have respectable sports. But it’s hard to hazard the inner workings of Tae Kwon Do. Will Berkeley Edition. I can see how big my fists got from doing it in this picture. I had a heavy bag down in the basement. That I delighted in hitting. The whole house shook when I hit it. I discovered a way to lock into the Earth. That’s how I would explain my power to weight ratio to my coaches who were perplexed by it. Boxing workouts help breakup the martial arts monotony. I have been perfecting my blows for over a decade. I am also ambidextrous. I am not right hook barroom, Charlie. I have a follow up hit. Hand surgery was decades away. And life in the 1980’s was a lot less safe than today. Nobody told you to watch your step. They told you to move. Or they just knocked you down. You better be ready to defend your ground. Or you would just get run over. Then they back the truck up. And smoosh you again. Life was not about endless entertainment either. You could easily drop everything to dedicate yourself to one cause. All I had to do was drop a few sports. I could actually see martial arts forming as my sport from a very young age. I was perfectly built to do it. Really long and lean. I also had a mathematical mind. I viewed fighting as a probability and physics test. Gotta do your prep in the basement though with the bag of heavy. Then the probability and physics will fall into place. Because you make them! The best Tae Kwon Do Academy in the United States happened to be right around the corner. Billy Blanks sitting at his desk. He was ranked #1 or #2 in full-contact karate in the United States for seven years straight. I’d been following his stock in Black Belt Magazine which was my Wall Street Journal. He had his shingle fully out. He was excited to see me too. Let’s invest in this one. I had been in Kung Fu since I was a toddler. I could star in one of those Kung Fu Operas with the kerchiefs and swords in grammar school. I also had a black belt in Shaolin Kempo Karate if you were looking for one of those on a 6th grader. Tae Kwon Do under Billy Blanks was as good as it was getting for me. Billy Blanks was a mixed martial arts. Decades before the term was even invented. Do you want to be a part of my elite travel team? Well, my schedule is really full. Down in the basement! Then again. My heavy bag is showing signs of splitting. He also had Coach Steve. He was the reason why Billy was #2 in full contact Karate in any given year for seven years straight. Coach Steve was absolutely terrifying. I fully stand behind that statement. He was undefeated in 92 tournaments straight as a brown belt. Billy is in the Tae Kwon Do Hall of Fame, yes. Don’t misunderstand me. But Steve could scare the pants off you with his personality alone. He became my personal coach. We used to fight with weapons without a hint of caution. Even Billy Blanks came out from behind his desk to watch that. We wore helmets and hard pads. But it was game on. Kill that ninja! Fighting Steve with weapons is probably my fondest memory. I always wanted to be a fighter. But I was exceptionally gifted at weapons. That was the language that was tossed around after I dusted the competition. It was also advisable to find something to be passionate about in the 1980’s in New England. Even if it was just reading library books which was my other passion. Or you would just faint under the boredom. You could only build so many forts out in the woods. That was an actual activity in the 1980’s in New England. Go out in the woods and entertain yourself. How about a ride to Rockland? I’d much rather twirl weapons. I had a hockey bag full of them. You can leave me there for the entire day. It takes that long to do all my weapon forms. My school hours were reduced in favor of martial arts as I have noted in prior articles which is one of the hallmarks of the prodigy. You have somehow convinced everyone that your sport is more important than your education. It’s an amazing trick. Tae Kwon Do takes precedence over education. Got it? But I wasn’t satisfied with that. You give that prodigy an inch and they take a mile. I have to lock down these medals. Because they are my only excellence. And training more than anybody else is how I will get them. Everything else? I am miserable at. Especially school. That’s a disaster by any ruler. Hey, Coach Steve. Let’s scale back on middle school a little more. Too many problems with bullies. The Principal has better things to do than try to hazard if I started my last fight. Or was merely defending myself. Clearly I was just defending. I would never disgrace our sport. Once you ramp up into medal territory. You no longer have any morality. You can throw remorse right out the window along with the two black belts too. And the Kung Fu sash! We’re dark gymnasts