THE FRONT ROW WITH BRUCE BOURQUIN: Friday, April 29, 2016

Although retired Vietnam Navy veteran and Rathdrum resident Bob Rasmus is not sure to this day, he is fairly certain his now 14-year-old son Gabriel, contracted empyema sometime when he was 3 back in 2005, one year after the family moved to Rathdrum. While receiving candy from one of the good folks of Post Falls, Gabriel unfortunately got an illness that will affect him the rest of his life.

According to the website http://healthline.com, empyema is ‘a condition in which pus accumulates in the area between the lungs and the inner surface of the chest wall.’

“It’s a virus that goes into the lungs,” Bob said. “It comes from exotic animals. I think he got it from a guy on Halloween who had a parrot that he played with. We never really had any pets, dogs or cats or anything, in the house. So I didn’t know what else it could’ve been. He ended up in the emergency room at Kootenai (Medical Center). He had antibiotics that made him better. The virus eventually built a sac around it to make it tougher to fight.”

Life that evening was pretty scary for young Gabriel and did not get any less frightening.

“He had to have double lung surgery,” Bob said. “They had to ‘Life Flight’ him to Sacred Heart hospital in Spokane. He had a 50/50 chance to get on the helicopter. He was in intensive care for 30 days. Then for a year (until 2006), he couldn’t have anyone over to our house.”

There was a remote control place, In Control Hobbies, on Seltice Way in Post Falls, where the owner opened the store for 30 minutes or so early before letting everyone else in.

“He let my son race his remote control cars every Saturday if my son wanted to go there,” Bob said. “I thought that was nice; that’s the neatest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Bob said his son had physical limitations and his condition has prevented some others his age from participating in any sport.

“His personal doctor was a specialist,” Bob said. “She didn’t want him running out in the snow, because that’d affect his lungs. She had him do this with his face covered up. So he had to stay inside while his friends were out playing.”

During the past nine years, Gabriel, born in Pierre, S.D., and raised in Rathdrum, has trained at Northwest Martial Arts along Seltice Way in Post Falls. Bob, a 69-year-old who served two tours in 1965-66 in the Navy in the city of Da Nang in central Vietnam, was injured in what he called an “Agent Orange” accident. His wife Flor, who is in her 50s, is from Negros Island, Philippines, at the southern end of the country.

“Agent Orange” was a powerful herbicide and defoliant containing trace amounts of dioxin, a toxic impurity suspected of causing serious health problems, including cancer and genetic damage, that was used by U.S. armed forces during the Vietnam War to defoliate jungles.

“We tried to live in South Dakota,” Bob said. “It got so cold, it was hard on me. My wife Flor and I visited Coeur d’Alene several years ago. The weather at Christmastime was wonderful.”

SO IN 2007, Gabriel got into karate and its disciplines, thanks in part to his godfather and Bob Rasmus’ friend, Andy Sanano, who is a ‘Mataw Guro’, which is the Filipino version of a master teacher in the U.S. He is in the United Fellowship of Martial Artists Hall of Fame in Philadelphia, for the development of Filipino martial arts in the USA and is also in the Hall of Fame in Canada, Philippines and a few other countries.

Back in late July, at the AAU Junior Olympic Games in Virginia Beach, Va., he won a gold medal in the weapons class, where he fought an opponent where both competitors used a jo, or a large wooden staff that has to be as tall as the competitor. Gabriel is now a 5-foot-2, 116-pound half-Filipino eighth-grade student at Lakeland Middle School. Last year, he was 4-foot-9, 100 pounds before his growth spurt.

He also picked up a silver medal in kata, where karate students throw certain punches and kicks with no opponents, with judges determining which competitors performed them better. Students pretend they are fighting someone in a simulated form. It is a Japanese form of karate describing detailed patterns of movements practiced either solo or in pairs. Each is a complete fighting system, with the movements and postures of the kata being a living reference guide to the correct form and structure of the techniques used within that system. Karate kata are executed as a specified series of a variety of moves, with stepping and turning, while attempting to maintain perfect form.

“It was in weapons,” Gabriel said of his gold medal. “I practiced at home, so when it came to tournaments I was ready. I made a finishing move that was unexpected.”

Gabriel was in his first national tournament, after he qualified after finishing second in weapons and third in kata in Raleigh, N.C.

“My adrenaline was pumped,” Gabriel said. “It was like driving a car. You felt like you belonged there.”

The rules allow Gabriel to perform his karate despite his medical condition, especially in sparring.

“When I am in tournaments, I set my own pace,” Gabriel said. “Every now and then, between periods, I take one puff of my inhaler, I take my time, find my opening and make my moves. It depends on the person as far as my strategy goes. I’ve had people rushing at me and some have gone half-speed. Then in kata, some moves are held for one minute long and then freeze at a certain position.”

Gabriel only saw one person at the tournament in Virginia Beach who had any kind of medical condition and back home in Rathdrum, he’s seen a couple of fellow students with asthma who have trained there.

“When I went to Northwest, I was told some of them had asthma,” Gabriel said. “Sometimes when I got at it, it’ll be at the end of a round.”

The Junior Olympics this year will be in Houston, Texas. So Gabriel will look to defend his gold medal and try to win another medal — in kata, sparring, or both.

“He’s learned how to use regular hard rubber knives,” Bob said. “He also knows how to use a bokken, or a wooden sword. They can’t use those in the Olympics. He’s very well-versed in other forms of karate. He knows Hapkido, where you use wrist locks.”

Gabriel will continue to compete in karate as long as he can. For now, he already knows what he wants to get into.

“I like working on computers,” Gabriel said. “I’m a big fan of soccer and I’d like to teach guitar someday. I play rock and roll. My favorite musician is Jimi Hendrix and I like INXS.”

So for the karate young gold medalist with the challenging medical condition, Rasmus is hummin’ along.

Bruce Bourquin is a sports writer at The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2013, via e-mail at bbourquin@cdapress.com or via Twitter @bourq25