Jason Han: Whatever situation you put me in, I will succeed

One of the first objectives of the podcast was to bring knowledge of successful professionals that could help with their advice and experience to the taekwondo community.

The idea was to interview athletes, coaches, health care professionals, Masters, business owners to share ideas from their respective fields to us.

Today we will cover many of these fields in one interview. As our guest was former USA national team member, he has excelled at coaching and sports performance and he is also a top health care professional who has worked with professional athletes and performers in places like the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Cirque du Soleil and now works for one of the best soccer teams in the continent, the Los Angeles Football Club.

He also co-owns The Juice Compound, a World Class Coaching program that helps individuals to reach their potential.

I’m talking about Dr Jason Han, taekwondo World Cup Medalist, doctor, consultant, owner of Health Fit and father of family.

Dr Jason Han very kindly accepted to share with us his experiences since he started taekwondo as a child after watching a demo at his school.
Taekwondo demonstrations
Dr Jason was a multi sport child. He decided to focus on taekwondo until he had to make a decision between it and basketball.

Usually, when we think about successful athletes, we can suppose that they started competing in taekwondo very young, but it is not the case for Dr Jason.

First he was part of his dojang demo team, and it is interesting that also a demo was what brought him to taekwondo.

He saw a demo at his school and so he asked his parents to take him to taekwondo.
Another interesting aspect that made him stay in taekwondo in certain moments where he wanted to drop out was the opportunity to mentor lower belt students of the dojang he attended.

It’s interesting how this seed of helping others was one of the things that made him stick to taekwondo. The social part more than the athletic achievements.
Athlete and coach at the same time
Dr Jason studied in one of the most famous and prestigious universities in the world, the University of Berkley.

And one of the reasons why he chose Berkeley was the taekwondo coach that taught there, Dr. Park Bong Kwon.

But curiously, when Jason had only one year at Berkeley Dr Park Bong Kwon had to leave the university and so Dr Jason, being the most experienced athlete had the big responsibility to lead the team..

He remembers it as a growth experience as he had to start to research how a training plane was made and also he had to focus on his studies and on his athletic career.

Dr Jason shares with us that in those days access to knowledge was really difficult comparing it with nowadays.

At first he had to plan according his experience as an athlete and then slowly pick up information from different sources, for example, if he went with the USA Team to the World Championships and he saw the Iran team doing certain drill or exercise before the competition, he analyzed it to see if it made sense to try it.

This is a great reflection of what we can do as coaches, maybe we don’t have the experience of other coaches, or maybe we don’t have access to Sports Lab or to a multidisciplinary team to work for us.

So, we have to do what we can with what we have. A reflection that also Stephen Lambdin shared with us.
Choice management
Almost at the beginning of the interview Jason shared with us this quote:

“Is not time management, it is choice management”

This came out because of the multiple areas in which Dr Jason works simultaneously.

He works with the LA Football Club, owns his clinic with his wife, co owns and works with The Juice Compound helping athletes to achieve their goals no matter their level.