that are greedy for gold. That’s all that drives us. Medals. And more medals. You can never fully satisfy that demand. However my grades were getting kind of scary too. They tested me for intelligence. I don’t know who thought of that. But they were a genius! The numbers came back. Wow. This kid is a lot more intelligent than we thought. He might even be gifted in something other than martial arts. Nobody could see that! Don’t include my mother, Billy and Steve on that list. They all know I am loafing. They’re winding up to knock me out of martial arts. And into a new school. It had also been determined that I could no longer fight. Massachusetts General Hospital came back with that idea. After an MRI. What a bunch of quacks! They’re only Harvard educated. I am flunking out of Central Junior High because I am bored out of my tits. I have all the answers. MRI’s are totally fake. The guy evaluating me for intelligence had a few questions for me. At least he wasn’t just dictating the terms like the quacks at MGH. How could a kid with my deplorable grades ace his test? Library books. Plenty of down time on the TKD road. Then the guy is like would you like to try a new school? Do they have scholarships for swords? Even I know being #1 in weapons. On the entire East Coast. In Open Martial Arts. Meaning every discipline shows up. Is a joke. I ignore the compliments. Then he threw the death blow. You’ll have plenty of time to study now that you are finished with Tae Kwon Do. Finished? I do not like that word. Maybe my head injuries can get better. That’s what I was thinking. I can’t see why not. I just aced some stupid test. I am the concussed boy genius! Ultimately it was my brother that convinced me that I was done. You’re two big hits away from being a vegetable. Go to any school that will take you. Figure out a new sport. Play tiddlywinks. Who cares? I took his advice. I went off to Tabor Academy. They took me on the raw material argument. The coach to coach recommendations were what got me in. I got incredibly sick in my second year there. My whole immune system collapsed. I was pulling an oar like a Roman galley slave. I wanted to keep my seat. Not just in crew. But in school. I blame Tae Kwon Do for my immune system collapsing though. Not crew. It was a ticking time bomb from really extreme exercise all through puberty. I did it to myself. I do not blame anyone else. I have to note that. People sometimes think I am assigning blame when I write about fighting. Tae Kwon Do was very good to me. And it was very bad to me. It made me. It destroyed me. My whole life went up in flames repeatedly because of it. Are we done here? Nobody could have stopped me. I would have run off to some Kung Fu circus as a boy if you tried. High School #3. Cue it up. At this point what’s the diff? I was staying back to attend some all-boys prison now. Willingly, I will add. I was completely pissed off that I could not get out of high school even when I was going full bore. Classes six days a week to get me all caught up. I wished I had never touched a nunchuck! But I was hell bent to get the job done. All of my friends were going off to college when I was doing my senior year. Taking years off. Or getting jobs. I’m in the back of the pack. Three high schools in five years! My hair is on fire. However I am secretly creeping towards the Ivy League. Running in combat boots in Rockland didn’t seem like such a great idea anymore. I am running cross country in The Independent School League. I ran #5 on my team. I came in #16th in our championship. We didn’t just beat the competition. We crushed them. That’s how Belmont Hill School boys operated. I was happy to be on the team. Running anchor. Beating five #1’s in the League. All of us could run #1. For your school. They must not teach math. Along with athletics. Where you attend. Barely. We were just terrible. But so smart on and off the field. What’s all this have to do with selling real estate on the South Shore? Absolutely everything. We’re all parents now. Mothers ask me very important questions about their boys. Should I hold him back? You could. But I like to reserve that option for later when you get the kid’s attention. That’s ultimately what broke me. An extra year of high school did what every martial arts master failed to do. That kid not only behaved himself. He put the pedal to the metal. You just had to hold him back. And put him in school six days a week. No girls. I used to make my friends laugh hysterically. I can’t do a fourth high school. I will lose my mind. I refuse to not finish strong at this point. Nobody deserves to get the hell out of high school at the top more than me. I run sub five miles these days because I am so pissed off. I am not even kidding. Thanks for reading, Will