When The Lighthouse on the Rock Assemblies of God Church isn’t serving as a place of worship, it transforms into a dojang that teaches Korean martial art.
Pastor Eric Fisher doesn’t only preach at the church in Key Largo, Fla., he also serves as a sonsaeng, which is the Korean version of sensei. Three times each week, the pastor teaches the Korean martial art known as Tang Soo Do and self defense to kids and adults alike.
The program is donation based and includes a number of people from the church congregation. However, Fisher said that most of the people in the program do not belong to his church at all.
The pastor and sonsaeng explained the importance of creating the platform for the entire community.
“This is for the whole community. It’s a way for people to practice courage, honor and perseverance,” he said in a recent
Keynews.com report. “It’s based on principles that teach kids to be accountable, to do what they say they’re going to do — to help out mom and dad a little more. Martial arts gives people self-confidence.”
The pastor learned about the practice of Korean martial art six years ago and is imparting the same information that he attained to his students. Fisher detailed some of the self defense exercises that he does with his students along with the reasoning behind the lesson.
“People need to first be comfortable saying something when their personal space is being invaded and then defend themselves,” Fisher said. “We have exercises where I’ll block the exit and approach them. They have to find a way out and that may be with body language and by using hand gestures that appear defenseless but aren’t.”
More than just teaching people how to fight, Fisher explained that people learn how to deal with high pressure situations when they learn self defense.
“Teaching self-defense is a pressure test to help people identify situations that they’re not comfortable with and how to respond to them,” he said.
For more information, please visit http://lighthousekeylargo.com.