Taekwondo Passion Luis Arroyo

Hello taekwondo lovers, I’m glad of bringing you a new episode of taekwondo passion.

In today’s interview we talked with Master James Howe from Living Proof Taekwondo @livingprooftkd

James has been a USA National Team member for many years and recently he founded Living Proof Taekwondo, the academy where he shares all his knowledge, experiences and helps others through taekwondo.

James was an international level athlete, with a very longeve career always fighting with the best athletes in the world.

But he comes from a traditional taekwondo background, and that’s why he teaches traditional taekwondo in his academy.

Of course if his students want to train the sport, they’ll have the option to do it at the highest standards.

Why is it so important to be in a place that helps you to grow?

As a young athlete, James knew that in order to be as good as he wanted he needed to move to train with a competitive team.

His idea was to try with different teams and choose the one which suited better for him.

The first place he went was Miami, with Juan Moreno’s team Peak Performance, one of the top teams in the USA.

He didn’t need to look for any other place. James knew it was the right place for him.

The environment that coach Moreno promoted there was exactly what James was looking for.

World Championships and Olympics

James trained at Peak Performance for more than 10 years in a journey that took him to three World Championships, being very close to medals and fighting with athletes like Joel Gonzalez and Gabriel Mercedes.

In the USA trials for London 2012 James fought against Mark Lopez, an experience which he considers helped him to realize that he could beat the top fighters in the world.

But the -68kg was not a weight class for him. The winner of the trials was his teammate and friend Terrence Jennings, with whom he shared many battles from the past.


James was able to help the USA Team on the way to the Olympics, especially his teammates from Miami, Terrence Jennings and Paige Mc Pherson and be part of their medals.

Why is family support VERY important?

Taekwondo still is not a professional sport, so many athletes and their families have to fund their careers.

That’s been the case of many sparring athletes, like Nikita Glasnovic, Terrence Jennings and Paige Mc Pherson.

And is even more common even for poomsae athletes, as is a newer sport.

James family is no exception and his parents supported most of his career along with the support of USA Taekwondo.

This can make us see the importance of helping youth to pursue their dreams, that will never be wasted money. If an athlete doesn't have support from his family, it will have a harder way through success.

Another interesting thing is that James Howe always worked during his athletic career. He worked teaching younger athletes and also in the same warehouse as Terrence Jennings.

Training with Juan Moreno at Peak Performance

Peak Performance is one of the top teams in the USA and in the world. So, how is it to train there?

James mentions that it is fun but hard. The day can start at 5:30am for the strength and conditioning training that sometimes ends with some paddle drilling and situation training.

And they do a second training at night with the rest of the team. Coach Moreno is a tough trainer who doesn't accept any excuses and always expects so much from his athletes.

But James points that he always motivates his athletes so they know that they can be among the best athletes in the world, of course, supporting that motivation with a lot of hard work.

Living Proof Taekwondo

As we mentioned in the intro James has recently opened his new facility,...

New Episode UP!

Hello Taekwondo lovers, welcome to a new interview in taekwondo passion.

Our guest today is master Ehsan Davari from Iran.

If you follow us from before, you probably know him as he helped us as an interpreter to interview Fatemeh Hesam.

But I wanted to interview him as he has been a poomsae, sparring and gymnastics coach and competitor.

At first he practiced gymnastics for many years. When he decided to move into taekwondo, he was already a gymnastics coach.

But he made that move because in taekwondo he would have better opportunities to develop as an athlete.

Master Eshan now is mostly focused on refereeing and as you’ll notice from the interview, he is very dedicated to improving his practice and knowledge of the rules.

He mentions that one of the most common mistakes athletes make at any level is to not know the rules, the best athletes have a deep understanding of the game rules.

One of the most important things you can learn listening to this interview is about dedication and willingness to learn.

Master Eshan is clear that one of the most important things for success is not to quit.

So, don’t miss the opportunity to learn from him and to listen to how taekwondo is in one of the countries with a greater tradition in our martial art..

You can find the interview on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.

Iran’s taekwondo tradition
As you may know, Iran is a country with a very rich taekwondo tradition.

Taekwondo is very popular in Iran, and also very competitive. The country organizes taekwondo professional leagues for sparring and poomsae.

The league lasts for some months and you accumulate points as you participate and win matches every weekend.

