‘Kick together, stick together’: Winnipeg’s Park family pushes toward Olympic taekwondo dream

It’s 7:45 a.m. on a gloomy Friday morning in Winnipeg in the middle of April and Van Halen’s Jump is blasting through the Park home.

Siblings Skylar, Taeku, and Braven are just waking up. Their mom, Andrea, has already been up for hours preparing meals for the day.

And Jae, the dad-turned-taekwondo coach, has been mapping out his training plan for the day.

One by one, the kids come out of their upstairs bedrooms, past the kitchen where Andrea is finishing breakfast, down two flights of stairs and into the family basement.

The space once meant for movie nights and piano practice (the piano still sits in the middle of the room, unused) has been overhauled into a taekwondo studio.

There’s an XBox 360 on the shelf under the TV with NBA and NHL games as well as Call of Duty sitting nearby. But there’s a layer of dust sitting on top of it all. A piece of art sits unhung on the floor leaning up against one of the walls.

There are treadmills and a rowing machine, medicine balls and mirrors on the walls. Mats cover the floor. There’s an exercise bike and barbells.

Art and leisure can wait. Taekwondo cannot.

This is how every morning at the Park house starts. Training begins at 8 a.m.

“A family that kicks together, sticks together,” says Jae, who began in the sport growing up in Korea some five decades before all this. “It's like any type of relationship; it is hard work. Everybody has to pull their own weight.”

The Olympic rings have been stuck to a wall in the main training area in the basement, a daily reminder of what they're all trying to accomplish as a family.

All three children are preparing for the upcoming taekwondo world championships in Azerbaijan at the end of May. Their ultimate dream is to one day all compete at the Olympics together.

They’re getting closer to that feat. All three will represent Canada at the Pan Am Games this fall in Chile.

It’s not lost on any of them that this is not normal, that an entire family would be so committed to one sport and be equally engaged, and they’re alright with it.

“It's so routine and it's just what we do. And so you don't think about how special what we're doing is that often and how unique it is,” 23-year-old Skylar says. “Some people, even in the world of taekwondo, think we just kind of pretend.

“This is real. Everyone's all in and I think we're working towards this huge goal together. None of us take it for granted how special it is.”

Today, the family is wrapping up an exhaustive 90-minute training session they do six times a week. Sometimes Jae lets his kids have a couple days off on the weekend, but Saturday is usually a training day.

Jae has had to try to learn the fine balance between being father and coach, something he admits he hasn’t perfected just yet.

“This is one of the biggest questions I get asked all the time by the media, by people, by other parents and by other coaches,” Jae says. “I hope I’ve evolved as a parent. And as a coach, I’ve learned in the last three or four years how to separate coach and parent and I've learned how to be more patient as a coach and not take things as personally.”

As Skylar, Taeku, and Braven race from rowing machine to weights, stationary bike to doing squats – this is the circuit training session Jae has put together for this morning – Andrea makes her way down from the kitchen to the basement to check out the action.

“This is what we do and we're just part of each other's lives,” she says. “This is not normal, by any means or by any stretch of the imagination. And we all know that. The kids even know that. It's a very different life that they've chosen.”

And maybe that’s the key to all of this, that this is a choice. Because from the outside, it might seem like perhaps there was some level of pressure from Jae for his family to come on this taekwondo journey with him. But that’s not what this is.

Every member of this family is actively choosing to be fully immersed in this world.

“I think it's pretty special. It's really cool. I mean, to travel with them and spend all the time with them, it's just kind of what we've always done. I don't really know anything else besides that,” Taeku says.

The 22-year-old has competed at national and international competitions before. He made his first national team in 2018, a breakthrough of sorts for him. For the past number of years he’s been learning valuable lessons in the sport and now is ready to take a big step forward over these next few months of competition at worlds and then the Pan Am Games.

When you have those tough days you don't want to be there, you think about it and you're like, OK, they sacrifice this for me, so I gotta keep working. You have to carry your own weight.

“Last year I was out in the round of 16, I lost to the eventual world bronze medallist. I fought in the 74-kilogram. This year I'm fighting 68. So my ceiling won't be as good, but I'm looking for a medal,” he says. “Shock the world. Break the bracket. That's what we're looking to do this time.”

Braven, 20, is the baby of the family and following the lead of his older brother and sister. He’ll be alongside Skylar and Taeku at worlds and Pan Am Games.

Both Braven and Taeku earned bronze medals at last year’s Senior Pan Am Championships.

“Being surrounded by them and just knowing every day the sacrifices not only I make, but my family makes, makes this easier,” Braven says. “When you have those tough days you don't want to be there, you think about it and you're like, OK, they sacrifice this for me, so I gotta keep working.

“You have to carry your own weight.”

Like many families, the siblings push each other through friendly competition. Taeku peeks over at how much weight Braven is bench pressing. Skylar is setting the pace on the stationary bike. They do 60-second sets of each exercise, three times. It gets intense.

And they do get sick of each other sometimes.

“We used to butt heads a lot when we were younger, like we would actually fight each other, like, physically fight each other when we were younger,” Skylar says, with a laugh.

