All-Army Taekwondo team head coach Staff Sgt. Jonathan Fennell, a drill sergeant with Task Force Marshall, gives advice to 2015 All-Army Taekwondo team member, 1st Lt. Joshua Fletcher, U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii, before a recent match at the USA Taekw...
FORT JACKSON, S.C. (July 16, 2015) -- Watching a group of Navy personnel train for deployment overseas wouldn't seem the ideal place to witness the head coach of the All-Military Taekwondo team in action, but it is.
For the coach, Staff Sgt. Jonathan Fennell - also a drill sergeant with Task Force Marshall - preparing others to fight is an everyday occurrence.
"One of things we can do is to get them as close to the real thing as possible," Fennell said of merging Taekwondo and training others for deployment. "If the team only trains on shield and paddles [and not man to man], they will never be ready for an actual fight.
"The same thing goes here: If they don't drop down and put that tourniquet on fast enough, or they don't put that gas mask on fast enough, they won't be ready for that one time they will actually have to do it."
Fennell found Taekwondo when he met Korean exchange students in high school. They took him to watch them train, and he was hooked. He dropped all other sports to concentrate solely on Taekwondo, a Korean martial art, which emphasizes aggressive kicking and punching. It is arguably one of the oldest martial arts.
After graduating from high school in 1997, Fennell joined the Army and kept competing. In 2001, he competed with the Army team for the first time.
Fennell would go on to become a nine-time Army champion, four-time Armed Forces champion and a bronze-medalist welterweight in the world military games.
For Fennell, Taekwondo is more specialized than mixed martial arts or modern combatives.
"Taekwondo is a full-contact sport," he said. "A lot of times, people focus on MMA [mixed martial arts] and the combatives programs but don't realize that if you focus on one skill set, it becomes extremely strong."
Taekwondo, he said, is highly skilled - "like boxers who are extremely good at punching and wrestlers who are well versed on the ground."
In Taekwondo competitions, fighters can compete in multiple rounds. Fennell said they must be in peak physical condition because they win points by an "abrupt displacement of the body - so you have to hit someone with enough force to move their entire body."
Being kicked by some of the better fighters is like being "hit by a baseball bat," he said.
That's where proper training comes in.
"I put athletes into realistic scenarios and have them fight each other every single day, so that when they get on the mat they start to get comfortable - it's just another fight," said Fennell about the similarities between training troops to fight and training for a martial-arts match. "Same thing goes here. If we have them put the mask on every day, if we have them carrying the weapon the right way, they already know how to do it … they are in a rhythm."
Task Force Marshall colleague Staff Sgt. James Holston characterized Fennell as a good friend and excellent Soldier.
"He is a good guy all around," Holston said. "He is resilient and can handle all different situations. He is not hot or cold - he is even keel.
"Having him in our unit [brings] a sense of pride. He sets a good standard."
Without the backing of his unit, Fennell never would have been able to serve as head coach of the Taekwondo team.
"I'm very fortunate my command was willing to lose me for the 24 days that I was coaching and preparing the team for a spot in the national championships in Austin, Texas [earlier this month]," he said.
His battalion commander, Lt. Col. Timothy Forrest, said Fennell was a good drill sergeant and an excellent trainer.
"I can't say enough good things about him," Forrest said. "The whole unit is behind him.
"He volunteers to take leadership when it is needed. He brings a lot of credit upon himself. He is a great guy."
As for Fennell ... He characterizes his success as wanting his 7-year-old son, Gabriel, to see him "continuing to learn and grow."
"I want to help him understand there are no limits to where you can go if you work hard for it," he said.
Fennell and his fiancé, Elizabeth, will welcome another son, Michael, into their Family later this month.
Social Sharing