Red Dragon Karate a Real Love Story

Bob Downey said he started doing karate to help keep him out of trouble back in the 1980s, but since then he said it’s become more than a pastime for him.

“I was a truck driver at night and I needed something to do during the day to keep me out of trouble,” he said. “I ended up falling in love with it. I met my wife there, and I’ve been doing it ever since.”

Downey, his wife and his son all work and practice at his martial arts studio Red Dragon Karate in Walpole and Norton.  He said he originally started learning the fighting style of Kemp in 1982 in Quincy.

“I started at a place in Quincy called, "East Coast Martial Arts Academy,”' he said. “I started teaching in 1984 and been doing it ever since.”

He added learning how to teach is one of the most important things for a martial artist, as it gives a constant new look at the techniques you’re learning and teaching.

“One of the things we were encouraged to do when you got into the advanced student level would be to teach people if you were interested,” he said. “It was kind of a rite of passage when you got to be a senior student. It wasn’t just to help out, but it made you a better martial artist. If you teach you understand it much better.”

Downey said he got his black belt in the mid 1980s and was basically running the school when the owner wasn’t there, and still worked as a driver at night. He said sleeping for more than three hours a day was always just a bonus in those times.

“I couldn’t even spend my money,” he said. “I did that for a couple of years. but I couldn’t do it forever.”

Downey said he first opened the school in the plaza across the street from his current location in Norton 11 years ago. He opened the second location in Walpole later.

“My wife and I got married and moved to Easton and had a couple of kids and, obviously, we wanted to take karate too,” he said. “I had them going to a place in Mansfield for a while but then I thought, "why don’t we just open our own place?”

Downey said he’s studied many different styles of Kempo, but his current favorite is the Ed Parker style of West Coast Kempo. He said it’s more about real-life defense than showing off.

“It’s totally self-defense,” he said. “It’s really more of a study of body motion, what happens when you get hit what happens when you hit.”

Downey added it also has different “back up” moves for when a maneuver you plan doesn’t go exactly the way you want it to and how to get back into the swing of things.

“It has what you do for mistakes built right into it,” he said. “There’s more opportunity for interception and it’s much more efficient and faster.”

Downey said he moved the business across the street to what had been a warehouse and redesigned it for his studio, right down to “pagoda-style” construction.

“It really was a business decision, I mean, "why pay rent when you can own?”' he said. “We tore most of it down and built the dojo in 2008.”

Downey said they donate a lot of their time, lessons and money for charity. He said they often do demonstrations with a group of their students at many different events.

Red Dragon is located on 2130 Providence Highway.