New Haven Independent

Roman is not your typical 18-year-old. He sets a goal and remains focused on it.

That’s what enabled the outgoing home-schooled Westviller, after just two and a half years studying the Korean martial art of Tae Kwan Do, to emerge victorious at the National Tae Kwan Do championships at the Cleveland Convention Center this Nov. 3-5. He won the gold medal in “elite sparring” in the adult red belt division, landing more kicks to the helmets and “hodu” vests of his opponents than he allowed them to land on him.

“I have the right mindset, the right attitude. I don’t give up,” Roman said during a break from his job as assistant manager at the Willoughby’s coffee shop at Church and Grove. “I follow my dream, which is to go to the Olympics.”

So Roman continues to train hard in preparation for next July’s national tryouts for the U.S. Olympic team headed to China in 2008.

Roman does his training at World Campion Tae Kwan Do in Amity Plaza. The place is run by Sangpil Kim (shown in photo with Roman). Roman is a quick study, Master Kim said. “He has a strong spirit. He has the goal of being world champion one day. Thirty minutes [of instruction] is like two hours’ benefit for him. Many people we push them, they don’t follow us. He respects us.”

That respect and focus are clear from a conversation with Roman, who lives in a three-family home on Ramsdell Street with his dad, his aunt, his two cousins, and his grandmother, who home-schooled him since kindergarten. “Ever since I had seen my first Bruce Lee movie,” he recalled, “I said, ‘Oh my God, I want to do that.” He saw that movie when he was 5 or 6. He tried out other martial arts. By the time he made it to Kim’s studio many years later, he was ready to focus.

Roman has had to make up for his size - at 5 feet and 9 inches, he’s smaller than most of the people against whom he competes. “Their range in kicking is a lot further than mine. So you have to learn to play the inside game,” he said.

Roman’s “masters” guide him not just in martial arts, but in life lessons, he said. “I’m not a patient person.” Wearing his Willoughby’s “Serious coffee drinker” T-shirt, his body practically cackling with restrained kinetic energy, he gives the impression of someone who doesn’t need caffeine to start his motor. “My masters are helping me become more patient. I used to get upset real easy. Now I’m, ‘OK. It’s fine.’ It gives you a set path.”

They’re also teaching him how to teach; he has become an assistant instructor at the study, working with younger kids. Roman has a second dream, beyond his Olympic dream: opening his own studio one day. Master Roman’s studio. He seems well on that path, too.