But when Belgarde, Chippewa, makes a motion to start class, the students, ages 4 - 6, settle down as they try to focus on her instruction. She teaches the Korean martial art to two classes twice a week, and recently added an adult class.

Standing at attention, the adorable lot says ”Choong-Hyo,” a Korean greeting, to their instructor and one another. In English it translates to filial piety, loyalty and respect, just a few of the principles taught in her class.

Since the young students are ineligible for a gym membership, it cost a mere $5 per class.

”This is a nice, relaxed atmosphere and doesn’t cost a fortune,” said Zoe Huber, Luiseno, and the parent of two students, Tommy, 4, and Catherine, 5.

After the tiny tots meet, it’s time for children age 7 and up to practice more advanced skills.

Belgarde, physical activities specialist for Rincon Indian Health Council Inc. in Valley Center, is always on the lookout for creative ways to involve Native people in fitness activities.

She has a black belt in tae kwon do, and in January was asked by IHC and the Pala Fitness Center if she was willing to teach tae kwon do after work.

Fueled by her own passion for fitness, Belgarde took on the challenge.

”Indian country really struggles with obesity, diabetes and heart disease, so this is part of a prevention program,” she said. ”Offering tae kwon do is just another option to get people moving.”

The Pala Fitness Center is about a half-hour drive northwest of IHC. After surveys were sent out to the community, asking what kind of services tribal members wanted, tae kwon do came out on top.

Through her own creativity she came up with the name 4Kicks Tae Kwon Do. She designed the eye-catching logo, which features the Korean um-yang (known as the yin-yang in Chinese, it is representative of the merging of duality), feathers and four colors, similar to the medicine wheel.

Within the circle, the words ‘’spirit,” ”heart,” ”mind” and ”body” tie into tae kwon do’s holistic approach to the individual.

”I think if Native people look at it they’ll get it and be able to see the Native symbolism to the number four,” she said.

Belgarde said that the principles of tae kwon do also parallel widely held Native beliefs. For example, all students must memorize the tenets of tae kwon do: courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control and indomitable spirit.

”It’s not just about kicking butt, it’s really about kicking butt in life,” she said. ”I hope that I am not just teaching them physically, but emotionally, mentally and spiritually as well.”

At the end of each of her classes, she has the students engage in a highly aerobic activity, which she calls ”camouflage fitness.” The tiny tots place multiple clothespins on their clothing and chase one another around to see who can catch the most. As for her older students, they utilize the jumping bands, also called Chinese jump-rope.

”They have so much fun they don’t realize how much exercise they’re getting out of it,” she said.

The current class tested for a belt color change in April in Lakewood at the Lakewood Black Belt Center. They were tested by Grandmaster Jong Oh Chung, 9th Dan. Chung’s son, Master Arnold Chung, owns the school. Before a student can reach black belt status, there are varying belt colors, which indicate advancement in technique; usually, the darker the belt, the higher the rank.

4Kicks student Briana Barajas, 8, earned her yellow belt at the recent ceremony and was awarded for excellent attendance and a good attitude. She has been attending classes since January, and has aspirations to earn a black belt someday. ”Everyone is nice to one another and helps each other out,” she said.

Belgarde’s son, Maurice Smith, 11, Dine’/Chippewa, recently earned his purple belt. Altogether, he’s been practicing tae kwon do for one year. He has noticed small improvements to all areas of his life. ”I have more agility and speed, and I enjoy it because I get to spend time with my friends,” he said.

After achieving a black belt, some students go into Dan ranking, which there are nine to 10 levels of mastery, depending on the organization. 4Kicks is affiliated with the World Tae Kwon Do Federation.

Respect and acknowledgement are paramount in the world of tae kwon do. Belgarde, 46, got her start in tae kwon do in 1979 while living in North Dakota, and earned her black belt in 1987 under Grandmaster Moo Yong Yun.

There were several students who won gold medals in both the forms and sparring competitions. Christian Cabral, who competed for the first time, won two gold medals. Other students winning two gold medals were Alex Nery, Ashley McCombe, Kevin Zeppenfeld and Ricky Andre.

Other gold medalists in forms were Victoria Saber, Brian Caton, Hannah Greany, Richard Oliver and Ethan Cunningham.

Silver medal winners in forms were Shawn McCombe, Tim Rivet, Tyrell Harrison, Jake Pereira, Corey Teves and Felicia Teves. Winning the bronze medal were Kenny Borges and Colby Mendes, who was also a first time competitor.

In sparring, gold medalists included Tim Rivet, Tyrell Harrison, Jake Pereira, Felicia Teves and Kenny Borges.

