"Big Jack" and "Mother Kill" - Almost Three Decades of Tae Kwon Do Haven’t Slowed Them Down
by Keith Yates

It’s rare to find a husband and wife black belt team. It is rarer still to find a husband and wife that have been teaching Tae Kwon Do together for almost thirty years. But that is exactly what you will find with Texas martial arts pioneers, Jack and Marian Erickson.

The year was 1964. Lyndon Johnson had just assumed the presidency and the Beatles were making their introductory tour of the United States. Allen R. Steen, one of Jhoon Rhee’s first black belts in America, was recruiting students for his early karate classes and planned a demonstration in the gymnasium of the sprawling Texas Instruments headquarters just outside of Dallas.

Jack Erickson was a draftsman at TI where a co-worker was one of Steen’s students. "I had never seen any karate before so I went just out of curiosity," says Jack.

"When he signed up for karate lessons I just feel over backwards," says Marian. 'I was concerned that he might get hurt so I signed up with him. There were a few of us ‘old folks’ in the class but most were much younger," says Marian. Jack adds that the classes were $14 for two months. "$28 was expensive in those days so that was our 8th anniversary present to each other."

"There were 76 guys and just 6 women in that first class," Marian points out, "Six months later there were 30 guys and 6 women. I can still remember the time we were fighting multiples and Fred Wren grabbed me. He said, ‘Damn! It’s a woman,’ and dropped me on my rear. I was so mad that I ran after him and said, ‘Don’t you ever do that to me again!’ Little did I know what an outstanding competitor* he was."

* Fred Wren was one of the fiercest tournament fighters of the era winning the U.S. title several times.

This fiery attitude would spur Marian on to fame in the tournament ring. She seemed to thrive on competition. It was rare in those days for there to be a woman’s division. When there was, most of the competitors were a decade younger than Marian.

The United States Karate Championship was one of the biggest tournaments in the nation in 1966 and 1967. David Moon and Marian won it two years in a row in their respective male and female divisions. With a grin Marian said," The second time was my biggest thrill. Anyone can win once—by luck. It takes skill to win twice."

In explaining why she competed, Marian says "I was just born competitive. I came up in an atmosphere that made it necessary to learn how to defend yourself efficiently because if you only had two dresses and you ruined one of them by fighting you only had one left. In high school we had a judo demonstration where the littlest, petite cheerleader dumped the biggest football player and I can remember thinking that I wanted to do that—it was fast and efficient! My mother didn’t raise me with the perspective that women were handicapped."

"I think that is one of the things that has made our marriage work," reflects Jack, "we both have this outlook that neither one of us is superior to the other."

The Erickson’s two sons, now in their mid-thirties, both took Tae Kwon Do as youngsters, Craig earning a black belt and Marc a brown belt. "My mother had a friend whose son beat her up," says Marian, "and when I saw her bruised face I swore that no man or child of mine was ever going to do that to me. Even though I love my kids I wouldn’t let them take lessons for a year after I started. I figured if push ever came to shove I was going to have the ‘longer leg’.

"One day Craig did challenge me—this was the rebellious stage that some kid’s go through at 14 or 15—and we actually squared off. When he faked a kick I side kicked him across the room, gently of course, and I said, ‘that’ll teach you two things—don’t jive with me and don’t ever fake it, either do it for real or forget it!’

"Oh, we had fun," Marian remembers. "The kids in the neighborhood would get into hassles and they’d come running to our house, ring the bell and ask, ‘Are you the karate lady?’ I’d go running up the street to get in the middle of who knows what and if it seemed serious I’d yell over my shoulder to the boys to call the police. Fortunately I never had to confront anything more serious than horsenapping. Just my presence handled it."

For many of the Steen’s junior students Marian became a kind of mom hauling them to classes, tournaments and parties. They even affectionately called her ‘Mother Kill’. Some of the older students even called her that because of her fighting abilities.

"Many times mothers don’t get a lot of recognition," states Marian. "You are the daughter, the wife, the mom, and nobody calls you by name. Tournaments were my way of finding recognition, The trophies became bookmarks in the pages of time. You know, ‘At least this year something got done and stayed done. I didn’t have to redo it!’"

Jack’s enthusiasm for the martial arts was sustained by his career in the military. Following two years as an Army infantryman in World War II, Jack served 33 years in the Texas Army National Guard as a Command Sergeant Major. "I got the kind of high that a tournament competitor gets when I did summer field training karate demonstrations," says Jack. "I enjoyed teaching combat classes that were much more realistic than anything in the army training manuals. There were always other martial artists to spar with. That enhanced my reputation as a Sergeant Major."

Did Jack ever have to use his training against some guardsman wanting to test his abilities? "At six foot, three he was too intimidating," volunteers Marian. "But you know it is not mass but attitude that establishes presence. When you have an attitude of self-confidence somebody weaker than you just isn’t going to be able to stand up to you without a gun."