She’s the older sister in a sport that requires powerful kicks and explosive punches. And success came quickly for Skylar. She was a natural in the space and soaked up every minute of it. Her younger brothers were just trying to keep up.

“They always tried to take me down, but I was like, no, not today,” Skylar says. “But now I'm like, whenever I get a good shot in, I'm so sorry. Before I was like dominating and training against them and it's hard now. For a while I thought I was getting worse.”

Going up against her brothers while training and then going into competition against women has its advantages.

“It's just reminding myself and having that confidence when I go against these girls that know what I'm doing is going to work, because it doesn't always work on my brothers,” she says. “Sometimes I get frustrated, because it's like everyday I'm almost on the losing end of almost all exchanges, just because they're so strong and so fast.”

Skylar’s meteoric rise in the sport has certainly put the family on the map. She won gold at the 2016 world junior championships in Burnaby, B.C. It was her breakthrough moment and her life changed overnight. She quickly became the face of the sport in Canada and was also celebrated and recognized in her father’s home country of Korea, where taekwondo reigns supreme.

There is pressure now, and the desire to get to the Olympics for Canada is elevated. Skylar kept winning national and international competitions. Eventually her talent and tenacity would land her a spot at the Tokyo Olympics.

She had always dreamed of going to the Olympics, just not under the strict conditions with most of the world still in lockdown due to the pandemic.

The pressure got to her. Favoured to win a medal, she bowed out in the quarterfinals.

“I wasn't ready to be on the Olympic stage. It's just different. I try to tell my brothers what it’s like, but I think until you're there you have no idea,” Skylar says. “Some people go to the first Olympics and they have an amazing performance. But I just don't think I was ready for the magnitude of the event.”

Jae and Taeku were in Tokyo with Skylar. Jae was coaching and Taeku was his sister’s training partner. Her early defeat, not living up to the expectations, was hard on everyone. Andrea, Braven and the rest of the extended family were back in Winnipeg watching it all.

“It was hard because that's what we've been working for since she was six years old is for her to go to the Olympics and then we weren't able to go. So that was a hard one,” Andrea says. 

Despite the Olympic setback, Skylar continued to bask in the spotlight while her younger brothers tried to keep up in the background.

Admittedly, living in the shadow of his sister’s dominance was challenging for Taeku, who for years wondered if he would ever be able to achieve the level of greatness Skylar had reached seemingly so easily.

“I guess I was trying to match her accomplishments as opposed to being proud of her accomplishments,” he says. “There were a couple of times where I was tired of it. Like, why am I here? I think it's just kind of growing and maturing as a person and realizing that I'm never going to be fighting her in the ring.”

He thought about quitting the sport, somewhat discouraged by his results as he watched Skylar soar, but Taeku says he’s worked through that over the years and now feels more united in their mission.

The entire family is aware of the struggles and concerns each of them have. Family meetings are a big part of why this works, and when Jae and Andrea sense friction or know there are upcoming competitions that will cause some heightened energy in the household, meetings are in order.

“Sometimes they're good and sometimes there might be a little turbulence,” Jae says. “Sometimes they hear an earful. There are life lessons here. It's not only pertaining to taekwondo, it's always a life lesson that I hope that I'm putting through.”

The meetings are also a chance to check in with the kids, to make sure they’re all fully committed to this. After the Tokyo Olympics, they had one of their most important meetings – deciding to all try to compete in Paris.

“If you want to do this, then we're doing it. And we're all in,” Andrea says was her message. “We can support them but we can’t get in the ring and fight for them. And it's a lot of sacrifice. And it's a lot of time. But they have to want to do it. It's hard enough already.”

What makes this all easier for Skylar, Taeku and Braven is that they’re walking a path already paved by family members who came before them. In all, the extended Park family holds 16 black belts.

Everything about their lives revolves around the sport, something that traces back to Korea. That’s where Jae grew up watching his father, Deuk (they call him Duke), train the U.S. military in hapkido, a hybrid martial art focusing on self defence.

The family emigrated to Canada in 1977 when Jae was eight. His parents had nothing when they arrived in Winnipeg – they didn’t speak English, they didn’t have a job and they had a young family to raise.

“They knew a couple of words. Hello. Stay a little longer. And ice cream. That's it,” Jae says. “It is an amazing story, even when I think about it, because now it's different. Now you've got Google Translate. So for them to actually move here with four young kids with zero plan or anything, is a little crazy.”

Deuk originally wanted to move to the U.S. because a friend he’d made among the soldiers lived in Seattle. For 10 years Deuk tried but was declined every time.

So he moved to Canada because he thought that would be close enough to visit his friend, not realizing how far it was between Winnipeg and Seattle.

“They got on a plane and landed in Winnipeg,” Jae says, and both worked in a sewing factory. “It's your classic coming to Canada immigration success story.”

Jae was a shy kid and says he would hide behind his mom’s dress when he would be introduced to his parent’s friends. That’s why his mom and dad put him in taekwondo, to help him break out of his shell a little bit and provide him some confidence.

I fit the stereotype as, you know, this tough martial arts kind of guy. I had a personality to back it up as well.