At the end of the league the athlete with most wins is the one who will win the league. I

What do you think of this kind of competitions?

I personally think that is a “fairer” way to find the best athletes in the country, but on the other side it can be very demanding for athletes to fight or compete every weekend.

Also this kind of league can only work in countries where a lot of people practice taekwondo. A thing that with time is always more common.

Here in my country Mexico, we have a lot of people practicing and going crazy about taekwondo events, and I’ve always imagined the same from Iran.

Is it the same way in your country? You can tell us how it is in the comments.

From gymnastics to taekwondo
Imagine that you are a really talented gymnastics athlete. You are among the best in your region and you are even starting to coach other athletes.

Why should you move as a teenager to try in another sport? A sport that you have never practiced before.

This was what happened to Master Eshan, he was a very talented athlete but his city is very small and they didn’t have the facilities which allow him to continue growing.

They didn’t have even the most basic equipement.

That lack of equipment didn’t allow him to compete in all the necessary events to be scouted as a talent.

So he decided not to stop and to move to another sport.

And that’s the way he came into taekwondo.

It is also interesting that some of his first taekwondo training partners were his gymnastics students.

But he didn’t care about that and as he was a person with a lot of athleticism coming from gymnastics he developed really fast in taekwondo.

Another interesting thing Master Ehsan shares is that he was always the first who wanted to help his taekwondo Master.

He was always early to class so if something was needed, for example cleaning the mats, he would always volunteer to that.

The taekwondo journey

To train in a...

Hello Taekwondo lovers.

New episode of taekwondo passion UP.

Our guest today is 9x USA National Team member and world medalist Tim Thackrey. Now is an expert in sports performance and strength & conditioning.

Creator of The Juice Compound @juicecompound he has coached Olympians, National Team Members, Games Athletes and people who want to improve their lives through exercise.

Tim talked with us about his beginnings in taekwondo, being part of a family completely involved in taekwondo. @martialartfresno

Tim was a child who used to win every competition he attended, until he was 15, when he lost every fight for two years.

With the support of his family, he decided to stop going to high school to focus on improve his taekwondo skills and to dedicate full time to training.

The strategy worked for him as soon he started to win and gain confidence and skills, first at national level and after it internationally.

Years later he was able to finish his college degree in UCLA.

Some of the things you can learn listening the interview are:

Why is Tim's father, having an academic background and being professor in a prestigious university allowed him to drop out of school?
How Tim prepared to get a medal at the World Championships?
How should we program training when our athletes have to face multiple competitions in a year?
Why do we have to learn about sprinting and weightlifting?
How can we promote mental strengthening and toughness in our students?


You can find the full interview on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Please enjoy and let us know your thoughts.


Should everyone drop out of high school and pursue their dreams?

One of the first things that I found interesting about Tim is that he dropped out of school to focus on taekwondo.

The normal way we hear we should make things is to focus on our academic career and then after finishing it we should start to gain experience in our field.

Tim made things in a different way.

He was at a point where he was losing all of his fights. And he thought the solution was to train more and better.

His father proposed the idea of stopping attending school.

It could seem counterintuitive, being his father a successful academic we would think that he wanted his son to follow the same way.

But his father’s academic experience was in psychology. He was an expert in human behaviour and development and he knew that the best thing for Tim at that moment was to try and put all of his effort in his taekwondo career.

Later he could study at the university as he did.

I was very interested in knowing if Tim would recommend the same to others, and the answer kind of surprised me.

I was expecting a straight yes but it was not that way.

When Tim studied high school there were less options to study and train.

Nowadays, and especially after the pandemia, it is easier than before to study an academic career while training, we have a lot of distance learning programs.

So, I’m pretty sure you can always find good options that allow you to train and compete.




How to program training for taekwondo?

One of the most important things we should do as coaches is to organize our training.

With the number of people training and competing in taekwondo nowadays details make a big difference.

According to Tim, before programming it is very important to consider the sports age of the athlete, which is apart from the biological age.

We can have an athlete that is 21 year old but has only been training seriously for two years. Or we can have an athlete that is 16 but has been training for 5 years.

The younger the sports age we...

Marlene Harnois - Even at the highest level you have to have fun

NEW episode UP!

