When Jesse Amacher bought Lee’s World Taekwondo Academy, he knew he wanted to reach out to families and make it an intergenerational place. At the time, he had just 15 students.
Today he has nearly 100, ranging in age from 3 to 57. With the littlest ones, he starts with the very basics: This is your left hand. This is your right. Here’s what you do when I give a command.
By the time they hit school, he says, they’re a step ahead. “Kids [in taekwondo] are dealing with things a normal kid wouldn’t have to deal with,” like performing in public, mentoring other kids, being a leader. A taekwondo student, he says, might be the most outspoken kid in class but will also have discipline.
“I have kids here who come religiously six days a week,” he says. He sees them growing into “humble, strong, collected young adults with integrity, determination.”
He says the kids on the competitive team, a joint effort of eight area schools, who travel to tournaments around the country, are consistently getting better and better. “They’re setting the pace for the next generation.”
Paula Maccabee
Aaron Maccabee, 13
When Aaron Maccabee was 5, he was a small kid. His mother, Paula, was afraid he might be a target for bullies. So she signed him up for taekwondo, thinking it would boost his confidence and give him some self-defense skills.
Since he was still pretty young, she stuck around for the classes herself so she could learn the forms and help him practice. That’s when both mother and son got hooked.
Aaron is still a small kid, but at age 13 he’s almost as tall as his petite mother. And, now a second-degree black belt, he can do flying kicks and rolls and spars with people much older and larger than he is. He’s the one who helps his mother — also a strong, flexible second-degree black belt — train.
But what’s more remarkable about the 13-year-old is his calm, respectful, mature presence. That, as much as the kicks, he attributes to his eight years in the taekwondo studio. Classes begin and end with bows to the instructor, and everyone — of all ages — calls the owner Mr. Amacher. In fact, that goes for all adults.
The discipline has also helped Aaron — who also plays basketball and soccer — with his schoolwork. Memorizing physical forms and the commands that go with them since age 5 has helped him memorize lines for a play. He’s also more comfortable with public speaking than most kids his age, having spent years demonstrating forms for his class and taking taekwondo tests.
Before the test for each belt, students list goals for themselves. Mostly, these are related to taekwondo but often extend to school and home life. As parents, Paula says, “We take it for granted he’s going to have goals.”
She has also come to appreciate the community at Lee’s World. “We’ve had families who have come through tragedies, people who had fires. This is a community of people who care.”
Paula says she feels an enormous sense of pride in Aaron — heightened by the fact that, as a black belt herself, she has a better sense of what it takes to get there.
“A black belt is just the beginning,” Aaron says. “Up to black belt is just the introduction.”
Jeffrey Hill
Devin Hill, 7
Collin Hill, 10
Jeffrey Hill remembers that when one of his sons was signing up for taekwondo, he said, “I’ll do it if you’ll do it, Daddy.” “If that’s what it takes, I’m there,” he remembers thinking.
Now Jeffrey and Devin have earned their purple belts and Collin is the senior belt in the family, with a brown belt. Jeffrey says he’s proud his sons are learning the “values of the gym …. confidence and humility, speaking skills, but not a hint of arrogance.”
He says the discipline that they have all learned at the gym helps them resolve conflicts at home, and he’s heard himself say to the boys, “What would Mr. Amacher think of that?”
William DeRoche
Emma DeRoche, 14
Emma DeRoche was a competitive swimmer for four years before she started taekwondo two years ago. Her father, William DeRoche, a firefighter who had recently returned from Iraq, started classes shortly after she did.
“We talk more at home because we have to help each other,” she says.
William credits organized sports with helping Emma and him push themselves mentally and physically, learning endurance and self-respect. He also enjoys the bond he has with his daughter and the other students, comparing it to the relationships of soldiers who have been through boot camp together. “We trained together, so we know each others’ weaknesses and strengths.”
Emma says the discipline she has learned in taekwondo has helped her manage a tight schedule and control her emotions. She’s now looking forward to the test for her black belt and has an ambitious goal in mind: the junior Olympics.
