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How Martial Arts Helped This Peekskill Family Overcome Tragedy

How Martial Arts Helped This Peekskill Family Overcome Tragedy

After the death of her husband, Deborah Paul and her four daughters found comfort and strength through martial arts classes.


During the summer of 2015, Ron Paul, a beloved husband and father, broke his ankle. What should have been a relatively minor injury instead lead to multiple surgeries and infections that eventually lead to Ron’s death.

Around the same time, Deborah began taking karate classes at Go No Sen in Peekskill. She says she began to fall in love with martial arts after watching her four daughters—Julia, Olivia, Veronica, and Isabelle—take classes.

In a Go Fund Me page set up by Go No Sen to help ease the financial burden the Paul family faces, the page’s administrator Lauri DeLuca McCauley writes: “Throughout this whole ordeal, Deb's hard work and efforts never faltered.  She was always running from one place to another. Taking Ron to a doctor's appointment, volunteering at a Girl Scout event, working here at the dojo, training here at the dojo, making sure her girls got to class, etc.”



All four women say their efforts to earn black belts through karate lessons at Go No Sen is what helped them find strength during the darkest times and that their accomplishment is something Ron would be proud of.

"I think he would say keep going, keep fighting, do what you love," Olivia Paul told News12.

And it certainly is a feat to be proud of. School instructor Renshi Adam McCauley says a family of five females accomplishing this success is unique.


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Brigitt Earley

Author: Brigitt Earley is a freelance writer and editor based in NJ. She’s a new mom to a baby boy, runs an Instagram account full of the most delicious food she can find (@literallyallthefood), and loves to hate a good barre class. See More

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