There was an academy not far from where the family would end up living in Winnipeg. Jae was starting to fall in love with the sport and also the persona he was developing because of being a part of that world.

“Obviously I'm a visible minority, right? I think me being a minority, me being different has worked to my advantage, especially because, you know, martial arts is cool,” he says. “I fit the role. I fit the stereotype as, you know, this tough martial arts kind of guy. I had a personality to back it up as well.”

In 1993, he opened the Tae Ryong Park Taekwondo Academy in an industrial area of Winnipeg and worked around the clock to make it a success. He wanted his dad to be proud of him.

He would park a car with decals promoting the academy at busy intersections in Winnipeg to try to drive traffic to the space to increase membership. He would leave his cell phone on throughout the night and answer it at all hours to bring in more customers.

It took time but word was spreading throughout Winnipeg this was the academy to be at.

“My father set the tone,” he says. “I wanted it more than him. My mom wanted me to be a doctor. My dad wanted me to be a mechanical engineer, but I always wanted to be a lawyer because I could actually argue well. But I opened up a dojo. And it’s been pretty successful.

“It’s been a blessing. I know my parents are proud of me.”

What he didn’t know is that the academy would be the place he’d meet his wife.

Andrea walked through the doors of the dojo in 1996, not because she wanted to be there but because one of her friends liked an instructor at the academy. So Andrea and her friend got a two-month membership to take hapkido classes.

“A good friend of mine was madly in love with one of Jae’s black belts. So she made me take classes. That’s when I met Jae. He was my teacher,” Andrea says.

I thought he was annoying. And he told me he was going to grow on me like mold.

“I hated him with a passion because I'm like, ‘who's this guy with the attitude?’ I thought he was annoying. And he told me he was going to grow on me like mold.”

Two years later, they got married, Andrea got her black belt, started teaching classes at the academy and her life trajectory changed drastically.

“I was actually just applying to start doing my Master's program at Guelph University. I was a psychology major,” she says. “It's been a very different life. And I've loved it.”

Within the span of four years, from 1999 to 2003, the two would move to a bigger academy, start an afterschool program and have three children – Skylar first, then Taeku and finally Braven.

All three kids grew up on the mats at the academy. They were immersed in the martial arts world from the moment they could crawl and then walk. It’s all they’ve ever known.

“I think it's very special to be in the position that I'm in. And I think that at the beginning I was just doing it because it was what we did,” Skylar says. “This is just what I'm doing. And then my brothers were doing it and we were all doing it together.”

When you walk into the academy you’re immediately met with photos of Grand Master Deuk and Master Jae Park. There’s even a photo of Jae and Arnold Schwarznegger together from when Jae was competing in Las Vegas a couple of decades earlier.

There are trophies on display, but not all of them. Some of the kids' medals are on display too – just enough hardware to show customers this is a serious place that produces winners.

On one side of the space there are Canadian and Korean flags hanging above the mats, an acknowledgement of the family’s past and present.

This is the Park’s home away from home – they probably spend more time at the academy than they do at their actual home.

On the outside facade of the building there’s a larger than life sign capturing many of Skylar’s great moments throughout her career, including competing at the Olympics.

Skylar, Taeku and Braven have afternoon training sessions five or six times a week at the academy, usually with the sprawling space to themselves. But there’s also an afternoon school program that turns the serene space into a chaotic scene of young kids running around.

Andrea takes care of the front office duties. Jae coordinates the programming and the three kids coach.

There are upward of 400 members at the academy now. What started as somewhat of a passion project 30 years ago has now led to a thriving family-run dojo and at the heart of it all are his three kids who are pushing the sport forward.

“It's an investment in what our kids want to do. And yes, it's an investment in their life, not in terms of any monetary value, but the type of person that they're going to become,” Jae says. 

“It sounds like a cliche, but it's that work that you put in to get to where you want to be. Because at the end of the day you can look at that shiny medal but the shine disappears. And when they get older what they're going to remember are the times that we spent together doing this.”

Skylar, Taeku and Braven gear up for another training session at the academy. It’s a nonstop barrage of kicks and punches. When one of Skylar’s kicks lands in the pad Taeku is holding head-height there’s a distinct sound of foot hitting leather signaling a perfect strike.

That’s what they’re going for here every time. One by one they each take turns, ratcheting up the intensity each round.

There’s a massive sign on one wall of the academy that reads: “Where the weak become strong and strong become champions.”

Suddenly the door opens and Deuk is there. The 81-year-old strolls into the space and his grandchildren go to greet him.

Jae is in the office making calls. So too is Andrea.

Deuk holds his hand out, no pad, and tells Skylar to start kicking.

“Again. Again. Again,” Deuk says.

From Korea to Canada, a family of black belts who started with nothing and have arrived here, an unfathomable reality for Jae and Deuk at the beginning of all of this.

And each time Skylar, Taeku or Braven step onto the mat to fight while wearing the maple leaf they’re doing so on the backs of those who came before them – grandparents, mom, dad and many other relatives who have played a role in getting them to this moment.

Three siblings, with family all around them, forging a dream to all be Olympians, still kicking together all these years later.

Other photos by Devin Heroux