POCATELLO — Any assailant who would dare to threaten Amy Bowman with a knife might, in all likelihood, be making a grave mistake. Five and a half years ago, the 40-year-old Pocatello girl worried she’d be helpless to guard herself or her kids in opposition to an attacker. That turned into earlier than she became a scholar of Scott Southwick and went on to earn a first-degree black belt in taekwondo. Throughout the past 22 years, Southwick’s martial arts training has given hundreds of East Idaho college students — each youngster and adult-like Bowman — self-self belief and a feeling of protection.
Bowman’s kids have been the first to sign up for instructions at Southwick Blackbelt Academy, which opened in 1996 in Pocatello and has considered introduced faculties in Ammon, Idaho Falls, and Blackfoot. “I’ve by no means been a notable athletic character,” Bowman said. “I desired to (join) due to the fact simply with the manner our world is, I in no way recognize if I’m going to be in a state of affairs where I need to guard myself or my youngsters.”
She’s come to an extended manner in a brief time. Bowman is now confident she may want to disarm an attacker wielding a knife, and they have taken different seminars on protecting herself from an opponent with a gun. She also does not fear for her youngsters, knowing that if they come across a schoolyard bully, it’s in all likelihood because they are standing up for someone else.
“They have that self-assurance and schooling, and they’re capable of using it within the real world,” Bowman stated. Her master trainer, Southwick, is a 7th-degree black belt. Southwick and one in every one of his students, Mike Orth, who runs a Pocatello pawnshop, are among a pair of hundred human beings inside the international to have been inducted by using the International Martial Arts Council into the Black Belt Hall of Fame.
Southwick can perceive that many of his more youthful students who come to his school have been victimized by bullies. As an 8-yr-vintage, bullies robotically beat up Southwick until he, in the long run, started out taking kung fu classes from a person at his church.
The rest of his adolescence tale is anticlimactic. There was no defining second when he had to face his tormentors and was given to apply his kung fu information to turn the tables on them. Somewhat, the bullies, without a doubt, shied away from him as his self-assurance grew. Southwick’s students have suggested similar studies throughout the years.
“Bullies always search for clean goals,” Southwick said.
About 150 college students are now enrolled in his Pocatello school on my own, and Southwick has had a couple of hundred college students graduate with their black belts throughout the years. He commenced his commercial enterprise as a small member with the encouragement of a former instructor upon returning from active duty with the U.S. Air Force.
His dojo offers training in eight unique martial arts: taekwondo, tai chi, bagua, grappling, gumbo, kung fu, escrima, and Hapkido. He stated that this system is transformative for the scholars who stick with it, imparting them the talents to succeed in other aspects of their lives.
“I’ve watched younger girls come into the program who have been emotionally bullied by way of fellow youngsters,” Southwick stated. “They had been nobodies. They suppose they have been on the verge of suicide, and they’re going through this system, and the following aspect they recognize, they are student frame president.”
He believes self-confidence received via getting to know the martial arts and classes in “non-secular balance”—also taught via this system—has led college students to stay out of the problem, head directly to college, and grow to be community leaders.
“Success simply follows our students, the ones who live with it,” Southwick stated.
Southwick’s wife, Pia, has additionally made waves in martial arts. About a month ago, Pia became the area’s first woman martial arts master, passing the examination before the U.S. Grand Masters Council to earn her fifth-degree black belt.
Orth, the owner of Mad Mike’s Pawn Shop in Pocatello, started taking karate as a baby from an aged Japanese man, stimulated by martial artist Bruce Lee’s films.
“It was more of a spiritual journey with yourself, mastering honor and all of the things that come with honor — self-esteem and integrity,” Orth said. Orth worries about the spiritual element of his sport, and its historical emphasis on stability and integrity has been lost lately, given the growing reputation of Mixed Martial Arts preventing matches. Orth has located those values at the front and center of Southwick’s school, where he continues his education.
A couple of years ago, Orth, who is on course to earn his black belt in tai chi in the year, became the first individual ever to be inducted into the Blackbelt Hall of Fame without primary income a black belt. Orth said he became selected to the corridor of fame primarily based on work he carried out “behind the curtain” to boost the sport, including organizing martial arts tournaments in Las Vegas.
Orth and his mentor, Southwick, are in the desirable organization as contributors to the corridor of reputation, including martial artist and movie actor Chuck Norris.
“It’s given me stability,” Orth stated of his involvement in the martial arts. “It’s guided my existence via honor, honesty, and integrity.”
