Costa Mesa karate studio vows to carry on late founder’s legacy
Janet May is the first face one sees when walking into the Bob White Kenpo Karate Studio in Costa Mesa.
Everyone at the studio knows its operations manager. May’s desk features a color-coordinated chart to her right, featuring upcoming belt tests for studio students.
In one desk drawer is a huge candy jar, which lucky children can choose from as long as they say “please” and “thank you.”
May has been here for a decade. It was supposed to be a retirement job, but it’s become more than that for the 72-year-old.
“The first couple of days I started, I was like, ‘I don’t know,’” she admitted. “These people are hitting each other, and I’m thinking that I’m a lover, not a fighter … but it was so much like a family. Here I am.”
That family aspect is what keeps instructors and students coming back to the studio, which is tucked in a small strip mall on the westside of Costa Mesa. Bob White opened it in 1979 after moving from Garden Grove, and the studio has become something even greater, a generational tradition.
This remains true, even as the Master has now left the building.
Bob White, a 10th-degree black belt, died on May 21 at the age of 74. After surviving pancreatic cancer a few years ago, he found himself with lung cancer, which eventually forced a laryngectomy that removed his voice box.
A teacher who suddenly couldn’t speak, White adapted until the end, instructing with a white board until the cancer spread.
“It was quite a journey of one thing after the next the past few years,” said White’s daughter, Alia Cass. “But no matter what, he still ended up back on that mat teaching, which was pretty impressive.”
His loss was profound for the local karate community. He taught karate for more than 50 years. White’s studio has produced more than 250 black belts, said instructor Vishal Shukla, an eighth-degree black belt who typifies an experienced staff.
Jim McClure, who has been working at the studio since 1981, is another eighth-degree black belt. Andrea Pfefer, a seventh-degree black belt, started coming to White’s studio when she was 9 years old.
She’s now 50 and a seventh-degree black belt.
“Mr. White was just such a good instructor,” Pfefer said during a brief break from teaching a “tykes” class — 3- and 4-year-olds — on Wednesday. “He was the best teacher of anything I’ve ever seen. We were so lucky, and we all want to carry it on. We’re going to do that. We’re all going to make it happen.”
White, whose wife Barbara is another seventh-degree black belt and instructor when she’s not working as a nurse at Hoag Hospital, was known as a first-generation Kenpo karate student. He learned from the sport’s founder, Ed Parker.
He acted in “The Karate Kid” — he’s wearing a red referee shirt — and was also involved with “The Karate Kid 3.” And he left a big legacy on and off the mat.
Over the years, the studio has raised well more than $1 million for the Royal Family KIDS Camps. Giving back could take different forms for Bob White.
White was survived by Barbara and his six daughters: Andree Scanlon, Cass, Stacie White, Kelly Morton, Sydney Burdeno and Nicole Robinson. He also left behind 13 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
Cass, who lives in Fullerton, is herself a black belt and is looking to get more involved in the studio again after taking years off to raise her twin 11-year-old daughters.
“I did take it for granted for so long,” she said. “I’m really excited to get in there and have my kids be there. It’s generational. We have people who have been there whose kids are there, and whose kids’ kids are there. We’ve been there for so long that people end up circling back. Even if they take a hiatus, they end up coming back.”
No hiatus is planned for the studio itself, which has continued on with daily classes this summer. A picture of White and his belt were at the edge of the mat as Pfefer instructed her class on Wednesday.
“You know where you get your power from?” Pfefer quizzed the young children, a couple of whom came up with the correct answer of “your hips.”
“That’s right,” Pfefer said. “Keep your knees bent. Remember, if you look cool, you’re doing it right.”
Karate may seem cool, but it takes years or even decades of hard work to get where White’s instructors are at. Yet, it’s that family atmosphere that still keeps everything humming at Bob White Kempo Karate Studio.
They wouldn’t have it any other way.
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