"My first indication of the self-confidence that Tae Kwon Do can bring happened when I was still a brown belt," says Jack, "we were in Killeen (Texas) giving a demonstration for the USO. I was with some other martial artists and Jim Johnson, the black belt in charge, told me his red belt and I were going to break two bricks. Now I had broken boards before but never bricks but I wasn’t about to let that red belt do something I couldn’t.

"He went first," Jack relates, "and after all the slow motion practice swings and heavy breathing he finally broke his two bricks. So I just walked up there and went ‘POW!’ and broke mine with a fast chop. Nobody was more surprised that me." Marian laughingly adds that, "later Johnson told him not to do it so fast because you’re supposed to make it look hard and be dramatic!"

"Another time I had just suffered a broken arm from an examination and my arm was in a cast. We were on a training exercise near Paris, Texas," continues Jack. "We were bivouacked around this old abandoned farm house. The battalion commander was really curious about martial arts He asked if I could break one of the bricks that was laying on the ground. I had never broken anything with my left hand before but I put one of those bricks up between two others and just broke it in half with my left hand. The Colonel was so impressed he took it home as a souvenir."

Jack and Marian both made black belt in 1968 and began teaching for Allen Steen. "Allen didn’t really know what to do with his more mature students or his women students," says Jack. "He evaluated everyone on the same basis as guys like Fred Wren. Later, when his organization got bigger, he realized how more mature people could positively influence the general public about the benefits of the martial arts."

Jack and Marian were still brown belts when one of their summer camp friends, Jim Johnson, asked if they wanted to meet his Tae Kwon Do instructor who was coming to Dallas on a visit from Korea. Jack remembers being very surprised when meeting Ye Mo Ahn because, "He was tall. Much bigger than any Korean I had ever seen." The Ericksons worked out with them at Johnson’s school in Killeen.

Mr. Ahn and the Ericksons became friends and when he decided to move to Dallas to open a school in 1969 they were the only people he knew in town. Since his English comprehension was yet to be honed they helped him make the necessary contacts to get settled. His pregnant wife and three other children were arriving and they needed a place to stay.

But when Mr. Steen became aware of their involvement with Mr. Ahn he called the Ericksons in for a meeting. Marian says she remembers, " Mr. Steen saying, ‘I can’t have you helping a competitor of mine.’ He gave us a choice to not help Mr. Ahn or to quit studying and working for him." Jack adds that, "We were friends with Mr. Ahn and could not abandon him. The code of Bushido dictated assistance." "I think if we had told Allen at the outset it probably wouldn’t have mattered but we didn’t even think of that," says Marian. So reluctantly the Ericksons left Steen and began to train with Ahn. They made the shift from Chung Do Kwan, which Steen taught at the time, to Moo Duk Kwan, which Ahn taught, and haven’t looked back.

They earned their second dans in Moo Duk Kwan under Master Ahn and their next two ranks were registered in the Kukiwan in Seoul, Korea. After seven years with Ahn they established their own Dragon School of Tae Kwon Do where they still teach in several locations in the Dallas area. At 66 and 59 Jack and Marian still teach three times a week and train in Chinese martial arts on the weekends.

"Some people may think we’re crazy but we still get more out of it than we put in," says Marian. "For a while we dreaded teaching on our own (especially on Friday nights) but we have discovered the truth of ‘Energy follows thought—Action follows energy.’ We realized that if we were going to continue teaching on our own then we had to be enthusiastic about it and pretty soon we were. It energizes us!"

"We approach teaching with the attitude of a ‘flexible willow’", says Jack, "which moves in the wind—flexible and bending without losing it’s own identity. We don’t have to be like an old dead tree which breaks under the forces of change.

"And it is gratifying to see the influence we have on young people" Jack continues, "keeping youthful associations certainly keeps us in touch with what the younger generation is doing."

"We are so much wiser now than when we were younger and we were thrown into teaching," adds Marian. "As you get older you throw away your ego and concentrate on what you can do well."

Jack says that they allow some of their 13 active black belts to share the teaching load and to demonstrate what they can do well. "This provides the continuity with just some minor variations," he says. The Ericksons have compiled a comprehensive student manual of their techniques and philosophy which is used in their affiliated schools in Dallas, Alaska and Australia.

Jack sums up that philosophy by saying, "When we were younger we thought that there was only one way—the way we had originally been taught. However the more things we see, the more we realize that the main core is the same in all the martial arts: unity of body, mind and spirit."

Marian expresses their hopes for the future by saying, "Seven years with Steen, seven with Ahn, seven for each of us. The future is the two of us together for at least another 28 years in Tae Kwon Do. When we finally retire the manual will enable the Dragon Schools to continue."

The Dragon School students would no doubt agree that the wisdom the Ericksons have attained from a lifetime of martial arts study will certainly live on.

Author, Keith D. Yates, has known the Ericksons for over twenty-five years.