While it's impossible to corral hard data on the matter, chances are not many high school physical education classes spend time learning taekwondo over the course of a typical academic year. It is, to say the least, well off the usual ground of tennis, weightlifting, flag football, basketball and other sports that often populate the curriculum.
However, most PE classes don't have the luxury of experienced martial artists in their alumni ranks who are ready and willing to pass along their knowledge. Montague High School does, in Jerome Kari, Class of 1977, who spent Wednesday, April 1 giving a crash course in the discipline to five of Phil Koops' groups of students.
"When you want to teach your 20-30 years of knowledge in a 45-minute class, I try to teach them the basics," Kari said. "The stances, the form, your basic blocking, punching, that kind of thing."
Kari lives in Texas now, as do his brothers and his uncle, Will Kari, who last year was honored with the naming of the Will Kari Golf Room in the new gym, recognizing his philanthropy towards the program. Jerome, too, has provided financial support to the Montague athletics programs; Koops said Kari bought the Montague seniors' home football jerseys last year.
Jerome said he's visited the school before to teach taekwondo on his visits to the White Lake area, but never cramming it all into one day as he did April 1. It provided an interesting challenge. Luckily, Kari has decades of experience to fall back on.
Kari said he participated in the discipline on and off as a kid, but it wasn't until his 30s that he began pursuing it regularly, joining a gym near his Dallas/Fort Worth-area home. The owner of the gym eventually left the area, which led to a six-year break from participation, but eventually Kari got back into it and has stayed with it ever since.
"It's something I enjoy," Kari said. "It's a lot of exercise. It trains your brain and your body. It's a self-defense thing as well."
Koops met Kari last fall during his first football season coaching the Wildcats and didn't know what to expect when he brought Kari in for the taekwondo lesson. He's had speakers before during his teaching career with mixed results, but it didn't take long to learn that Kari was more than capable of holding students' attention.
"I sat the kids down (before class) and told them, 'I don't care if you're into this, but you're going to give that man your attention because the most valuable thing someone can give you is their time,'" Koops said. "He came in and exposed them to something he's passionate about just because he went to Montague High School 49 years ago. A lot of the kids understood that and went in there and acted right.
"The kids were excited for something different. It's the week before spring break, so when you're a teacher trying to slug your way through the week before break, I was grateful that he held their attention and got some effort out of it. They were making their kicks and doing their kung fu voices, and we put (the song) Kung Fu Fighting on the speakers during weightlifting class (the next day)."
One student, Kari said, came up to him and spoke with him about the lesson afterward, which Koops told him he found remarkable because usually that student is extremely quiet. Another student asked if there is a taekwondo school nearby where they could learn more; Kari has since learned there is one in Muskegon - Muskegon Taekwondo - and he said on future visits he might try to get an employee there to help aid him in demonstrations in class.
Kari hasn't taught taekwondo professionally before, though he said in his earlier years in the discipline, the owner of the gym he frequented participated in local schools' career days and Kari helped him out. On one occasion, the owner didn't make it to the event, so Kari was left to field questions from students himself. That experience, along with the ones he participated in alongside the owner, made him better at explaining the concepts of the art to young people.
As far as Kari is concerned, while taekwondo is certainly a worthy pursuit, he doesn't consider it the main point of his lessons. He said he hopes students were inspired to pursue some sort of athletic endeavor after his visit, no matter what it was.
"The main thing I try to focus on with the kids is exercise, whatever it may be - walking, riding a bike, skiing, swimming," Kari said. "I try to push the kids to play sports. You might find you have a hidden talent for something."
Kari said he served in the U.S. Air Force, which gave him a perspective on community service that informed his desire to share his taekwondo knowledge.
"It's not what your community can do for you, but what you can do for your community." Kari said, paraphrasing a famous quote from former President John F. Kennedy. "A simple statement like that is pretty neat and (hopefully) impactful for somebody."
