From the Blitz magazine archive. First published on blitzmag.net when the site was the online home of Blitz Australasian Martial Arts Magazine; restored from an archived copy dated 2016-05-12. Words credited to Boon Mark Souphanh in the original.
Martial arts training is the perfect vehicle to drive a person towards self-improvement — but what happens when injury or illness puts a stop to physical practice?
Inspired by a boy battling terminal illness, taekwondo master Andrew ‘Drew’ Johnston used his years of training to create the ‘Spiritual Black Belt’ martial arts program, which caters to youths suffering serious illness or disabilities.
The part-time singer-songwriter and head instructor at Wolves Taekwondo in the Blue Mountains, NSW, hopes to one day help those in similar circumstances across Australia with his unique syllabus. Blitz caught up with Johnston to find out more about the Spiritual Black Belt initiative.
Drew, you’ve been involved in the martial arts for many years. How did you get involved in taekwondo? Was it your first martial art?
It actually wasn’t. I had studied karate for a few years at different schools because my family used to move around a lot. I began my taekwondo training when I was 18, after I had seen some demonstrations. I really enjoyed watching the dynamic kicking style it had to offer. I had been doing karate and a bit of judo for a while, so I guess I was looking for a bit of a change.
How did this lead to starting your own school, and why did you decide to call it Wolves Taekwondo?
I always had in my mind what kind of martial arts school I would one day like to run. I always wanted to create a family-orientated martial arts school where the people looked after each other.
I was after a community feel, hence using ‘wolves’. I’ve always been interested in how wolves interacted with each other and how they lived in large packs. There’s always an alpha-wolf looking after the rest of the pack. I guess I just wanted to run the school in a similar way to the way wolves participate alongside one another.
You’ve recently set up a ‘Spiritual Black Belt’ program for working with kids. I understand the idea came about as a way to help a young student suffering from cancer; can you tell us more about that?
The Dragonfly Spiritual Black Belt came about through necessity, really. I had a student who was diagnosed with cancer at quite a young age. He was about halfway towards a Black-belt before the illness started to really take its toll.
It became increasingly difficult for him to train, both in class and with me personally. I knew in his heart that he really wanted to achieve something before he passed away. There was a sense of urgency because I knew he really wanted that Black-belt, however, the traditional taekwondo path towards that goal was quite difficult. I put on my thinking cap and utilised my background in counselling to come up with Spiritual Black Belt.
Just like any martial artist going through the hard work of achieving a Black-belt, the program would acknowledge the pain and discomfort a lot of these kids go through as the ‘hard work’. I more or less exchanged the physical aspect of training with the discomfort, pain and the treatment this young man was going through.
Can you take us through what SBB involves, and how it works to help these kids with martial arts?
We looked at how he [the student] carried himself through the ongoing treatment and discomfort. We worked on more meditational exercises and building his resilience and resistance to pain. These were done mainly through body control exercises.
Through what experiences and study of your own did you get the tools and information to develop this SSB syllabus and deliver this type of ‘spiritual’ training?
I got a lot of the tools from my experience in psychotherapy and counselling. I looked at what all martial artists looked to achieve and found that martial artists all trained towards building tolerance and resilience. They all want that self-control. I just tried to gear the search for these goals to cater to the needs of the boy who was suffering from terminal illness.
Since then, I’ve applied the program to many students at my school. I think it’s been rewarding for my students, and extremely rewarding for myself.
Although you developed SSB initially to help those with physical limitations who perhaps couldn’t train, has it had any influence on your general syllabus since you created it?
It has! I’m the examiner for all my own schools and branch schools, and since the creation of the program I’ve been grading my students a lot more holistically. I look at the whole package now, there’s not so much a set syllabus they have to achieve. Rather than looking at that aspect, I look at how the student has progressed in terms of where they started.
I think everyone’s journey in martial arts is different, so I guess SBB was a turning point in my teaching career.
I understand that you also juggle your martial arts commitments with being a musician, donating profits from your album to charities. How did this come about, and is it difficult to manage time between both?
All the profits from my album go towards developing the program. It’s a non-profit endeavour. I don’t find it difficult at all to juggle both. I see them as very much the same thing as they all require discipline, motivation and focus. You can’t be a successful musician or martial artist without all of those attributes.
How do you think other martial artists can go about implementing similar programs in their communities?
This program will be made widely available; it’ll be a free program to all kids suffering from illness or disabilities. I’m currently writing the book on the program, which I plan to have finished about half way through 2013. That will be available to anyone else who wants to implement the program and it will be free. Anyone who wants to start the program before then is more than welcome to contact me.
Where do you hope to go with SBB? Do you think it can grow into something bigger?
I hope it can, and that’s certainly my goal. The first thing I want to do is donate 500 published books to palliative care units, health care centres and child learning centres. I would love to see the program implemented throughout Australasia…who knows?
What are your goals for the rest of your career in martial arts?
I just want to keep being inspired by my students. Every day is an exciting one. I just hope to keep the passion and the love for it. That is my goal.
More restored features are listed in The Blitz Archive.