OYEN, Alta. – Each fall across Canada parents begin the nightly ritual of driving their children to dance, hockey or figure skating, and then sitting on the sidelines to watch.
More than a dozen years ago, Jane and Terry Westerlund decided there was more to being a family than sitting and watching their children’s activities.
Terry, Jane and their three children joined a taekwondo club.
“It was a family thing you go and do together. We found it compatible,” said Terry, who said their approach to ranching has also been to work together as a family.
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“It was the best thing we ever did for our girls,” said Jane, who said after six years of dance the girls were unlikely to become dance prodigies.
In rural areas with disappearing towns, a child’s after-school activities often means at least a one-hour drive to an event.
In 1993, after Terry and Jane received their black belts, they started to teach classes. There are 10 gup, or grades of coloured belt levels, in taekwondo and nine dan, or degrees of black belt.
Terry Jr. has his first dan, Jane her second dan and Terry his third dan of black belt.
Now, four nights a week they drive to Altario, Esther, Acadia Valley and Oyen to teach classes.
With taekwondo, few parents watch from the sidelines, said Jane. A parent may watch for a few months, but soon join after they see the mixture of children and adults in the class.
“Some adults have not been able to touch their toes or even put their hands on their toes,” said Terry, of the first few classes, but the students soon can kick high over their heads.
“It helps a lot of people stay in shape,” he said.
Taekwondo is a Korean martial art with an emphasis on kicks and jumps. Terry credits the repetitive exercises of taekwondo for helping him recover from a serious riding accident while working in the Sounding Creek community pasture in 1989.
While roping a steer his horse became tangled in the rope and Terry landed underneath the horse in a tangled mess. His boss performed CPR before racing to the neighbours for help.
When Terry woke up there was little movement in the left side of his body and he lost some memory, but recovered with the help of taekwondo.
“I got control of my body and memory big time.”
While the combination of taekwondo and cowboy may seem an odd fit, Terry said they work well on the family ranch and with his job at the Sounding Creek pasture.
The time spent in taekwondo is when the fifth generation ranch family doesn’t think about the grasshoppers and drought on its southeastern Alberta ranch.
“It’s stress relief,” said Jane, who added the drought was one of the worst in memory since Terry’s great-grandfather homesteaded in the area in 1917.
“It gives a person a positive attitude to get through hard times,” he said.
There are benefits for the ranch. Terry also credits taekwondo for improved balance and flexibility on a horse and understanding an animal’s pressure points.
In taekwondo, participants learn to use their opponent’s pressure points for self defence. Terry said they’ve transferred that knowledge to livestock to help move the cattle easier. Recently Terry and Jane started to travel to Wainwright to take ju-jitsu, a martial art similar to judo, to increase their skills.
