An Undefeated Spirit

PHOTOS BY JORAN RANDALL AND PROVIDED BY DIONELLA VALDERRAMA

The first thing you will notice within minutes of meeting Dioneila Valderrama—known by those closest to her as Senior Master Dee—is her unwavering strength. At 66 years old, she is a 6th-degree black belt in Taekwondo, a former national champion and a woman who speaks with a combination of grace and authority.

For nearly four decades, she has been a pillar of the Lakeland community, including for the past 20 years teaching classes and leading the competition team at Family Martial Arts Center. Her journey from a young woman in Panama to a local legend is a powerful testament to faith, perseverance and the power of an “I can if God will” attitude.

Dee Valderrama’s martial arts career—a dream sparked by watching Bruce Lee movies as a child—almost never happened. At 17, while still a healthy and active honor student in Panama, she developed a severe, undiagnosed condition that caused chronic fluid build-up in both knees. Doctors were unable to cure her, and after moving to the United States in the late 1970s, an orthopedic doctor in Lakeland delivered a devastating prognosis: she would never walk again, never play sports and never have a normal life, including never having children. For a teenager, this was crushing; she spent a year and a half bedridden in Panama, followed by another year and a half in the U.S., cycling through casts and crutches.

A family from the local church Dee attended saw her plight and said, “we’re going to pick you up next Sunday.” So they did, and following a several hour car ride Dee found herself outside of Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine on the Atlantic coast, surrounded by thousands of people as Catholic priest Father Ralph DiOrio led a healing service.    

Initially cynical, Dee dismissed the spectacle, recalling how some in her home country would fake ailments. Then, twice, Father DiOrio, who was inside the cathedral, called out on a microphone for a young girl outside with a condition in her knees.

“Please stand up and come forward. God wants to heal you,” were the words she recalls hearing.

Still, she hesitated, but on the third call, a supernatural force, as she describes it, lifted her to her feet from the chair she had been sitting in. She felt no pain. She recalls people parting like the Red Sea, allowing her, with crutches and bandaged knees, to walk toward the priest. He placed a crucifix on her head, and she felt a powerful sensation flow from her toes to her head.

“I took my bandages off and I left my crutches there because I didn’t need them anymore,” she says. “And [before that] I had been told my life was over.”

That healing defied the medical profession’s dire predictions and set her on a path where her persistent determination to honor God’s direction for her life has resulted in a life well lived.

She would go on, as a single mother, to raise two daughters, Megan and Ashley, who are now thriving as young professionals. She has enjoyed a successful career as a certified medical assistant and recently earned her master’s degree in psychology after six years of late nights and demanding course work. And of course, she worked her way up the ranks of the Taekwondo ladder one intense training session and lively competition at a time. 

The miracle allowed Dee to fully embrace her love for martial arts, which she began training in 1985 at the age of 26. She joined the team of late Grandmaster Edward Sell of Lakeland, and for years she dominated the competition circuit, consistently placing first or second with her impressive forms and work with up to seven different weapons, often using nunchucks—a passion directly inspired by Bruce Lee. Her dedication culminated in a 2016 National Championship title for the U.S. Chung do Kwon Association in Daytona Beach.

For Master Dee, the medals are great—she says she’s won more than 500 of them over the years—but Taekwondo is simply the vehicle for a greater mission: mentorship. “I am not here to be this high. I’m here because you are coming to be where I’m at,” she tells her students. Her classes extend beyond kicks and punches, focusing on values, respect and communication—qualities she feels are lacking in modern society. Her goal is to mold not just better martial artists, but “better people.”

For Master Taylor Welch, who has been training at Family Martial Arts since 2018, and who took over the business in August from the founders Grand Master Scott Wisneski and Master Elizabeth Wisneski, Dee is an invaluable part of what the center is working to accomplish.

“She brings in 40 years of experience,” he notes, “but also more than 40 years of life experience.”

He consults with her on major program and tournament decisions, recognizing that she is a mentor not just to the children but to other instructors as well. He echoes the school’s core mission, which he says is to make the kids and people who come in “better than what they came in as.” He encourages new students with the same philosophy of persistence that defines Dee’s life: “Don’t get discouraged, and don’t compare yourself to others because everyone has their own journey.”

Grand Master Mani Sosa, the Grand Master of the Victory Association with Senior Master Dee Valderrama. Valderrama has won more than 500 medals in her illustrious career.

Welch says he was bullied as a kid, which served as a catalyst for him to learn to defend himself, and almost 15 years later he is working with instructors like Valderrama to help youth, teens and young adults realize the benefit of getting into disciplined rhythms that help them grow physically and emotionally. The center provides a curriculum for students that focuses on the Korean standards and forms necessary to work themselves up to the distinctive title of 8th-degree black belt.

Fourteen students are on track to test for black belts early next year, proof that Welch, Valderrama and the instructors of Family Martial Arts are setting the next generation up for success. 

“I’m trying to help them become a better person, not only a better martial artist...”

“I like to observe kids and see what their passion is…and for me it’s not just about martial arts, it’s about being a counselor because for a lot of kids today, the way the world is going, there is no communication and everything’s fast paced and about being better than everyone else,” she says. “I’m trying to help them become a better person, not only a better martial artist, because one day they’re going to pick a profession and it won’t be about the medals, but I want them to say, ‘Hey, I remember when Dee said this to me.’”

As long as Master Dee has breath in her lungs she is sold out to a life of ambition and purpose. In fact, she plans on beginning work for a doctorate in psychology next year, and she aspires to one day visit the World Taekwondo headquarters in Seoul, South Korea to test for her 8th-degree black belt.

“My goal is to become the first Hispanic female to get her 8th-degree black belt and go to Kukkiwon in South Korea to test for it,” she says.

If someone is going to be the  first, why not Dee? The odds have never defined her before.