Youth Kicks His Way to the Gold : Ventura: A 10-year-old who got tired of being picked on is among the medal winners at the state championships.

Danny Toledo is a bit on the small side for a 10-year-old. So when some classmates at Lemonwood School in Oxnard started picking on him, “I decided I’d better learn how to defend myself,” he said.

Now, two years after he started studying tae kwon do , kids still pick on him, Danny admitted. But not as often.

And if he keeps winning gold medals, as he did Sunday at a statewide competition in Ventura, nobody will mess with Danny Toledo.

Danny was among about 180 juvenile and adult participants in the California State Open Martial Arts Championships, an all-day competition that transformed the Buena High School gymnasium into a five-ring circus of self-defense techniques, including karate, kung fu , kumite and tae kwon do .

As Danny’s mother and sister watched from the nearly full bleachers, his father prowled the area behind the judges, videotaping his black-robed son’s every kick, slice, punch and spin. Though a bit high-pitched even for a 10-year-old, Danny’s barks and grunts were especially menacing.

He was competing in a “forms” event. Participants don’t fight each other in this competition. Instead, they thrust and recoil their bodies through a choreographed set of fighting moves. They try to impress the judges with their poise, intensity and performance, according to one of the judges.

By taking first place--for the second time in three tournaments--Danny advanced from blue belt to brown. And he didn’t seem the least bit small as he stood on the top level of the Olympics-style awards platform to receive his gold medal.

“It has built up his self-esteem,” said his father, John Toledo. “It’s also taught him not to fight except as a last resort.”

Every day after school, Danny said, he spends an hour at the Way of the Orient Martial Arts Studio in Oxnard. His teacher, Jong Hak Yi, organized Sunday’s tournament.

Jon Palmer, an 11-year-old who finished second to Danny in the forms event, said he has been going to Jong Hak Yi’s Ventura studio two or three times a week for the last four years. Like Danny, he said he sometimes has to defend himself on his way to and from Anacapa Middle School.

“This takes the place of soccer and Little League,” said Jon’s mother, Linda Palmer. Her husband, Mark Palmer, said the sport “helps teach discipline, respect and honor.”

But it’s not free, the parents said, and the $50 or so in monthly studio fees is just the beginning. “They grow out of the outfits,” Linda Palmer said. “And every time they go up a belt it’s another $15 for a new one.”

Outside the gym, co-workers Chris Miscione and Dan Daniels ate lunch between events, reclining on the grass in their white robes.

Miscione, a 23-year-old bartender at Garfield’s in Ventura, said he got into tae kwon do a few months ago as a way to stay active. Daniels, 28, who is Miscione’s boss, said he studied martial arts as a teen-ager but gave it up about 10 years ago.

“I wish I had stuck with it,” said Daniels, who has been studying for about a month. Like Miscione, he said he does it to stay in shape and to discipline himself mentally and physically.

But just like the youngsters concerned about after-school bullies, the two tavern workers said their primary goal is knowing how to defend themselves in an after-last-call brawl.

“There are a lot of big guys who come in there,” Daniels said.