Hello taekwondo lovers, I’m very happy to be with you again and to bring you a new interview with a world and Olympic medalist from France.

Marlene Harnois started taekwondo at a very young age.

One of the keys that made her love taekwondo was that her first instructors made taekwondo fun.

She was a competitive and active girl, although she practiced many sports when she had to specialize in one she knew taekwondo was for her.

First she made it to the Canada National Team and started winning competitions like the US Open as a junior.

Marlene had the opportunity of training in France and in order to pursue her dreams she started to compete for France, focusing on international success.

One of the keys to make that change was that she was looking for a more competitive training environment.

Marlene remarks that having teammates that demand your best is one of the most important things an athlete needs to develop.

With France Marlene has been two times European Championships gold, World University gold and World Taekwondo Championships bronze medalist in Gyeongju 2011.

Marlene finished a great Olympic cycle in 2012 with a Bronze medal in London 2012.

Marlene has been decorated with the Knight of the Order Merit and has been very involved in the development of sports in West Africa.

Marlene contributed with the two historical medals Ivory Coast achieved in Rio 2016.

Marlene is a Champion for Peace, she represents the Peace and Sport organisation which works for bringing the values of sport to the heart of communities and individuals in crisis throughout the world.

Marlene talked with us about

Her journey in taekwondo
Moving to live far from your parents to another country at a very young age
Her preparation for London 2012 Olympic Games
Differences in taekwondo in Canada, France and Africa.

You can watch the interview on YouTube and hear it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Taekwondo has to be fun

Marlene started practicing taekwondo at 4. One of the virtues of her first taekwondo school was to make taekwondo fun for children.

Marlene shares that it was one of the reasons that made her stick to taekwondo.

As a very active girl, it would be hard for her to be in a place where she only would be able to practice the same movements over and over.

Marlene was a multisport girl. She practiced and competed also in fencing and handball but as she grew older the moment came when she had to decide for one sport.

And she decided to go for taekwondo.

It seems it was the right decision as she had a very successful taekwondo career which later helped her to work in other sides of sports and to help people all over the world.

Outside parents home at 16

The journey of course was not easy.

Is not so common to leave your home country without your parents at 16.

Marlene made the decision of leaving Canada to train and live in France because she wanted to train better and in a more competitive environment.

In France she started to train with olympic and world medalists. And soon she noticed changes in her performance.



She had an amazing cycle towards London 2012, medaling in the most important events. World Championships, European Championships, Universiade.

Before the London Olympics Marlene had not the preparation anyone could imagine, she was sent to train in a military camp in the jungle in the French Guiana.

The training was not precisely focused on taekwondo, she even broke a foot there but in a certain way she thinks it helped her to strengthen her mind.

The last weeks she was...

NEW episode UP!

Welcome to a new episode of taekwondo passion.

This time we had the opportunity to talk with Master Dan Chuang, who is the USA National Team poomsae coach.

He is also involved in college taekwondo in many different ways.

He teaches at the Taekwondo Club of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) which he founded in 2000.

Master Chuang is one of the “T.Bos” coaches, a competitive sparring and poomsae group that he co founded with his friend Chinedum Osuji.

Master Chuang is also very involved in promoting and organizing competitions in the USA. For example he serves as director of the Eastern Collegiate Taekwondo Conference, a league of over 500 students from Taekwondo clubs at over 25 colleges and universities which compete in a circuit of 5 tournaments per year.

Master Chuang talked with us about his beginnings in taekwondo, how he learned the importance of building a community at college taekwondo and how we can make it with our students.

Master Chuang remarks that it is very important to get involved with students not only teaching the technical part but also to get involved in their personal development.

Otherwise the relationships don’t last and students just take some knowledge from you and then go away, and you don’t have a meaningful impact in their lives.

Master Chuang sport and competition experience was on the side of sparring. When sport poomsae came up he had to adapt and learn how the sport was evolving to give his best to his athletes.

He shared with us part of this journey of travelling to Korea to learn from the pioneers in sport poomsae.

I hope you enjoy the interview. As Master Chuang is a person that enjoys teaching taekwondo and communicating, I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy listening to him.

On building a community

Master Chuang works a lot in an academic environment, where college students might have other interests than taekwondo.

But the MIT’s Taekwondo Club has been very successful involving students in taekwondo.

