Martial arts take Gallup girl far beyond original goal

It's like a movie.

Shantel Kee's martial arts career started because of a bully.

The 17-year-old Gallup High School senior enrolled in tae kwon do courses in Gallup when she was 11. Her parents thought it would be a good way for Kee to deal with a school bus bully.

"My cousins would tease me and taunt me. I would get off the bus crying," Kee said. "I didn't want to deal with him, but my parents thought it would be better if I handled it myself."

Kee enrolled in the Gallup Martial Arts program, which serves all ages in classes at the Skate Connection in Gallup.

Though the bullying mostly ceased on its own, Kee continued in the sport, dedicating nearly all of her free time to training.

In the time since then, she has become a highly dedicated student, most recently placing in several categories at the USA World Championships in May in Las Vegas, Nev. Kee placed first in point sparring and weapons, second in continuous sparring and third in forms, walking away with four trophies.

"It wasn't that difficult," Kee said of the program. "It's easy to learn."

The courses began with flexibility, the essential foundation in any martial art, Kee said. Tae kwon do, particularly, requires flexibility as the sport is focused on kicking.

"Flexibility really helps conditioning," Kee said.

The hard part is stringing together all of the learned moves into a sequence that helps while on the mat. The frantic thoughts are nearly impossible to coordinate when sparring with another fighter, Kee said.

"But you keep doing it, then you get a feeling for it," she said. "Everything starts to click together."

It didn't take long for Kee to become even more dedicated.

"She wouldn't miss any classes," said her mother Sylvia. "She didn't even want to be late."

When she wasn't in class, Kee would run. After school, on the drive home, she would ask her parents to drop her off at the main road and run the four miles to their house in China Springs, north of Gallup.

Kee was also soon fully enveloped in the discipline of the sport. A major component of the program is teaching respect, she said.

"It works for her, it shows her that in order to get somewhere, you have to be disciplined," Sylvia Kee said. "If not for the discipline, she might end up going wild on us."

As a result, Shantel has been much more contained through her teen years than her older siblings, Sylvia Kee said. Her grades are nothing short of outstanding.

"I only wish we had done (this) with our older girls," Sylvia Kee said, laughing.

Still, it's hard for Kee's parents to watch her compete.

"I don't want to see ... it's like, 'Don't hit her there,'" Sylvia Kee said, pretending to cover her eyes.

"But if she knocks down somebody, then we are all happy," said Tom Kee, Shantel's father, noting the irony.

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