Taekwondo Grandmaster Karen Brown always wants to be the best.
From spending her teenage years sparring and practicing until her face turned beet red, to helping students in Worcester and Shrewsbury win first place in competitions, Brown, 61, has pushed herself to seek greater heights in the Korean martial art.
In December 2025, Brown’s taekwondo journey took her to Korea, where she earned her eighth degree black belt.
The eighth degree, or dan, is the second highest rank in taekwondo, with the ninth degree being the highest, according to Brown.
Unlike previous black belt tests, Brown had to leave the United States and perform random choreographed sequences of movements in front of members of the World Taekwondo Headquarters.
“It was scary,” she admitted.
Though she has not received the official certification, Brown has been told that she earned the second-highest rank.
“For anyone to be doing something like this for 50 years is rare,” Brown said. “Especially, I would say, for a woman back in the ’80s.”
Earning the eighth degree is the culmination of Brown’s love and dedication towards taekwondo, which began in the 1970s.
Wearing a grey T-shirt with the name of the two schools she runs in Worcester and Shrewsbury, Hanmi Taekwondo, Brown’s eyes became wide with excitement when she talked about her past competitions and how accomplished her students have been in earning their black belts and winning first place in contests.
Sitting next to her dark blue uniform, Brown told MassLive that taekwondo enabled her competitive nature and desire to be the best.
“I want to be the best…. I didn’t realize it then but now I know that taekwondo gave me the things that I was missing, like direction,” she said. “It made me more confident and felt like I had to elevate myself.”
Drills and competitions
Brown’s taekwondo journey began in 1976 in her home state of Michigan after her cousin, Brian Thomas, was bullied at school. Thomas, who is five years younger than Brown, lived next door and they did everything together.
“Karen and I were like… we’re more like brother and sister,” Thomas said.
Thomas said that he would be roughed up by bullies at school regularly and that his grandmother and mother urged him to take martial arts for self defense. After coming home one day with a bloody nose, Thomas agreed to take taekwondo on one condition: his cousin Karen had to join him.
“She was always like my protector,” Thomas said.
Brown was already an athletic teenager, playing basketball, softball and volleyball among other sports.
Taking taekwondo classes in Michigan, however, was the greatest thing that ever happened to her, she said.
“I was always like, creating clubs and I was the coordinator and having events. I’ve always been that kind of person but I didn’t have the path, I didn’t have a field that anyone held me accountable,” Brown said. “When I went to taekwondo, I started to feel I was being held accountable.”
For two hours a day, Brown participated in nonstop training consisting of forms, punches, kicks and sparring. Brown’s teacher was strict, sometimes hitting students with a stick when their posture was incorrect, she said.
It was considered taboo to complain, or even to rest, Brown said.
The most intense days were when the teacher decided not to wear his taekwondo uniform, showing up in his green sweat suit.
That’s when Brown and her peers knew that they were in for nonstop drills, bag work and sparring.
“He’s just gonna demand,” she said. “It was like, OK, you’re tired, let’s go more. It was always like that.”
Whenever training ended, Brown would be drenched in sweat, her face bright red. Nevertheless, she loved the martial art and ultimately decided to drop her other sports to focus on it.
“I’d be there for 30 minutes, to lift my leg up and do as many kicks as I can do,” she said smiling. “It just pushed me.”
When Brown turned 13, she began entering taekwondo competitions. Back then, women of all ages competed in the same grouping, unlike men who had adult and children divisions, she said. In her first competition, she placed third — but that wasn’t good enough for her.
“That was maybe the only time I got third place,” she said.
Brown went on to win first in many competitions, earning over 100 trophies and medals, she said.
In one competition, Brown fought in a sparring match against Lynette Love, a United States olympian in taekwondo.
Brown’s cousin, Thomas, said Love was as a towering figure and was sure that she would “kill” his cousin.
But Brown wound up winning, according to Thomas.
“Karen was strategic,” Thomas said. “She wasn’t afraid of anybody, no matter how big, how small, whatever.”