How Master’s Chuang achieve this?

One of the keys he considers that has helped him is building a community. In the taekwondo Club students have to find leadership and friendship.

Master Chuang tries to build a group mentality and to promote team goals.

For example, if they have a College competition the goal can be to be first place as a team. And then celebrating that as a group not focusing on individual achievements.

Master Chuang also mentions that it is important to provide goals for shorter periods of time. For example one month. And when the group achieves that goal, move to the next one.


Importance of learning of others and how to do it
What happens if you want to compete at sport poomsae but your style is different.

Does that mean that you won’t succeed in the sport poomsae style?

Master Chuang started taekwondo very young in a more traditional style. Not focused on competition.

So he learned poomsae in the Moo Duk Kwan, Tang So Do style.

Then in his college years and when he started coaching he specialized in sparring.

He was coach of the USA College National Team and he also coached at the Madrid 2005 World Championships.

When sport poomsae started to develop, Master Chuang felt the need to start learning again.

So he attended all the Poomsae seminars he could and he also traveled to Korea to train with Master Sang Jae Lee, one of the first masters who started to promote poomsae in social media.

He was a very good taekwondo sparring athlete, he also had very good results at national and international level as a coach.

But he didn’t let that stop him from learning again. I think that is one of the key aspects to develop...

Hello taekwondo lovers.

I feel really happy and thankful for being back with you again and with an interview with a top athlete that kindly shared with us his story.

A story of passion for taekwondo, a story from which we can all learn.

Our today’s guest is a fighter who always has fun and likes to make taekwondo sparring a pleasure for the eye.

Damian Villa @damianvilla58 raised in Los Angeles, moved to Puebla to fight for an opportunity on Mexico’s National Team.

And he made it really quickly, three weeks after arriving in the country he won the nationals and his right to belong to the national team and to train and live in the Olympic Committee.

Soon he started to be one of the bests at -58kg. Winning several times to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Champion Guillermo Perez and having an amazing Olympic cycle towards London 2012.

He was silver medalist at the Copenhagen 2009 World Championships, Silver at the Pan Am Games and he won the quote for Mexico at the pan american Olympic Games qualification tournament.

He had the best cycle of -58kg in Mexico, but still he was not selected to compete in London.

I think many people would give up after something like this. But not Damian.

He went as part of the team to London. And one year later in Puebla 2013 World Championships he won the bronze medal.

Three years ago Damian made a new big change in his life moving again to Los Angeles to train in a different way.

He accumulated many years experience and he decided to take charge of his training and pursue new goals.

He also started to represent the USA again.

Now he is training, teaching taekwondo at Villas Taekwondo @villastaekwondo and recently he is sharing his experience with other athletes and coaches via Expert Method Taekwondo. @xpertmethodtkd

A new project developed by him and Rene Lizarraga @renelizarragamx for the taekwondo community.

Beside his outstanding career, I want to say that although Damian has the fighter personality, he is also very humble and a person that is willing to help the taekwondo community.

I think he has the character for being a great teacher and coach and surely we’ll be hearing of Damian Villa for many years.



One of the secrets to be father and taekwondo Master

Damian’s father, Master Octavio Villa was also his instructor.

He was also a great mexican taekwondo athlete who was World Cup Bronze medalist and was near to compete at the Barcelona 1992 Olympics.

Many Master’s and instructors struggle to teach their sons and daughters.

If you have a bad day, it must be difficult to leave things at the dojang and not bring them home.

Damian says that Master Octavio’s secret was to keep a balance and to treat his sons in the same way as his students.

Master’s Octavio children were not asked to make more efforts than the rest of his students.

Neither were they allowed to make less efforts.

Damian and his siblings were treated fairly.
Compromise with your beliefs
Damian is a person that is compromised with his ideals and beliefs.

During the interview, it is clear that he loves sparring. And even though he has always loved it, when he was a child he went to a tournament and he didn’t spar because his father told him that he had to compete in poomsae and sparring.

And he didn’t want to make poomsae.

His father told him that if he didn’t do poomsae he would not compete. And he didn’t compete.

He went to the tournament, stayed all day there and didn’t compete.

This shows us how strong the will of young Damian was and that his father respected his decision.
Damian and the pressure
Another characteristic of Damian is that he is constantly...