Before anything else, there was The Forge - a small two-car garage out in the boonies of Lillington, North Carolina.

When my sister and I were younger, training for our black belts and our first competitions, most of our training didn’t happen in a dojang. It happened in that garage. Mats laid out. Space heater in the winter. Fans in the summer. Mirrors, paddles, jump boxes everything we needed to get better.

My dad called it The Forge. A place where we were shaping ourselves, building discipline, and figuring out who we were becoming. He believed in the true meaning of “forge” to form or create through effort and that’s something we were raised on.

Years later, when we formed Team Forge, we carried that mindset forward. Forging yourself. Working quietly and diligently on your own. After all, sport is a mental game. That’s where “Work in Silence” came from. We told ourselves that for years, and even put it on our team shirt in 2024. The following year, while we were working on a new design for our shirt, Master Zoie said, “finish the quote… work in silence and let success be your noise.” I didn’t even realize it was a quote at the time. I just knew it felt right, so we went with it.

Then in fall 2025, during one of our projects, one of our longtime parents, Mr. Sean, said something simple - what if it was “Forged in Silence”? Distractions are everywhere. Noise is constant. But we were taught to quiet the mind and focus on the work. That’s how we were trained. That’s how we grew.

It wasn’t just a phrase. It was where we started, how we trained, and who we’ve always been.

Forged in Silence.