Brown and Thomas continued to rise in the ranks of taekwondo, both receiving their black belts. Thomas stopped after receiving his second degree, choosing instead to focus on a career in dancing.
Brown, however, continued her journey and moved to Worcester in 1987 where she became a teacher.
Teaching taekwondo
While in Worcester, Brown had multiple jobs, including teaching taekwondo at the Greendale YMCA. Not only was she teaching children who visited the YMCA but she was also teaching her eldest son.
“He had to come,” Brown said about her son. “He started when he was like 3.”
Brown also taught her daughter and her two other sons. The three sons earned their black belts and help out their mother at the Hanmi Taekwondo school in Worcester, which opened in 1995, according to Brown. Her daughter also helps at the school as the manager. Brown opened a second school in Shrewsbury in 2024.
As a teacher, Brown is proud of her students, who have earned black belts and have won competitions of their own.
She started off as a strict teacher but slowly softened up, as she wanted to help students become the best.
“I want people to be happy to be here and have a place that accepts them,” Brown said.
For Brown, being a teacher satisfies her desire to be a leader. Through teaching she found that she made a positive impact on students, particularly among girls who learned taekwondo.
Teaching also became a skill that she wanted to be the best at, as the more she taught, she felt that she became better at mentoring.
“This felt like a way for me to be able to make an impact,” she said.
Training for the eighth degree
When Brown traveled to Korea in December 2025 to earn her eighth degree, she wasn’t alone on her journey. Thomas volunteered to go with her.
At first, Brown was planning on traveling alone but Thomas would not accept that arrangement.
“I’m like, ‘No no, I’m going to go with you. You’ve always supported everything I have done,’” he told Brown. “She would always come to my shows in New York and I wanted to support her.”
On the first day in Korea, Brown attended a taekwondo college for her training. For three days her mind was focused on training, spending hours on improving her hand techniques and kicking.
She was once again the student and not the teacher.
“It made me have a new appreciation for what I do,” she said. “The biggest thing I got from the training was the feeling of being a student.”
On the fourth day, it was time — the day of the test. As she checked into the World Taekwondo Headquarters, Brown met with other martial artists from Egypt, Portugal, Austria and Canada, all there to take respective tests.
She was the only woman in the room.
Throughout the whole day, a feeling of stress and pressure enveloped Brown. She wanted that eighth degree black belt more than anything, but the level of training she was doing was not something she had experienced in a long time.
“I felt like my body is not doing what my mind wants it to do,” she said. “This is one of the most important things that is done in taekwondo for me. Traveling to the place where it all started. Traveling to the place where people come from all over the world and do this. It was scary.”
In this moment of agonizing stress, Brown found comfort, love and encouragement from her students.
On the day of the test, Brown’s phone was buzzing with alerts. When she opened it, she saw videos of her students cheering her on, performing dances and sending words of encouragement.
As she looked at the messages from her students, the same ones that she encouraged to be the best now telling her to be the best, tears fell from her face.
“In my heart, I was like, I push people up every day, all the time, that’s what I do,” Brown said, her voice wavering. “And this was them lifting me up, and that was very special.”
By the end of the test, Brown was exhausted, her body covered in sweat and her face beet red — just the same as it was when she was a teenager after a class.
“I was so tired, beat, my body was aching,” Brown said. “Oh my gosh it’s over. Those days of training are over.”
Looking to the future
Though she just received her eighth-degree black belt, Brown is already thinking about testing for a ninth-degree black belt — the highest rank in taekwondo.
She told MassLive she would have to wait nine years for the chance to test for the honor but she is still ready to take on the challenge. When the time comes, she said she won’t be as nervous as she was during her previous test.
“Now I know what it is,” she said with a smile. “And now I know how to prepare mentally. I feel so much different after knowing and being there once.”
For Brown, being able to build a career out of her love for taekwondo is a dream come true. Through her teaching, she is not only sticking with her mantra to be the best but also help her children and her students become the best as well.
“How many people get to do something they really love and impact others in a positive way?” Brown said. “My business is geared towards lifting people up. We have a really tight community when people join, they’re joining our Hanmi family.”
