After 20-plus years of teaching taekwondo and judo at its location in House Springs, Missouri Martial Arts was in danger of shutting its doors for good. Sara Busby and Mike Gustavison couldn’t let that happen.
Having each earned black belts in taekwondo and judo at the school, Busby and Gustavison began teaching there and worked closely with owner/instructor Rick Fenley. A fourth degree black belt from the World Taekwondo Federation, Fenley began studying at Missouri Martial Arts in 1999 under Bob Wheeler, a fifth degree black belt from the WTF who founded Missouri Martial Arts and owned the school for 17 years before selling to Fenley.
However, about 18 months ago, Fenley warned that he was starting to think about retirement, which meant the future of the school was in doubt.
“Mike and I just couldn’t bear to think of it closing with Fenley leaving,” said Busby, a House Springs resident. “So we talked about it and said, ‘OK, between the both of us, we can get this done.’”
But for Busby and Gustavison, also of House Springs, it wouldn’t be a simple matter of just getting the finances together to purchase ownership of the school. Teaching martial arts techniques steeped in tradition from a school with direct ties to Grandmaster Chang Hee Yoon, a former South Korea national champion in judo, Busby said they first needed to be sure that they were worthy of the honor.
“We asked Rick and Bob, ‘Hey, are we good enough? Do you feel that we can carry on this tradition? We want your honest opinion,’” Busby said. “And both of them told us, ‘Absolutely, please, take it over, you guys will keep it going.’ It is an honor to be told by both of them, ‘We have confidence that you guys can do this.’”
So Busby and Gustavison began to put a plan into place, and when Fenley announced a few months ago that he was ready to retire, they were ready to take over. On July 1, the change in ownership became official.
“It honestly has been a very smooth transition, because Mike and I have been there for so long,” Busby said. “We know the ins and outs, so the only thing we basically did was take over paying the bills. For any business owner, we couldn’t have asked for a smoother transition.”
And they couldn’t have asked for a better time to take the reins, as Missouri Martial Arts is poised to enter new and exciting territory.
After qualifying two individuals for the AAU Junior Olympic Games throughout the school’s history, Missouri Martial Arts is sending five students to compete in the tournament July 26-28 at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines. All five of them qualified for the national championships during the Ozark AAU qualifier in May at Westminster High School.
“It’s a big honor,” Busby said. “I could not have thought that we would have so many kids qualify.”
Busby’s 15-year-old twin sons, Ty and Cole Evans, both qualified, Ty in sparring and Cole in traditional form. Gustavison’s son Nick, 16, qualified in sparring, and he returns to the AAU Junior Olympics after winning eight gold medals in 2016. Also qualifying were Jack Barajas, 12, of House Springs (weapons sparring) and Joy Fambrough, 15, from Cedar Hill (weapons form).
“It actually was the last competition of the season, and all five of them were able to make it,” Busby said. “Every kid that we brought to the tournament qualified. We took five kids out of the school, and all five qualified that day. I cannot imagine what would have happened if any of other kids from the school who weren’t on vacation or studying for finals, what we could have had.”
Busby said she’s been pleasantly surprised by how “nonchalant” the athletes have been about qualifying for nationals.
“They’re just like, ‘Yeah, I won my tournament, and I’m going to go to another tournament, ho-hum,’ not like it’s the Junior Olympics or anything,” Busby said.
“When I talk to my sons, I’m like, ‘Am I the only one that’s thinking, ‘Holy crud!’ and they’re like, ‘Yeah,’ That just tells me that we’re teaching them right, to be good, humble leaders. I’d rather them be like that than walking around bragging.”
As a premier martial arts school in the St. Louis area, Missouri Martial Arts could do its share of bragging, particularly given its unique status as a Kukkiwon certified school. Kukkiwon, also known as World Taekwondo Headquarters, and home of the World Taekwondo Academy, is the official taekwondo governing organization established by the South Korean government.
“What that means is if you test for a black belt here, it’s recognized all around the world,” Busby said. “And in order to get that recognition, you have to go through some extremely rigorous testing. It’s very prestigious, it’s a very big honor to get a black belt with a Kukkiwon standing behind it.”
That’s just part of what people can expect from Missouri Martial Arts, Busby said.
“If it’s not broke, don’t fix it, and what we’re doing works, and it’s worked for thousands of years,” Busby said.
“I don’t think a lot of people recognize what we offer, and what the Kukkiwon certification is. Even our warmups are handed down from generation to generation, how we make sure legs are stretched so we can do these kicks, things like that. But people don’t realize what we offer in that respect.”
Fortunately, with Busby and Gustavison taking ownership, Missouri Martial Arts can continue to offer these traditions. And given the commitment of their children – including Busby’s daughter, Perri, as well as judo instructor John Mosley’s son, John, both of whom will soon be testing for their black belt – who knows how much longer the doors will remain open?
“There’s a possibility that this school can stay around for a while,” Busby said. “Maybe we can keep passing it on and passing it on to those we find can carry on this tradition.”
A fundraiser to help the qualifiers make the trip to the AAU Junior Olympics will be held on July 20 from 5 to 8 p.m. at Toasted Coffee House in High Ridge. The school will hold live demonstrations, with competitors from the Little Dragons class, ages 3-6, as well as juniors and adults giving people a glimpse of “everything that we do,” Busby said. A portion of the sales during that 3-hour block will go toward travel expenses for the qualifiers.