Braintree High Junior's Drive Earns Him Black Belt, Self-Confidence

Dominic Cataldo's journey toward a black belt in Tae Kwon Do began 10 years and thousands of kicks ago. It was a difficult path, filled with physical and mental challenges – not something, as his master says, for those without fierce determination.

On Monday at the Bayshore Athletic Club, the junior reached his goal, earning the discipline’s highest belt, which was shipped to Braintree along with an official certificate from South Korea. The ceremony was not, however, the end of the road.

"It feels good," Dominic said, smiling after receiving his belt from Marcelino Amaro, one of the most respected martial arts instructors in New England. The accomplishment also gives Dominic options, as a Tae Kwon Do teacher himself and in the world at large, where he now brings more self-reliance, early wisdom and patience.

As Amaro put it, "It changes your mentality as a whole. It makes you a winner."

"A lot of people give up before they make it," added Amaro, who has been training Tae Kwon Do in Braintree for 12 years, and before that for seven years in Holbrook. "It's a lot of work, especially with me."

The decade of twice-a-week workouts and years of competing and sparring have also paid off in athletic prowess. Dominic regularly pins opponents in his 195-pound wrestling weight class within a minute and has faced off this season against older, heavier kids as well. He started every game for JV football last fall as an offensive and defensive lineman and put in varsity time behind two seniors.

“A child will learn to achieve goals that may seem impossible,” Amaro writes on his Bayshore webpage. “However, the discipline learned in these classes gives a child a clearer mind and an 'I can do it' attitude.”

Dominic’s father Greg describes the tests for each belt  – there are six in Tae Kwon Do (white, yellow, green, blue, red and black) earned on average once a year, with more time in-between near the end – as "not pretty," marathon two-to-four hour sessions that include weapon and repeated strike form demonstrations.

“It’s how far you want to push yourself,” said Chris Papaioannou, a radiologist from Braintree in his sixth year with Amaro. “It all comes down to that.”

Amaro, like Dominic, began training in Tae Kwon Do when he was six years old. His father was in the military at the time and one of his colleagues was an instructor. “Thirty-nine years later, here we are,” Amaro said.

In the ensuing decades, the high-degree black belt became a Tae Kwon Do champion and a fighter and trainer of mixed martial arts. Amaro will soon retire from training in Braintree to dedicate more time to MMA, leaving his youngest pupils to part-time instructors Dominic and Papaioannou, who also received a black belt on Monday.

"He's one of the most amazing men I know," Greg Cataldo said of Amaro. "It really is something."

As Dominic worked out with Amaro's other students on Monday afternoon, repeating dozens of different kicks, doing pushups and performing a free-form strike demonstration, his father spoke of the times he had to push Dominic through the door at Bayshore, and how his son was always grateful that a bout of fatigue brought on by his other athletic responsibilities or just plain lack of motivation didn't side-track him from his larger ambition.

"You have to be patient," Marcelino said to his students during the ceremony. "It it weren't for your parents, you wouldn't be here today."