FORT LEWIS, Wash. - He might have gotten into the martial arts for the wrong reasons, but Louis Davis seems determined to finish his taekwondo career in the right way.

"I started when I was about 14 years old," Davis said. "I learned everything backwards. At that time, I was a kid with a chip on my shoulders.

"The man upstairs put martial arts in my path to prevent me from going down a very bad road."

Instead, he chose a route that led him into the Army nearly 15 years ago. Now a 38-year-old sergeant with the 602nd Forward Support Company, 201st Battlefield Surveillance Brigade, Davis is much nearer the end of his competitive athletic career than the beginning. This weekend, he will take part in the USA Taekwondo Senior National Championships in Austin, Texas.

Davis, one of seven Soldiers who will fight in the nationals, advanced by winning a bronze medal in the middleweight class May 17 during a national qualifier at the U.S. Olympic Training Center at Colorado Springs, Colo. He will enter his first match at nationals Sunday without unrealistic expectations.

"If I go there with expectations, I'm setting myself up for failure," Davis said. "The only expectation that I have of myself is that I go out there and have fun and enjoy myself and remember that this is a game and it's nothing personal.

"I fight my best when I'm having fun. If I'm too serious, too focused or too nervous, everything falls apart."

Davis has been through this all in the past. In 2005 he won the U.S. middleweight championship.

"I've had many good years in this sport," said Davis, "not necessarily winning nationals but (in) the lessons I've learned, the training, the journey that I took in the sport."

The Chicago native grew up in Minneapolis, where coaches told him we was "too skinny" to play football. Today, he's a quick, powerful 180-pounder.

"Both my father and my stepfather were training in martial arts, so I was exposed to it by both of them," Davis recalled. "I stuck with the martial arts, and it gave me something that these other sports couldn't."

Davis joined the Army after watching the Armed Forces team compete in the 1993 national championships in St. Paul, Minn.

"It helped me slip some of the traps that befall the average African-American male by the time he's 21," Davis said. "Something inside me wouldn't let me go down that road."

First at Fort Hood, Texas, then in Germany and later in Korea, Davis became a force in Army taekwondo. He arrived at Fort Lewis earlier this year and continued his intense training,

"My commanders allow me to train during PT," Davis said. "I'm really grateful to my command for supporting me on this."

Several days a week, Davis takes a bus ride to Seattle for more technical training.

"Taekwondo is a perishable skill," Davis pointed out. "If you don't practice it, if you don't practice your timing and reaction drills, it all goes away real quick."

Davis, already an inductee to the Taekwondo Hall of Fame, is shifting his focus from competing to coaching. He would like to re-establish a post team on Fort Lewis that has been absent for years.

"I want to pass my skills on," said Davis, "the way they were passed on to me."

Editor's note: Davis placed second Sunday in the middleweight division of the USA Taekwondo Senior National Championships in Austin, Texas. Davis lost to Curtis Barnett in the championship match but reached the final by winning three other bouts.

Bob Reinert is a reporter with Fort Lewis' Northwest Guardian.