Silver medalists were Victoria Saber, Hannah Greany, Richard Oliver, Ethan Cunningham, and Corey Teves. Brian Caton and Shawn McCombe.

Two students competed in the board breaking division. Tyrell Harrison won the gold and Ethan Cunningham won the bronze.

And after a strong performance during a regional qualifying competition in Miami, several students from the Boynton Beach academy will be moving on to face national competition.

The students competed in a regional tournament May 26 at Florida International University in Miami, and 10 of them will advance to July’s U.S. Junior Olympics competition in California.

During the Miami tournament, the students earned 20 medals, including 16 golds. Rae’s owner and instructor Ginger Schneider said many of the students are relatively new to tournament competition, but she was impressed by their efforts in Miami. The national qualifiers are Jackie Johnson, 13; Nelson Orengo, 20; Michael Colon, 17; Daniel Colon, 14; Brandon Nelson, 9; Emily Amron, 9; Nathan Marshell, 12; Hillary Hanna, 14; Paige Greenwood, 13 and Ian Dankberg, 15.

“Their performance was superb,” Schneider said. “(For) a lot of them, it’s the fifth tournament or sixth tournament, they’re not real seasoned. We had a whole group that are now in college so this is like the next generation of them, so it’s amazing. But it’s because their heart and soul is into it. It’s what they love and what they do.”

The group has been working under the instruction of Elysha Schneider, Ginger’s daughter, and James Burgos.

Burgos said he was pleased not only with the team’s performance, but also the manner in which the students conducted themselves.

“When you go to a tournament there’s a lot of kids that have a lot of attitude, they’re trained to have that intimidation factor,” Burgos said. “We don’t really do that. We want them to be confident, but not let it (pride) get in the way. It was good to see how seriously they took everything. I was really proud of them.”

The Junior Olympics competition will be July 10-15 in San Jose, Calif.

“I’m pretty proud. It was something I really looked forward to and I wanted to give it my all,” said the recent graduate of Pope John Paul II High School in Boca Raton.

Liguori was named State Champion in Sparring, earning a gold medal after fighting in a higher belt division. Liguori also earned a bronze medal and was named State Champion in Forms.

Additionally, sophomore Mitchel Baccinelli was named State Champion in Forms, earning his gold medal over one of the larger groups at the competition. The duo competed with Team Millennia but received individual awards.

“I received a bronze medal for my form, which is more of a stylized fighting. It’s a chance to show off muscle controls, knowing your kicks and being able to execute them and essentially pretending to fight,” Liguori said.

He added that, “It was the largest state competition in Florida, somewhere around 600 people.” Liguori said his team individually walked away with one or two medals each.

David Anderson, Moderator of the Pope John Paul II High School Taw Kwon Do Club, said he’s proud of his two students.

“Tae Kwon Do requires a great deal of discipline both mentally and physically. Pope John Paul High School is certainly proud of these talented students and has enjoyed helping them develop their skills,” said Anderson.

Both students took part in the sparring or fighting, and forms or choreographed patterns. Liguori and Baccinelli qualified for the AAU Nationals Tae Kwon Do Tournament, which will be held in Fort Lauderdale in July.

For about three years, Liguori has participated in Tae Known Do and now practices four to five times a week at Millennium Martial Arts in Boca Raton.

“I love doing it. I love the challenge and it’s just a good hard workout,” he said. “I’ve always been a competitor and this has allowed me to be an athlete and learn a new set of skills, some valuable stuff for self defense. And if you are interested in marital arts this is a great challenge.”

Liguori will attend Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton in the fall and plans to continue his passion.

Noel was a student at UC Berkeley, feeling a spiritual void in his life, when he met Raam Somayajulu, a researcher in physical chemistry. Away from class, Raam gathered with interested parties for discussions on quantum theory, yoga meditation and consciousness, body energy and the teachings of the Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita and Pantajali’s Yoga Sutras. These conversations inspired Noel to follow a path that led to practicing tae kwon do.

“In meditation and martial arts, the goal was to find and act from the center, which in Korean is called the dan’, an area near the stomach,” he says.

Noel entered San Francisco Theological Seminary with the idea of later studying comparative religion. He didn’t have a particular church affiliation. One day, as part of his studies, he read the story of Jesus’ transfiguration in Matthew, Chapter 17 in the New Testament. In it, Jesus led his disciples to the top of a mountain where he glowed like the sun. Then Jesus led his disciples back down the mountain where he performed a healing.

“I realized all of a sudden that Jesus was my guru. I thought the spiritual practices I was doing would lead me to enlightenment, only to discover that Jesus had already done it for me,” Noel says.

