Brendan Ryan, a 22-year-old second-degree black belt from Garden City, Long Island, traveled to Fort Lauderdale for his first national competition, and came home with two gold medals and the top para athlete award.
Ryan won gold in both the weapons discipline, performing a nunchuck display, and the form category in the para division at the Amateur Athletic Union nationals in Fort Lauderdale. The AAU also named him para athlete of the year, all on his first trip to the national stage. His instructor called the sweep "quite a rare happening."
Ryan has Down syndrome. He has trained in Taekwondo for roughly seven years at Champions Martial Arts in Oceanside, Long Island, under Master Nadine Pace. He takes three classes a week. He earned his second-degree black belt along the way, training in a regular class alongside every other student in the gym.
Pace, who spoke to the New York Post, said Ryan's talent was obvious from the start.
"He learned so quickly. He was so enthusiastic and so happy, and fit in with everyone."
She did not treat his disability as a ceiling. Ryan trained alongside peers without accommodation, learned the same techniques on the same schedule, and advanced through the belt ranks on merit.
Pace put it plainly:
"There are no limits because of his disability, there was nothing. He was in a regular class, and he just learned like everyone else and did really well."
Ryan's path into martial arts started with a kid's fascination. He was inspired by the "Power Rangers" and "Captain Marvel" franchises, the kind of on-screen heroes who punch through walls and never quit. He walked into Champions Martial Arts and, by Pace's account, never looked back.
Seven years later, he stood on the mat in Fort Lauderdale competing against para division athletes from across the country. He performed a nunchuck display in the weapons discipline and executed his form routine. He won gold in both.
Ryan told the Post he felt no anxiety heading into the competition.
"I wasn't nervous about a thing."
Pace described what she saw from the sideline: Ryan performed without assistance, handled the pressure of a national event on his own terms, and delivered.
"He came and did it himself without any help, and he did amazing."
Asked what the titles mean to him, Ryan kept it simple.
"It means I'm confident, and it makes me happy."
Taekwondo is not the only place Ryan pushes past expectations. He graduated from Garden City High School at 18 and stayed on for supplemental education classes until age 22. He holds jobs at local grocery stores and pizzerias. He skis advanced black diamond slopes, terrain that intimidates plenty of able-bodied adults.
This fall, Ryan plans to attend a program at Molloy College designed to help individuals with special needs build independent life skills. But his ambitions at Champions Martial Arts stretch further still. He wants to earn a fourth-degree black belt, a goal Pace estimates sits on an approximately 10-year track, and ultimately become an instructor at the gym where he got his start.
Ryan has already staked his claim on the place. Pace noted he is known around the gym for yelling "AYAH!" while throwing kicks and punches, and for speaking his mind without hesitation.
"He has no problem saying what he thinks."
Ryan himself summed up his attachment to Champions in four words:
"I'm going to make this place my home."
When Pace described Ryan to the Post, she reached for a word that had nothing to do with limitations or special treatment. She called him "magical."
"He's magical. He's just amazing."
Ryan offered his own explanation for the results, and it sounded like something straight out of the shows that first drew him to martial arts.
"I must have the power."
In a culture that spends enormous energy sorting people by what they cannot do, Brendan Ryan walked onto a national stage and answered with what he can.
