Coralville woman wins national taekwondo championship

CORALVILLE - Courtney Bell's day starts about 3 a.m. with a regimen of yoga exercises.

She follows that with two miles on the treadmill and 30 minutes on an elliptical trainer. Then the 45-year-old Coralville native practices her taekwondo forms for 20 minutes before running to the Coralville Rec Center to lift weights. After running home she practices forms again. Later, perhaps after working at Hy-Vee, she does forms again.

All told, Bell spends three and a half to four hours a day working out.

'People say I'm crazy,” Bell admits, 'but I wouldn't be where I am if I didn't train.”

Her hard work paid off again when she brought home a championship from the American Taekwondo Association's World Expo in Little Rock, Ark., in late June. It wasn't the first time. Bell won championships in 2012, 2013 and 2015.

For Bell, who competes in the Special Abilities Cognitive Division, winning championships wasn't her goal when she started working out in 2005. Bell started on the advice of her neurosurgeon who said exercise would help improve her brain cells and reduce anxiety. Bell suffered a ruptured aneurysm on her brain stem in 1991. That left her with short-term memory loss and reduced her field of vision to 20 percent - she only sees what's straight ahead of her.

So taekwondo has been a challenge because a competitor has to memorize steps in each form. The first form, a white belt, requires 18 steps. Competing for the championship in the second-degree black belt form involves 81 steps.

Because of the short-term memory loss, memorizing the steps was difficult. To help, Bell would wear an audio recorder and describe the steps as she worked out. Later, she would listen to the recording and watch taekwondo videos to help memorize her forms.

She also lacks the visual-spatial skills she had before her aneurysm.

'So I would do movements in the wrong direction,” bell said. 'It took a long time to get my geography right.”

She's mastered that challenge and is focused on defending her title next year. Her coaches want her to continue mastering the second-degree form rather than attempt the third-degree, which involves even more steps.

Bell finds satisfaction in competing, but admits it's nerve-wracking

Winning, however, is 'awesome - the best feeling ever.”

Although Bell has found she needs to train more as she ages, she has no plans to slow down.

'I'm used to it and I'm driven to do better,” she said. 'I feel better, so I'll continue as long as I can.”

Besides, Bell explains, working out has an additional benefit. The damage to her brain stem left her with no control of her wake-sleep cycle.

'So I have to exhaust myself to sleep, so it's worth it,” Bell said.

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