Making Big Success in a Small Town
Master Darren Shane Norris
Born March 29, 1959 in Hendersonville, NC where he has been a life long member of the community. Master Darren Norris began his studies in the Korean self defense art of Hapkido at the age of 13 under Herschel T. Anderson. He studied at that Dojang until Mr. Anderson retired from teaching in 1974.
Then in his mid thirties he returned to Hapkido training under the tutelage of Master Dennis Corn who also taught Aikido in Hendersonville. Master Corn holds a 5th degree black belt in Hapkido with the prestigious Korean Hapkido Federation, 2nd degree black belt in Aikido and 3rd degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. Around 2002 Master Corn, who had a reputation for brutally effective technique, retired and named Mr. Norris chief instructor of his school, Aikido and Hapkido of Hendersonville.
In 2003, after having met and trained with the President of the Korean Hapkido Federation, Mr. Norris was made the North Carolina State Representative for the Korean Martial Arts Instructors Association. In 2004 Mr. Norris was honored as a Hapkido instructor by the World Head of Family Sokeship Council and was inducted into the U.S.A. Martial Arts Hall of Fame as Hapkido Instructor of the Year.
In 2008 Mr. Norris was promoted to 4th degree black belt in Haemukwan Hapkido and awarded the title of Master by the Korean Hapkido Federation. Also in 2008 Master Norris earned the position of United States East Coast Representative for the Korean Martial Arts Instructors Association, and voted to the KMAIA World Council.
Master Norris continued his accomplishments in 2009 when he was inducted into the Action Radio Network & World Martial Arts Magazine Hall of Fame as the Hapkido Master of the year. The school that he shares with his partner Master Travis Ginn, (also inducted into the Hall of Fame as Tang Soo Do Master of the year) was awarded Traditional School of The Year at the ceremony in Clearwater FL.
Master Norris was honored once again by the Korean Martial Arts Instructors Association (KMAIA) by being the first person in the U.S. certified to teach the KMAIA Weapons Course and is currently booking dates to teach this certification course in the U.S.
Master Norris also continues to teach Aikido and is 2nd degree black belt with the US Aikido Federation under Yoshimitsu Yamada. He is the host of the Annual Aikido Hapkido of Hendersonville Seminar that will be held the weekend of May 15, 2010.
From Fruit Stand To Traditional School Of The Year
In 2006 Aikido and Hapkido of Hendersonville was located in a small renovated apartment belonging to my teacher on the east side of Hendersonville, NC. Ho Sin Sool Dojang had recently moved from a community building in Asheville, NC to an older duplex style building on the west side of Hendersonville.
The instructor of Ho Sin Sool Dojang, Master Travis Ginn was at the time looking for another instructor to sub-lease mat space to help with the rent. Master Ginn had trained with my instructor Master Dennis Corn a few years before and called him to ask if he would be interested. Master Corn informed him that he had retired and that I was now chief instructor. Shortly after that, I got a call from Master Ginn and decided to meet with him over dinner to talk and get to know one another. I am an independent person with specific notions about the world of martial arts and all of the money-grubbing that we see going on around us in the martial arts world so I was not very optimistic about the outcome of our meeting.
We met at a local restaurant and within 5 minutes we both realized that it felt like we were talking to the mirror. It's not often that you meet someone from a totally different background that shares so many of your ideals and viewpoints but we both knew by the end of that meeting that we had just started a lifelong friendship.
The older building where Ho Sin Sool Dojang had relocated had in the past been everything from a garage to a florist and at the time they moved there had been a fruit stand. Indeed Master Ginn's father Charlie was still running a fruit stand out of one half of the building. The members of Ho Sin Sool Dojang had obviously put in a lot of work to make a school out of the other half of the building, and had made an admirable effort at fixing the place up. I started out holding one class a week on their mat in an effort to get some students on that side of town.
A couple months later Charlie decided to give up on the fruit stand and move to Georgia where he had a job offer and I decided to move my school into the vacant space. Travis Ginn and I became equal partners and The Traditional Martial Arts Center was born.
A move is never easy and it required a lot of work both for me and my students whom I am very glad to say stuck by me every step of the way. It was touch and go for a while as it always is but Travis and I were determined to make it work. If hard work was what it would take we were jumping in with both feet running.
Within a couple months we had gotten a children's program off the ground in which we alternated classes between Tang Soo Do in Master Ginn's case and Hapkido and Aikido in mine. We also had started a once a month mixed adult class where his students and mine join class together and we learn from each other. We even started sending invitations to instructors of other local schools asking them to come join and share with us in a spirit of brotherhood and respect. I am proud to say that we now have several instructors from different styles who regularly attend and share knowledge with us.
Everyone was not quite as open-minded however and I soon heard that a local school was calling my classes "Fruit Stand Aikido". This bothered me at first because Travis and I had put so much work into the old building and although we still had a ways to go I felt that they were unwilling to see past the fruit stand and see what was really going on: Martial artists in pursuit of a common goal, growth through understanding and respect.
Can you imagine what Travis and I felt when we found out this past year that we were being honored by Action Radio Network & World Martial Arts Magazine at their Hall of Fame ceremony in Clearwater Beach, Florida. Not only were we being named Tang Soo Do and Hapkido Masters of the year but our little "Fruit Stand School" in a little place called Horse Shoe, North Carolina, just outside of Hendersonville was being named the Traditional School of the Year.
There are a lot of aspiring instructors out there who think that you have to have a 5000 square foot space with all the trimmings to have a successful school and as a result never feel as if they have the means to get started. Always remember that it is not the building that makes the school it's the school that makes the building. With a good heart and a good work ethic you could build a successful school in a barn ... or a "fruit stand".
Master Norris can be contacted through his official website Hapkido Aikido Hendersonville or by e-mail at Darren Norris E-Mail.