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Studio is Champion
Martial arts builds self-confidence as well as self- defense
Date published: 11/11/2008 by Hugh Muir When Halina Modelski shouts "kiai!" her students jump. Others duck. Modelski, at 5-foot-1 and 129 pounds, is a martial arts master who holds a sixth-degree black belt in chun kuk do, a Korean-based American hard-style of karate. "Hard style" means just that: not soft. "Our techniques are strong," she said. "Our blocks are strikes." The 51-year-old native of Poland came to this country at age 15 with her mother, two sisters and a brother, and settled in Naugatuck, Conn. Seventeen years later, at the urging of her two children, she and they joined a local martial arts school. "They liked it," she said recently, "but I liked it a lot." She achieved her black belt in seven years and began teaching children at the school. "But then my instructors went off to college," she said, "and since I knew some people from Stafford, I moved here to Virginia and opened my own school." She lives with her husband, Jerry, in Ferry Farm. Her studio is called Champion Martial Arts. The "champion" in the name has been earned. Modelski's school was named Studio of the Year in 2000 and again last July, out of 90 international chun kuk do studios, at the martial art's annual convention in Las Vegas. She opened her first school on Nov. 4, 1996, on Garrisonville Road, a few miles west of Interstate 95. After 12 years, she moved recently to a new Garrisonville Road address. Her grand reopening was on Halloween Eve. There she continues her 20 classes a week for nearly 100 students ranging in age from 5 to 57. Most of her students are young people (ages 5 to 12), roughly half of them boys, half girls. There are also three evening adult classes (for ages 13 and up). Modelski's school has produced 40 black belts. "But not everyone joins a martial arts class just to learn self-defense," she said. "For children, particularly, martial arts teaches discipline, self-confidence, emotional self-control and concentration. Of course, it also develops strength, speed, endurance and flexibility." "I started when I was 32, not that flexible," she added. "I still go to exercise class three times a week for an hour each. That includes using the hula hoop." On a typical afternoon at 556 Garrisonville Road: "Kiai!" (kee--eye!)
Read more stories about Stafford Date published: 11/11/2008
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