Local taekwondo club celebrates its 40th anniversary in Lebanon

July 8, 1985, David Gladwell opened a small taekwondo studio out of a former children’s clothing store, with around 30 students total. Forty years later, the karate and kickboxing studio has grown to offer multiple blocks of programs for kids, teens, and adults, with multiple instructors and a large facility.

Gladwell fell in love with karate, he explained, when he wanted to find a fitness activity he and his wife could enjoy. At first, they went to a basement taekwondo club in Lebanon, but when Gladwell’s work schedule changed, he decided to go to day school in Harrisburg to study the martial art.

Eventually, his passion grew into an idea to open a taekwondo studio for local kids and their parents.

“Back when I started the martial arts, that was the time the first Karate Kid movie came out, and there was a lot of kung-fu theater, Bruce Lee movies,” explained Gladwell. “Mostly at that time, the martial arts was a group of people, I would say in their older teens, young adults. But as I had the opportunity to open the school and I started to get some children in and adults in, I saw the benefits that they were developing in the martial arts.”

While the studio started out with three days of classes and around 30 students in a small building, demand quickly grew.

The studio expanded to include classes six days a week, with Gladwell making multiple additions on the old building. But by 1993, demand outpaced space, and Gladwell made the transition to the studio’s current location, a former warehouse next to Sunset Grocery Outlet.

The change in location came at a difficult time in Gladwell’s life, as a knee injury left him and his doctors wondering whether he would ever be able to kick again — putting the studio on shaky ground. Luckily, Gladwell explained, he was able to get a surgery to restore his mobility.

“I found this building and I had to commit to a 10-year lease, and and it’s like, ‘So I gotta commit to this lease, and I don’t know if I’m going to be able to kick,’ but I really believed in what we were doing and my ability to do it,” he said. “But there was definitely a risk.”

The transition to the new building was a difficult process, Gladwell said, especially because of the length of the lease. Plus, the building needed significant renovations to be usable as a studio, which were both expensive and physically taxing.

However, the renovations since 1993 have resulted in what the Family Karate website describes as the “largest, cleanest, and most modern training Taekwondo dojo in Central Pennsylvania.”

By popular request from moms of students, Gladwell said, the dojo added a kickboxing gym.

The dojo also established a Pee-Wee program for kids 3 to 5 (which is when local accomplished martial artist Joshua Aguirre got his start).

Read More: Joshua Aguirre, accomplished martial artist [We Are Lebanon, Pa]

Like the name suggests, Family Karate heavily involves children’s families in their martial arts education, from chances to watch kids’ practices and ceremonies to encouragement for parents to learn the skills alongside them.

“That was a motivating factor for me, having an activity that families can do together, share that experience and share that bond and learn those lessons and develop those skills side by side,” said Gladwell.

Gladwell said kids in the program learn self-confidence, discipline, patience, self-control, respect, and cooperation, maintaining health and fitness along the way.

“A lot of children are craving discipline and they just don’t get it, so the respect, the patience, the self-control, these are things that carry with them not only here in the school but outside as well,” he said.

Karate uses a “belt system,” in which students celebrate increase in ability with corresponding ranked belts.

“The martial arts are actually designed to increase self-confidence, and that’s where our internal goal system, which is the belt ranking system, comes in,” said Gladwell. “They have a certain amount of skills to learn and they test, and they get to the next belt, and they test, learn new skills, get to the next belt. Each one of those levels, they start feeling a bit better about themselves, gaining more self-esteem, gaining more self-confidence.”

Over the years teaching taekwondo, Gladwell says he has seen many kids grow through the program into successful, healthy adults: some who continue the martial arts, and others who excel in their chosen field.

“There are children who started out here who have grown into very successful adults,” he said, recounting recently running into the father of a former student, who told him his son is now an attorney for the NFL. “Hearing about success of the students and knowing we had some contributions toward that — developing a little bit of self-discipline, goal-setting, self-esteem, self-confidence — it’s very rewarding.”