Confidence comes through karate

Ronnie Sullivan stood and stared through his first few karate classes, but instructor Diana McRae wasn’t rattled. She didn’t know what to expect from the students at TESH, which teaches life and work skills to people with disabilities. A growth disorder slightly slows her son, but she’d worked with him to adapt actions to his body. She applied the same idea to the karate students at TESH. Ronnie came around, as Diana was certain he would.

“Now, when Wednesday comes around and I ask him what he’s doing, he’s shoots his hand up and says karate,” says Carol Norris, Ronnie’s mother. “Diana truly and genuinely cares and she believes in them. People just don’t understand that people with handicaps can grasp things, but Diana does.”

Diana fell in love with teaching karate to people with disabilities. She recently began a nonprofit organization, Professional Human Beings, dedicated to teaching martial arts to people with disabilities and to women. A martial arts tournament she’s organized for Oct. 23 at Post Falls High School will raise money to jump start her new venture.

“Tournaments are a riot,” Diana says, chuckling. “These guys have so impressed me. You can never underestimate them.”

Professional Human Beings is a phrase from the movie “Zoolander” that captivated Diana. Model Derek Zoolander wants to teach kids how to be professional human beings. Diana applies that phrase to her teaching philosophy for karate.

“Martial arts has a bad reputation. It’s all about punching, aggression, hurting people. It’s seen as a violent sport,” she says. “But it’s not really. It’s about discipline, fortitude, not giving up. It teaches you about yourself.”

She knows from personal experience. She learned karate as an adult and appreciates the boost in her self-confidence, focus and drive. Brian Strain, her teacher, asked her to help him teach karate at TESH five years ago. When he retired two years ago, she took over the classes.

To earn her black belt, Diana wrote a manual for teaching martial arts to people with disabilities. She advised teachers to know their students and capabilities and to adapt moves. Diana learned to adapt moves for people in wheelchairs.

“There’s a lot they can’t do,” she says. “Be creative, yet still work to their capacity.”

TESH taught Diana she loved teaching. She opened her own studio in Post Falls three years ago, hoping to reach women with self-protection techniques. She also taught once a week at TESH. Diana spread martial arts to all ages, but realized teaching people with disabilities rewarded her the most.

That’s when she decided to start Professional Human Beings. She began preparing her students at TESH for tournaments. She didn’t teach them to spar with each other. Rather, she taught moves they each perform solo, like a dance.

Each tournament offered a special needs division and her students often were the only participants. They competed against each other. Diana patiently taught them tournament etiquette and procedure – introducing themselves to judges, bowing, standing in a ring while they’re judged.

One of her students was so excited at her first competition that she shook each judge’s hand.

“It was just so funny,” Diana says, laughing. “You don’t do that. But it was OK.”

Her students have traveled to Missoula, Lewiston and Los Angeles to compete. Diana decided this year they should have a chance to compete for a home audience. She resurrected the River City Open, a tournament started in 2001 but not continued.

It’s an open tournament. Anyone can compete in karate, kung fu and tai kwan do. Diana hopes to raise enough money to buy uniforms and a mat on which she can teach judo. Now, students buy their own robes and pay $22 for six weeks of lessons. Diana wants to raise enough money to offer scholarships and help pay for travel.

Ronnie’s mother, Carol, knows what Diana’s karate lessons have done for her son. Ronnie, 36, has severe Down syndrome. He responds to most activities like a robot. Karate has made him more secure with himself, less stubborn and more open with people.

“It melts my heart to see what he does now,” Carol says. “He’s come a long way, which wasn’t expected. You have to have just the right approach, and Diana does.”