SUWANEE—Cpt. Cass Mooney is a world champion in taekwondo, but when you talk to him about martial arts, the subject turns to family.
Mooney and his four children, 18-year-old Alamanda, 16-year-old Brittany, 7-year-old Larkyn and 6-year-old Parker, compete in taekwondo tournaments at the district and national levels, and they're used to bringing home hardware. His wife, Stephanie, does not compete, which Cpt. Mooney said is because somebody "has to hold down the fort."
"My oldest two (children) started in 2009, I picked it up in 2012 and my youngest started in 2013. Since we've been competing as a family, my oldest two daughters have won the district championship—one in 2013, one in 2014—and then I picked up the district champ in 2015, and went on to win national champ in men's sparring," said Cpt. Mooney.
Those tournaments are broken down into divisions based on gender, rank and age, so Mooney brought home the championship in the Men's, Black Belt, 40-49 division in the tournament in Little Rock, Arkansas.
"No matter if you win or don't win, you can still have a good time. Just going out there and trying is really what it's about," said Mooney.
But that doesn't mean Mooney wasn't shooting for it.
"I think a lot of it came down to mental focus. Before (the world tournament) last year we read the book With Winning in Mind by Lanny Bassham and discussed it weekly in class. I set my goal to be a world champion. Setting a goal, visualizing and verbalizing that goal was a big part of it. Of course, the support of my family, friends and instructors was exceptional. It always feels good to have the biggest cheering section when you compete," said Mooney.
His second oldest daughter, Brittany, teaches classes at Karate Atlanta in Suwanee, where her younger siblings and father take classes.
(In the video above, she spars with her father and demonstrates one of the other tournament categories: forms.)
Cpt. Mooney said his biological family isn't the only sort of "family" he has at the karate studio. All the other martial artists are part of a family, too.
"We usually go to class two or three days a week, and with all the kids it's: come home, immediately get changed and go to the karate school. Every Friday night, all of us from the karate school go together and have Chick-fil-a after class," said Mooney.
He joined the Suwanee Police Department in 1997 after working for the Hall County Sheriff's Office.
"One of the good things about my job in law enforcement is that a lot of the things I learn (in karate) translate to work. The self-discipline. The self-control. The physical aspect of it," said Mooney.
