Martial Arts World News Magazine - Volume 22 | Issue 1

COMPLETE MARTIAL ARTS CONCEPTS
Dreams Do Come True
by Professor Willie “The Bam” Johnson
Wake up and stop dreaming! You’ll never see that come true. Take those magazine
covers off your wall. You’ll never meet those people. Snap out of it and live in reality,
and not in a dream world.
Dreams are valuable, and when your daily reality involves
abuse, bullying, drug dealing, violence, addiction, poverty,
homelessness, incarceration, suicide, and so much more,
dreams are the only thing you have. You feel them in your soul
and taste them in your mouth. This was the case for me 48 years
ago. The only thing I had was a dream, and that was to use martial
arts to get out of the Baltimore city projects and help
youth feel empowered through martial arts, like my
hero Bruce Lee did for me.
During the early years of martial arts instruction,
I didn’t understand the beauty of it, so it
was really hard back then. So, my faith had to
be strong, and I had to find support from action
movies, music books, and magazines. The
most influential support came from an issue
of the world’s legendary magazine of
martial arts, “Black Belt Magazine.”
As a kid, I would work
to earn money for a copy
of “Black Belt Magazine,”
and even steal it. With
such daily pain going on
inside of me, that magazine
would relieve me
of my inner pain. After
more than 40 years in
the martial arts industry,
I was featured on the
cover. Wow, dreams
do come true! With all
of the world’s greatest
martial arts teachers,
champions, leaders, peers, and celebrities coming before me, it’s
truly unbelievable.
I was teased when I was a kid, and called “the black Bruce Lee.”
I’m now featured on the cover—the same cover as Bruce Lee, in
the Black Belt Hall of Fame with Bruce Lee, and starred in a hit TV
show with Bruce Lee’s daughter Shannon: the Saturday morning
live-action martial arts competition on Fox that was ranked number
one among kids 17 and older, called “WMAC Masters. I played
myself, and in recent days, fans from all over have been asking for
a Netflix or Hulu reboot.
These are the most exciting moments of my life, as I stand on
the shoulders of martial arts legends. What an honorable and humbling
moment in my life. The irony here is that the magazine saved
my life as I dreamed of getting out of the Baltimore projects and
breaking the negative cycle that many people face in an environment
like Baltimore. “Black Belt Magazine” hit the newsstands in
1961 as the first and only source on the martial arts industry and its
heroes. Only the legends of martial arts would grace the cover, like
Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen, Jet Lee, Billy
Blanks, and so many more—and now myself. To be on the cover
of the world’s leading martial arts magazine, talking about a new
sport to empower today’s youth, still feels unreal. It’s the bible of
the martial arts industry.
Yes, I made it to the mountaintop of martial arts achievements.
I am an example of dreams coming true when you keep God first,
family second, community third, and entrepreneurship fourth in
your efforts to lead a fearless life for the sake of being a genuine
servant leader. Effective leadership starts from the inside out,
and those that have earned such a title are humble servants to
others. They’re on a constant journey of the renewal of mind,
body, and soul, the ultimate achievement of becoming a complete
martial artist.
PROFESSOR WILLIE “THE BAM” JOHNSON is a 7th degree black belt and seventime
sport karate and Kung-Fu world champion. He has appeared in four movies, 16 plays, and 11 television
shows. He is also the national spokesperson for the Stronger than Drugs Foundation and the Champions
Against Drugs.
80 MARTIAL ARTS WORLD NEWS VOLUME 22 | ISSUE 1