Andre LaRoche - A True Warrior

It is with great sadness that we announce the loss of our friend and brother in Taekwon-Do …

It is with great sadness that we announce the loss of our friend and brother in Taekwon-Do, Andre LaRoche, who passed away on the 17th November 2007.
Master Wolf was asked by Andre’s family to say a few worlds at the funeral.


For Andre …

I have been asked to speak on this difficult day a few words in memory of Andre, but a few words just weren’t good enough!
Before doing so, on behalf of Andre, and all of Andre’s family, I would like to thank everyone for coming today … what a great turn out … a tribute to how highly regarded, respected and loved he was.
It is very hard not to sound sycophantic and simply eulogize about Andre, but really, words of praise are all that come to mind.

Andre’s family meant the world to him, and none more so than the love of his life Katrina and her daughter Kyah, of whom I know he was very proud.

I first heard of the tragic event of Andre’s passing the day afterwards, Sunday morning, when his brother Danny came and broke the news to me; and although he was so emotionally distraught he could barely speak the words, he conveyed to me that Andre’s father, Bernard, had requested that I be the first person he told. The following day, his other brother Raph came to my house and said he had travelled down from Norwich especially, so that he could break the news to Andre’s friend, in person, and that I was the first on his list of calls, because that is what Andre would have wanted.

Past my standing as his Taekwon-Do instructor, I considered Andre as a personal friend. But to have heard from two of his brothers and his father, that he held me in such high esteem was both humbling and heart-warming.


Andre started training at the Thanet Taekwon-Do club in early 1994.
For those of you unfamiliar with Taekwon-Do, it is a martial art, which is particularly renowned for being a predominantly explosive and dynamic high kicking art … so you can see that Andre had opted, typically, for the most difficult challenge he could, when he began his Taekwon-Do career … baring in mind that not many years before he had callipers on his legs and was told by doctors that even being able to walk properly, as years went by, would be an optimistic ambition.

Andre’s path to his goal, of attaining a black belt in Taekwon-Do, was not an easy one. It was fraught with obstacles and set backs … mainly the constant problem with his knees … but the goal was the goal, and nothing was going to stop him achieving it.
After 6-years of training, on the 26th of March in the year 2000, Andre, at the age of 33, passed his 1st degree black belt grading, with the highest percentage mark in his group of 78%. An amazing achievement of which both Andre and I were very proud! – Greatly deserved!
For some people passing to black belt is a matter of course, in my opinion they are not true martial artists. To Andre it was a special time, and his brother Raph told me recently that Andre was never so proud as when he stood in front of the mirror and saw himself in his Taekwon-Do suit and black belt … now I know why he was always checking himself out in the mirror at the club!

During Andre’s years in Taekwon-Do, he was an inspiration to many … especially the vertically challenged! … like his special friend Lucy … who was privileged to have known him since the age of 13. She was ‘his’ private tutor for patterns and he reciprocated in ‘kind’ by motivating and working with her on her fighting skills. Lucy recanted to me recently that one of the memories of Andre which will always remain in her mind was the ‘right of passage ritual’ … just before the young men came of age and moved up to the adult sparring section Andre would take them aside during the training session and give them a reality check on the difference between fighting with the boys and fighting with the men … a lesson that always stood them in good stead, before they got too big for their boots!

Members of Andre’s family were present at our Thanet club when I announced the news of his sad and untimely departure to fellow club mates. During this announcement I briefly recapped some of Andre’s tournament achievements. It was an impressive summary of a very successful competitive career, including 8-gold medals at the highest level national championships … including English and British titles in both individual and team events.
Afterwards one of his brothers told me that this was the first they had been made aware of how successful Andre was in Taekwon-Do and that he had never boasted of this success to them – testimony to the humility of the character that was Andre LaRoche. During this evening of tribute three of Andre’s closest friends in Taekwon-Do were present – Carol Butt, Andy Godden and Steve Morgan … Steve read out a brief but personal tribute to Andre on behalf of himself and fellow members.

During his years in Taekwon-Do Andre, as you would expect, trained in the extreme, with passion and desire to achieve, put simply put although not old, he was an ‘old school’ trainer … no pain, no tomorrow, no excuses!

I would like to think that the discipline, strength of spirit and will to achieve, no matter how daunting or impossible to overcome the obstacles appear instilled in Andre’s years of training with me in Taekwon-Do, were in no small way attributable to his success both in his chosen martial art, and over the latter years in his Mounting Boarding achievements … of which I know he was very proud … both for himself and his brother Raph.
Although they were hugely competitive, Andre was, I know, extremely proud of his younger brothers World Title in Mounting Boarding, and of course in his own placing recently in the British Championships.

Taekwon-Do has 5 tenets … or ‘principles’ by which a true practitioner should abide – courtesy, integrity, self-control, perseverance and indomitable spirit. Andre particularly epitomised the latter two. If there had been a category at the world championships for perseverance and indomitable spirit, he would have won the gold medal! In Taekwon-Do, indomitable spirit is illustrated by the noted account of the heroic action in history of Leonardis and the 300 Spartans at Battle of Thermopylae, resisting the overwhelming forces of the Persian army, to their death. I think many members of Thanet Taekwon-Do would now simply define Indomitable spirit with the name Andre LaRoche.


I know Andre would agree that he would like us to think of today as a celebration of his life, and not the mourning of his departure. I have had many good times, and celebratory drinks with Andre over the years, and I fully intend to have one with him today.

Andre lived his life to the full. He burnt the candle at both ends … and in the middle! And I know we are all going to miss him dearly.

Often has been the occasion over the years, that I would introduce Andre for the first time, and you sensed that peoples initial impression of him, with his skin head hair cut and rugged exterior, was that he was a tough rough diamond … well he was tough and he was sometimes rough, but he was definitely a diamond.

You will always be in our hearts and minds. God bless you Andre, we love you.


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