FEATURE: Mastering a timeless, disciplined art

By Rudy Coggins
Published in Sports on July 24, 2016 1:47 AM

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Sensei Jason Adams hails from Muncie, Indiana, an east-central slice of Americana settled in the late 1700's by the Lenape, a tribe of Native Americans fleeing European expansion along the eastern seaboard.

It now forms a quaint volume of life, as one may well expect of a bread basket state, complete with a blues jam in the summer and a vibrant farmer's market, the Minnetrista.

In photographs, it speaks baseball and fireflies. Milkshakes and campfires.

Red, white and blue.

But to Adams, it evokes something different.

It's where he was bullied as a child, beginning in grade school and where he first sought a way to confront the torment confronting him.

It's where he found martial arts.

"I started out in baseball... and really just didn't get into it," he said. "At seven, my parents put me in martial arts, and I fell in love with it."

His study, equal parts escape and blossoming passion, saw him through lean times. It provided confidence and helped forge an identity that he used to balance his teenage years.

It would also never quit following him.

*

Great Falls, Montana. 1999.

That's where Adams, a green, E2 officer in the United States Air Force, unwittingly began sketching the framework of his future dojo.

He sought others who needed what he'd gained from karate, teaching self defense to women in mercy-home settings and reaching out to inspire advocacy groups housed on Malmstrom Air Force Base.

Any time, any place -- Adams did not discriminate.

"I taught kids, spouses, active duty," he said. "And that's where I really... started having more of a functioning school.

"And then I got PCS'd here (to Goldsboro) in January 2005."

His work at Seymour Johnson, which by then sheltered a wife and two children, began on flight chief security. Over time, it broadened into a more finite slate of investigative procedure.

In a few more years, he reasoned, and with a few more promotions, his career would be rounding third base. Retirement, and the spoils of his time in service, was in his sights.

Until it wasn't.

An obscure health condition classified him as non-deployable in 2004, and in August of 2007, prompted a full medical discharge. In a blink, the life Adams had so carefully crafted -- through early trials, sought-after duty and honor -- was effectively over.

With no more obligation to Old Glory, the martial arts student by-way-of-Muncie went home -- to Japan.

*

September, 2008.

"A friend of mine from Puerto Rico contacted me about an opportunity to go to Okinawa," he said, "and meet an instructor over there. He had an organization -- kind of small, but good lineage."

It was the dojo of Sensei Koei Nohara.

Born and raised on the island, the 9th-degree black belt offered new perspective to Adams. Layer by layer, he peeled back the regimented habits his new student learned via Uncle Sam.

"We joked about it... island time," he said. "When you're studying martial arts, you don't want to rush it. Because once you're finished, (it's) a memory.

"Why not stay in it as long as you can?"

What mattered most, Adams recalls, was finding a way to work in total freedom, minus distraction and without any manner of limitation.

In other words, he had to find his present -- and remain there.

"I'd only been out of the military for seven months," he said, "(and) I learned a lot from the culture. It was a pivotal point."

After nearly two weeks, Adams returned to the United States.

Charged up and with purpose anew, it wouldn't be long before the call to help others beckoned yet again.

*

The dojo stands in relative anonymity along a shoulder-shared stretch of William Street and Highway 117 in northwest Goldsboro, not far from a door-barred greasy spoon.

A combination of red brick and nondescript siding, it looks like the place one might file a 1040.

Far from it.

It is the home of Goldsboro Karate, and exactly what Adams envisioned upon his return stateside. He remade himself there -- again -- molding and remolding the interior specs with his own hands.

There was drywall, electrical.

Paint and mirrors.

Matting, a sheer ton of it.

But in the matter of a few years, the former airman with a few pop-up classes at the YMCA took a small bit of office space and transformed it into a multi-layered platform where students of all ages could learn, work and develop.

"We started out small," Adams recalls, "got family members and kids involved... it was a joint effort, but we haven't looked back since."

*

On a mat stretching lengthwise across the dojo, a pint-sized student cuts a powerful swath through the air.

Again. And again.

Hannah Adams, a precocious and uber-confident 14-year-old, is a whirling facsimile of her father -- straight forward, no nonsense.

A winner.

The wunderkind began her study of martial arts in kindergarten, when other kids her age were splashing in mud puddles or playing video games or doing anything other than martial arts.

By degrees, she worked, advancing step-by-step through the core training curriculum at her father's dojo -- a healthy combination of coachability, personal willingness and heart. She's now a junior black belt.

"My goal is that she'll go as far as she wants and I'm able to help her," Adams said of his daughter. "It's not about winning a medal... it's about making a better, well-rounded person."

And the rising freshman at Rosewood High is well on her way.

This summer, Adams made the world her work, traveling some 10,000 miles across multiple continents to compete and register medal-worthy finishes in kata (performance), weapons and kumite (fighting).

She has friends, too.

On a recent trip to the AAU National Karate Tournament in Orlando, Fla., the dojo accumulated a total of 20 medals -- six gold, four silver and 10 bronze -- in addition to numerous top-10 finishes across various disciplines and competitive age groups.

Lofty accomplishments, sure, but managed with keen perspective by the young Adams.

"I plan on doing karate my whole life," she said. "As long as you go out and give it your best, you never really lose. You're always winning if you're learning."

Spoken like her Sensei, without question. And very much like someone acutely familiar with island time.