Risen Taekwondo online classes teaching life lessons

MALTA, N.Y. (NEWS10) – Whether it’s their dojo in Malta or their living room, Risen Taekwondo has gone virtual.

On top of teaching to a live audience categorized by age and belt, they’ve created challenges for their students to stay motivated and focused.

“We’re able to teach them their new techniques virtually, new forms, we’re able to teach them things virtually that don’t require contact,” Co-owner of Risen Taekwondo, Yumi Kageyama, said. “We can’t teach sparring, we can’t teach self defense, we can’t teach board-breaking but we’re able to teach some aspects of their belt tests so that’s what we’re doing now.”

Except there’s a little more to it.

It’s called the at-home blackbelt challenge. Amongst many tasks, the owners say it involves doing things around the house such as cleaning your room, reading for 15-30 minutes a day or even an hour with so much more.

When you complete everything on the list, you earn gold stars, once they’re able to physically go back to their school, there’s a competition to see who has the most. The most important thing they’re teaching, though, is respect.

“Respecting isn’t just necessarily about respecting your friends or respecting others, but being respectful to yourself, your belongings and your space. We always try to remind kids that yes, these responsibilities are given to you but you have to earn these rights,” Kageyama said. “So these gold stars that we call the gold star program, you’re not just getting these gold stars, you have to earn them.”

Both Kageyama and co-owner, Eugene Refino say their program was designed to help out parents who are working from home and watching over their kids.

“You know it’s a ‘well you just want me to clean my room because that’s what you want’ where as this is ‘well my instructors want me to be a better person and want me to have respect for everything that’s going on so I need to clean my room and get my things in order,'” Katie Iannacone, parent of 7-year-old Brayden Iannacone, said. “It’s one of those things that teaches them life lessons, we’re still going to get up and still get ready even if we’re not leaving the house.”