He went on to get a master’s of divinity degree, and then served as pastor of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Marin City. He got his Ph.D. and now teaches church history and black theology at the seminary.

Though his relationship to his practice changed, he continued with Asian-style meditation and tae kwon do. “For me it was body prayer,” he says.

He has since developed his own system, which he now practices and teaches privately. He calls it neh kong do, or “way of inner strength,” as translated from Korean. “It’s a more fluid, gentle discipline,” he says.

Occasionally he shares neh kong do with the seminary community in San Anselmo. Currently, a large percentage of the students are Korean-born.

But because the Presbyterian missionaries in Korea discouraged converts from maintaining their native spiritual heritage, few of these students share Noel’s passion for Korean martial arts.

To add to the richness of Noel’s life, he’s also an accomplished artist, focusing his paintings on the culture of the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean. He’s had his work displayed in galleries and other venues.

There’s no way to put James Noel in a cultural or religious box. After all, he could break his way out of it with a few swift kicks and thrusts!

Millstone Township Girl Scout Laura Dreifus, 15, helped empower local young women on May 20 by organizing a self-defense program called “Fight Like a Girl.” The program educated and trained 20 girls in assault and rape prevention, self-defense and personal protection.

Dreifus hosted Donna McCaron, a certified rape escape instructor with a black belt in tae kwon do from Cranbury, to teach the class at Wagner Farm Park.

McCaron is involved in the Plainsboro Township Domestic Violence Response Team and Mercer County’s Eastern Regional Domestic Violence Response and Sexual Assault Response teams. She has trained in the martial arts since 1993 but recently discovered she never felt comfortable with her ability to defend herself against a violent sexual assault.

Determined to teach herself - and the response teams she works with - self-defense against a sexual attack, McCaron did lots of research online and discovered rapeescape.

com, which offered an instructor certification course in three weeks in Westchester County, N.Y. She discovered the Rape Escape techniques to be simple, effective and easy to remember.

McCaron now teaches Rape Escape throughout the state in karate schools and in specially organized programs like Dreifus’. Dreifus hosted Rape Escape Level 1 and wants to schedule additional classes for local young women in the near future.

During the “Fight Like a Girl” program, McCaron taught local teenagers solutions to some of the most common sexual assault scenarios.

Dreifus said that if girls learn how to protect themselves and to escape dangerous situations, they can more easily report wrongdoing.

“If we can report the men doing these things, then we can teach them a lesson to never try it again,” Dreifus said.

Organizing “Fight Like a Girl” partly earned Dreifus the Girl Scout’s Cadet Silver Award. As part of her project she also collected women’s products such as sports bras, underwear, sanitary products, and hair brushes to donate to Womanspace in Mercer County, which provides support to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.

For Dreifus, who is a freshman at Allentown High School and a marching band member who plays the flute, organizing the program was not nearly as difficult as trying to get local girls interested in attending.

“Girls at the high school thought it was dumb,” Dreifus said. “But those who attended really got a lot out of it. We had so much fun and we really learned a lot about defending ourselves, which is important, especially seeing on the news about girls being attacked and kidnapped.”

Initially, “Fight Like a Girl” was a Millstone Township Troop 911 endeavor, but it became Dreifus’ solo project after her troop disbanded a few months ago.

“The troop fell apart and the other girls got involved in different activities,” Dreifus said.

Undaunted by having to go it alone, Dreifus not only finished what she started with “Fight Like a Girl” but also hopes to organize a new local Girl Scout troop this fall and wants to hold Rape Escape Level 2 sometime later this year.

In the follow-up “Fight Like a Girl,” McCaron will return to address some of the date rape or acquaintance rape scenario solutions. Women will learn easy and effective techniques that can give them the control they need in dangerous situations.

Hoping to set an example for young women with busy schedules everywhere, Dreifus will go on to try to earn a Girl Scout Gold Award, which will require much more schedule juggling, dedication and community service than earning her Silver Award did.

“It takes work to lead, and if stuff goes wrong, you have to learn to work around the problems and the obstacles and the people who make things hard for you,” Dreifus said. “It is a lot of work, but it is fun and rewarding to see how much others get out of what you do.”

Dreifus commended the women in her life for setting such good examples.

“My mother, my grandmothers, my aunts and my teachers are very strong and very confident, and I want to be that strong and confident when I get older too,” she said.

Dreifus said she had a strong support system in making “Fight Like a Girl” a reality, and she thanked her mother, Laura, her father, Len, and her former troop leader, Rose Barbaree, for all of their help.

