The Centurion

It’s not uncommon for a person to get their start in martial arts because a parent pushed for them to take classes. In that way, Dan Kersten shares the beginning of his martial arts story with many others: he joined taekwondo in part because of his father. However, Kersten’s story diverges there.

It takes discipline, focus and motivation to manage martial arts training, a hit TV show, and a budding film career. Leo Howard worked to master all three. 

 

It was the mid-1990s and Quinton Hooper was neck-deep in the customs and culture of Japan. As a college student teaching English in the tiny village of Nagato, Hooper had arrived expecting to simply instruct teenagers. What the native-Texan found, however, was a chance to learn right alongside them.

 

  When Alec Brown was born, his parents noticed his legs bent oddly. Even when he began to walk, when he would stand he kept his legs bent at the knees as though crouching. It became apparent that he almost could not physically straighten them. When he was four years old, Shriners Hospitals for Children in St. Louis diagnosed Brown with cerebral palsy, a condition that affects the brain’s ability to control muscles.  

  Tori Lynn Andreozzi earned her black belt in karate at the age of 12.  One of the highlights of her competitive career came when she was only nine years old, at the Quebec Open. She was excited to compete and mingle with other martial artists. When she was the first to present out of 52 in her division, she expected to be forgotten by the judges. It didn’t dim her attitude, though – she was just happy to be there.

  Training Mr. Miyagi   In 1984, one of the most acclaimed martial arts movies, The Karate Kid, introduced the world to an equally iconic character. Mr. Miyagi, played by Pat Morita, epitomizes the standard of wisdom, patience, and pure skill anyone should be so lucky to find in a teacher. The performance netted Morita an Academy Award Nomination for Best Supporting Actor. There is no doubt that he was a great actor, but, ironically, the man who would play a karate master had no martial arts training prior to taking his famous role.

  This story could be the plot of a martial arts action movie: a young man from Arizona dreams of learning swordsmanship, sets off for Japan to follow the same path as the samurai warriors from centuries past, and studies under one of the world’s premier masters to emerge decades later as a master in his own right.