MAWN: What you’re sharing is a really valuable lesson for school owners. You have to focus on those little details because they matter a lot. Now can you share a little bit about Budo the Mouse as an program augmentation that any school can use with kids? 

DS: The concept started around 1985 or 86 after I finished teaching my kids class in the studio and went to my office to eat a sandwich. Quite a bit of it was nibbled away. I thought, “I’ve got a mouse in the studio. What should I do?” The next day, while I was teaching the kids’ class I heard a little scratching noise through the ceiling going right towards my sandwich. So I ran into my office and sure enough, I saw him right on my desk. I said to him, “Don’t even think about it.” The mouse took off. So,now I want to catch this mouse because I don’t want to kill it. 

A few days later he came out during the kids’ class. He found his way into the studio and I was freaking out because if the kids see it, it’ll be game over. So now, I start telling the kids, “Keep your eyes straight. Anybody who does not look straight, you’re doing a million push-ups!” So now they’re all training with their eyes straight forward and the mouse is running in and out of their feet. So, I walked around with my foot trying to just nudge it along to get it off the floor. Finally, it got off the floor and fell into a garbage pail that had a swinging lid. I took him outside and I let him go, but he started trying to come back up the stairs again. Finally, I got him out of the studio and it was over.

MAWN: That’s a hilarious story! Do you retell it?

DS: Yes. I would tell the kids the story because it was funny how they didn’t even know the mouse was running around in the studio. We started calling it Mudo Mouse because we do Korean martial arts and it’s the Korean pronunciation of budo. Then years later, with decades of teaching experience with kids, I wanted to write a book. I wanted the main character to be small, not strong, and could learn valuable lessons from the martial arts. So I started playing with the idea and obviously the mouse popped into my head immediately and I began crafting the story. I used my teaching experience, but I wanted to incorporate lessons in it like Stranger Danger, bullying, and discipline. Another idea is that the mouse has trouble tying his belt because that’s a common experience. 

I went to look for a publisher, but it would cost a fortune. Many want you to pay upfront to get your book published that they’re going to make money from. So I figured I’ll try the route of self-publishing first and get the proof of concept going. Of course, I’m thinking it’s a great idea, but you never know. So I put the book together and started showing it around to people and they absolutely loved it. Then AI started to become a thing, Chat GPT, Midjourney, and DALL E. So I started using AI to make a slideshow of the book to show the potential of it as an animated character. I got a bunch of copies published and did a book signing at my studio which was hugely successful. Our local paper even came a couple of times.