Ashley won gold medals in both the forms and sparring competitions in the girls’ 14-15 green belt division. Shawn won three matches on his way to the gold medal in the boys’ 10-11 green belt sparring division. Tim Rivet won the silver medal in forms in the boys’ 10-11 green belt division. Alex Nery won the bronze medal in forms in the boys’ 12-13 red belt division.

The four, trained by Master Ed Ross, are now qualified for the U.S. Jr. Olympics, which will be held in July in San Jose, Calif.

Chen won the women’s +72kg at the World Championships yesterday in Beijing, becoming the first Chinese to wrap up a Grand Slam after winning Olympic and World Cup titles.

“You have no idea how much I have been working on those kicks,” said a beaming Chen. “There is some very hard training behind (this victory).”

Many fans still remember the high kicks Chen displayed during the finals of the 2000 Sydney and 2004 Athens Olympics. She was always able to kick rivals’ heads accurately whenever in a deadlock or trailing, and she won both finals by big margins.

Yesterday’s contests were no different. Apart from the final where she defeated South Korean veteran Han Jin-sun 6-4, she scored with high kicks in all four rounds before the final.

“Her high kicks today reminded me of her awesome performance at the Sydney Olympic Games,” said Zhang Jinghui, her former teammate and now her coach.

Zhang used to fight alongside Chen and knows exactly how damaging her attacks can be.

She was not worried when Chen was trailing 0-1 against Assulayil Madrigal of Mexico. With two consecutive high kicks, Chen soon surged to 4-1 lead and went on to win the game 8-1.

“I just told her to kick the head,” Zhang said proudly. “Clearly her rival was scared by her all-conquering high kicks.”

However, Chen’s favorite mode of attack is not as simple as it looks in kungfu movies, as the loss of balance can give opponents an opening.

But Chen has her own secret training tricks.

“Just throw a volleyball at me,” the 26-year-old Henan native said. “I will show you how I do the kick.”

Kicking a volleyball in the air before it drops to the ground is one of her methods. “I also like to kick a life-size dummy made by my coach to polish my skill,” Chen added.

Last night’s victory gave her her first title at the Worlds after winning two bronzes and a silver at previous championships. It allowed China to top its previous record of one gold and one silver from the tournament. On Friday, Wu Jingyu won the women’s 48kg.

“Tonight’s victory is huge,” Chen said. “The Worlds is always more demanding than the Olympic Games. I just proved I can also become a champion in the Worlds as well as the Olympics.

The win also proved to her doubters that she has fully recovered from surgery in 2005.

“I am back and I am still the best,” she said.

Chen’s dominance makes her an overwhelming favorite to compete at the Beijing Games next year. China is only allowed to send just two women and two men in four categories.

The team will decide who they will send in June.

“My next dream is winning a gold on home soil,” said Chen.

If she does, Chen will make history by becoming the first female athlete to win three consecutive Olympic titles. US veteran Steven Lopez is on course to hit a hat-trick on the men’s side after winning the 2000 and 2004 Games.

Several Muslim women were able to fight wearing a head scarf (hijab) despite the recent claim made by the Quebec Tae Kwon Do Federation’s president, Jean Faucher, that the ban was strictly a matter of security.
But a spokesman for the (World Tae Kwon Do Federation Council) WTF said the hijab had never been banned, it was simply not mentioned in the list of approved equipment and the national federation in Canada had made their decision on those grounds.
“It’s not an issue at all here,” he said.
At the World Tae Kwon Do Championships in 2005, women also competed wearing hijabs.
But Faucher disagreed saying: “That’s how they may do it in other countries, but here we apply the rules.”
Faucher said Quebec would continue to strictly enforce the WTF’s competition rule 4.2.2: “Wearing any item on the head other than the head protector shall not be permitted,” until a written confirmation for a change was received.
International rule changes are discussed at the WTF’s annual general assembly in August, Faucher said. But he doubted the rules would be altered, because the hijab issue has been raised before and no changes were made, he said.
He added that the Ontario, Manitoba and Canadian federations all followed the same rule.

Morton will walk into a ring for the first time June 2 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, beginning his second career. He expects to ask himself the same question that friends, family members and former teammates have been asking him for months: What in the world are you thinking?

Mixed martial arts combines wrestling, boxing and kick boxing with jujitsu, tae kwon do and Muay Thai. Punches to the head and knees to the gut are encouraged. Even the most accomplished fighters get their faces rearranged into cubist paintings.

Two months ago, Morton’s only experience with mixed martial arts was watching the Ultimate Fighting Championship on television. He admired the fighters, mainly because they were the only athletes who seemed more fearless than football players. Morton memorized their names as if they were N.F.L. superstars.

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