Todd R. Brown
SAN BRUNO, CA
CLAD IN protective head gear and body pads, two teenage students tap boxing gloves and square off at Dojo USA World Training Center. Bouncing back and forth, the combatants eye each other with laser intensity, quivering with tension as they prepare to unleash fists and feet of fury. "Roundhouse over here," instructor Will Vatcher barks out as one student scores a point with a side kick to the other's chest. In a moment, his sparring partner turns the tables, landing a kick on his opponent's abdomen. "Roundhouse over here," 21-year-old Vatcher says with a dramatic drawl as the students on the sidelines "ooh" with the abrupt shift in tide of the battle.
It's all over in less than two minutes, yet the dramatic karate skills the students honed on a recent afternoon are only part of the education at this San Bruno dojo, or martial arts school.
Although the classroom provides a place to practice katas -- routines that compile various fighting moves -- the extra- curricular aspect of the training focuses on character enrichment, an innovative approach to themartial arts begun in recent years in California. "Your greatest strength isn't physical. It's the spirit, it's the will inside," said Peter Johnson, the energetic head instructor, or sensei, at Dojo USA. "Here we kind of make it a tangible art, teaching life skills."
To that end, students must complete a thousand acts of kindness before earning their black belts, as well as take part in "empathy training" where they spend a day blind, mute or in a wheelchair.
Nineteen-year-old brown belt Umit Singh, an eight-year student at the San Bruno dojo, tried a day without speaking and wound up enjoying some unexpected kindness himself.
"There were a lot of random people who came up and translated words for me," he said. "A lot more people are actually nicer than they seem." The Millbrae resident, who is studying speech pathology at Foothill College in Los Altos, said the karate techniques he has learned were as much about self-enlightenment as self-defense.
SAN BRUNO, CA
CLAD IN protective head gear and body pads, two teenage students tap boxing gloves and square off at Dojo USA World Training Center. Bouncing back and forth, the combatants eye each other with laser intensity, quivering with tension as they prepare to unleash fists and feet of fury. "Roundhouse over here," instructor Will Vatcher barks out as one student scores a point with a side kick to the other's chest. In a moment, his sparring partner turns the tables, landing a kick on his opponent's abdomen. "Roundhouse over here," 21-year-old Vatcher says with a dramatic drawl as the students on the sidelines "ooh" with the abrupt shift in tide of the battle.
It's all over in less than two minutes, yet the dramatic karate skills the students honed on a recent afternoon are only part of the education at this San Bruno dojo, or martial arts school.
Although the classroom provides a place to practice katas -- routines that compile various fighting moves -- the extra- curricular aspect of the training focuses on character enrichment, an innovative approach to themartial arts begun in recent years in California. "Your greatest strength isn't physical. It's the spirit, it's the will inside," said Peter Johnson, the energetic head instructor, or sensei, at Dojo USA. "Here we kind of make it a tangible art, teaching life skills."
To that end, students must complete a thousand acts of kindness before earning their black belts, as well as take part in "empathy training" where they spend a day blind, mute or in a wheelchair.
Nineteen-year-old brown belt Umit Singh, an eight-year student at the San Bruno dojo, tried a day without speaking and wound up enjoying some unexpected kindness himself.
"There were a lot of random people who came up and translated words for me," he said. "A lot more people are actually nicer than they seem." The Millbrae resident, who is studying speech pathology at Foothill College in Los Altos, said the karate techniques he has learned were as much about self-enlightenment as self-defense.
"It's more about learning to respect other people and learning your limitations, how far you can push yourself," said Singh, whose parents are from Fiji. "Before, I was shy; I've learned it's about putting yourself out there. Now I talk to more people I don't know."
Thirteen-year-old Natalia De Vera, a brown belt who started with Dojo USA in preschool, said her latest act of kindness was helping a friend with her homework. De Vera listed the good work in a notebook she will turn in upon earning her black belt, a roughly three-year journey.
"You have to think, to focus a lot. You have to do things you haven't done before," she said of her required spiritual development. "You have to do some teaching. You get to make up your own kata." Her mother, 37-year-old Patricia De Vera, said learning karate has boosted her daughter's self-esteem. "She's a very refined little girl. This has made her more outspoken," Patricia De Vera said. "With the acts of kindness -- you know how kids are at that age, 'another homework to do.' But they realize all the good things they do on a daily basis."
Thirteen-year-old Natalia De Vera, a brown belt who started with Dojo USA in preschool, said her latest act of kindness was helping a friend with her homework. De Vera listed the good work in a notebook she will turn in upon earning her black belt, a roughly three-year journey.
"You have to think, to focus a lot. You have to do things you haven't done before," she said of her required spiritual development. "You have to do some teaching. You get to make up your own kata." Her mother, 37-year-old Patricia De Vera, said learning karate has boosted her daughter's self-esteem. "She's a very refined little girl. This has made her more outspoken," Patricia De Vera said. "With the acts of kindness -- you know how kids are at that age, 'another homework to do.' But they realize all the good things they do on a daily basis."
Last weekend, Johnson gathered several adult students to hand out food at a Tenderloin homeless shelter. Earlier this month, the 35- year-old San Bruno native helped restore a circa-1810 house in Greensboro, Ala., in one of the poorest parts of the country. Johnson and about 10 others went to the hospital after the roof they were working on caved in, but they walked away with minor injuries. Johnson broke his foot and is on crutches (He asked his students, "Can you guys kick really hard because I can't right now?")
The charitable project was part of the Ultimate Black Belt Test, a 12-month program begun by a Placerville karate teacher three years ago that now has about a hundred participants worldwide, including Johnson and instructors in San Rafael and Sonoma.
"That really changed my idea about martial arts," Johnson said of the initiative. "Prior to that, I thought it was kicking and punching. It goes beyond that. I really learned it's a lot of little things added together to create great progress." For instance, the Redwood City resident said he's done more than 100,000 push-ups in a year by doing 300 quick-fire calisthenics a day.
"You would be surprised what you can accomplish," Johnson said. "Some people look to make the gigantic change. I don't want to hit it big. I want to hit it small, day after day. Eventually that all adds up."
Forty-eight-year-old Tom Callos, who designed the UBBT program and runs The Dojo workshop in Placerville, east of Sacramento, said Johnson has the idea down cold.
"His attitude, his effervescence, his energy, it's the exception rather than the rule," Callos said. "We're all capable of a lot more. I love that Lao Tzu quote, 'A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.'" Johnson's dojo studio has about 265 students. Some have gone on to become instructors there, including Vatcher, who started teaching six years ago as a teenage brown belt, one notch below a black belt.
"I have no idea what kind of person I'd be if it wasn't for this school," he said. "There are lots that don't do empathy training." In May, the San Bruno resident is moving to Tokyo for six months to study Shotokan karate, the forefather of Dojo USA's Shorin Ryu style; both developed in Okinawa. Vatcher said the schools there emphasize the physical side of karate, not the UBBT's approach. "Hopefully that's one of the things I can bring them," he said, noting that his greatest empathy challenge was spending a day mute. "You learn how much is said that doesn't need to be," Vatcher said, clad in a white gi, the standard karate uniform. "I like to talk, definitely. I'm a social guy. You've got one mouth and two ears; you should use those twice as much.
"The next day, it was a quiet one for me. I would tell people, 'Sorry I'm not talking much, I've been listening.' That was about a year ago -- still rippling through me."
"The next day, it was a quiet one for me. I would tell people, 'Sorry I'm not talking much, I've been listening.' That was about a year ago -- still rippling through me."
On the way out of Dojo USA, another quote by philosopher Lao Tzu hangs in a frame on the wall: "He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still."
