SPORTS NOTEBOOK : 10-Year-Old ‘Headhunter’ Is a Tae Kwon Do Champion : Martial arts: Black belt Brandon Forrester started at 4 1/2 and has won 2 Junior Olympic age-group titles.

At the Oriental Moo-Do martial arts studio on Pioneer Boulevard in Artesia, 10-year-old Brandon Forrester is known simply as “the headhunter.”

A black belt, Forrester has won two Junior Olympic tae kwon do gold medals in his age group. At this year’s national championships in Cincinnati, the dark-haired Forrester won three bouts by decisions, then knocked out his opponent in the 80.6-pound championship match July 7 with a hard kick to the head.

“He likes to go for the head,” said Jimmy Kim, the heavyweight who won a gold medal in the 1988 Olympics, when tae kwon do was a demonstration sport. Kim has known Brandon for six years.

“For his age he is doing really well,” Kim said. “He is really flexible with both feet. He’s looking good for the future.”

Forrester, who held a brown belt in 1988, won his first Junior Olympic gold medal the following year.

“It’s a good sport. You get to kick and punch,” he said.

His mother, Sherri Forrester, a single parent who has moved to Long Beach, took him to the Moo-Do studio when he was 4 1/2 after Brandon saw the movie “The Karate Kid.”

“He wanted a Halloween costume,” she said. “Rather than buy him one of those cheap ones in the stores, we went to a martial arts studio and bought the real thing.”

She said she also wanted Brandon to have positive male role models, something she felt he lacked.

“I wanted him to know that you can be a man and be strong, but also be gentle,” she said.

After some research, she settled on the Moo-Do school because she liked the philosophy of its founder, Master Chan-Yong Kim, Jimmy Kim’s father.

“He teaches discipline and respect. He teaches the whole child, not just a simple part of them,” she said.

Despite a growth problem that caused his left foot to turn outward, Brandon, who also plays soccer, did well in martial arts. At 6 he won the first tournament he entered. He has competed in about 30 since.

Brandon works outs two hours a day, five days a week. Before the Junior Olympics, he spent two months on a rigid diet, eating just one meal a day in the late afternoon before workouts and taking daily vitamin supplements. He ran 72 miles a month and did 1,200 sit-ups in the first month, 5,200 in the final one. Workouts in the studio lasted four hours each evening after school.

“There was never any pressure put on him to do this,” Sherri said. “This is something he wanted to do.”

During a break from practice at the Moo-Do studio recently, Brandon, a polite young man who wore a martial arts robe called a dobok, spoke softly but determinedly.

“I want to win the Olympics,” he said.

That’s possible, said Jimmy Kim, but in this era of starting kids in sports at early ages, burnout is always a threat.

If that happens, said Sherri Forrester, it will be OK.

“I don’t want to lock him in on (tae kwon do),” she said. “As long as he wants to do it, he can do it.”

Two months ago it looked as though Kevin Tantlinger would never throw another pitch in a fast-pitch softball game.

But just three weeks after back surgery to correct a double herniated disc, the 32-year-old general contractor appeared on the dugout steps before a game and begged manager Norm Pfingston to let him take the rubber for the Long Beach Painters of the Western Softball Congress.

On May 11, Tantlinger had a 12-2 record when he started in a WSC game against the Lakewood Eagles. Warming up, he felt spasms in his back. On his fourth practice toss before the first inning began, he winced in pain and could not continue. Two days later, at a chiropractor’s office as he tried to dress, his legs went numb.

By the time an ambulance took Tantlinger to a hospital, he was curled up in a ball so tightly that he required several injections of muscle relaxants just for doctors to examine him.

Tantlinger remained in the emergency room for eight hours and was told that he needed surgery to correct the disc problem. He had the operation May 16.

“Two weeks later I was up and throwing,” Tantlinger said.

In early June he surprised Pfingston by showing up at a Painters game in uniform.

“He wanted to start,” said Pfingston. “Frankly, I tried to discourage him.”

But Tantlinger made such an issue of it that Pfingston let him pitch the final three innings.

“I was crossing my fingers (that he wouldn’t hurt himself for good),” Pfingston said.

Actually, the manager needed him to right a sinking ship. Without him, the Painters fell out of the running for the WSC title and finished 14-10.

Tantlinger finally started a game in mid-June--a month after the operation--and was 5-1 before last weekend’s International Softball Congress state championship qualifying tournament.

Many observers thought he would never be able to pitch again, including several doctors who examined him. Even Tantlinger doubted himself for a moment as he lay curled up in a ball.

“I could have given it up,” said the burly former shortstop who has played softball for 11 seasons and pitched for seven, “but when you’re this close to getting what you want, you’ve got to go for it.”

What Tantlinger wants--and Pfingston says it’s possible if his top pitcher is healthy--is to win the American Softball Assn.’s national A division title next month. Last year the Painters finished ninth in the country.

“We have quite a team,” Tantlinger said, “We’re a pretty tight-knit group.”

So much so that Tantlinger accepts no pay for his services, as some other players do.

“It would just take the fun out of it if I got paid for it,” he said.

This wasn’t the first injury that has threatened Tantlinger’s career. Two seasons ago he suffered severe ligament damage to his left knee, which required him to pitch with a heavy brace.

“Kevin is a bulldog,” Pfingston said. “He doesn’t like to get beat. You want to beat him, you got to whip him.”

If Pfingston is correct, Tantlinger will not be beaten often. Already he is throwing fastballs in the high 60-m.p.h. range, above average by fast-pitch standards. And his top pitch, the drop, is better than ever.

For some reason, since the back injury he’s also bettered his change-up and rise ball, which had been mediocre compared to those of other WSC pitchers.

Said Pfingston: “Right now . . . he’s looking like the Kevin of old. I expect him to be even better.”