IN THE MIX:Karate class offers more than great kicks

There are only so many accolades you can hear about one person before you are compelled to spread the word.

The person I’m referring to is karate instructor Jacki Long. The best part is, for about $10 a class just about anyone can experience what she has to offer.

I’m a fan of city classes. They’re pretty cheap and a great way to get to know a sport. When I decided to sign my kids up for karate about two and a half years ago, I figured it would be more of the same. But it didn’t take me long to realize Jacki Long’s karate class offered through the city of Costa Mesa was far from typical.

The first thing that caught my attention was the adults. She has students in her adult class who have been training with her since they were about 7 or 8 years old. I expected when we started that if my kids took to the sport we would investigate private karate dojos to find the best one for us. I didn’t realize that we were there. We were in the class that serious karate students had stuck with their whole lives.

Brandon Nomura has been training with Long since he was 7. His father joined the adult class at the same time. He is a black belt now and has traveled around the world to national tournaments. He still trains with her at age 29. She has meant so much to him and his family that she officiated at his wedding last year.

“To this day, I cannot really imagine what training without her would be like, and I would prefer not to ever experience that,” he wrote in an e-mail. “She is by far the most inspiring and important teacher in my life.”

James Lee started training with Long in 1989. He said working with her after training with a few others let him see the balance in her style. He said she combines the spiritual side of karate with the athletic side and lets students get a full education in the traditional martial arts.

It’s not just the balance but the atmosphere that keeps students coming.

“I have never, in all the years of knowing her and helping her to teach class, known Jack to use her authority to unfairly punish or belittle anyone,” Lee wrote. “Instead, I’ve seen her ‘turn around’ a number of troubled kids and individuals, and instilled in them a level of pride and self-worth they were sorely lacking when they first walked into our dojo.”

Even now, after many sessions in her class I still hear new comments from parents who sit and watch and talk about how amazing Long is and the variety of effects she has on a variety of kids.

The impact of her teaching style is undeniable, and to watch is often mesmerizing. She is firm, demands respect, is never condescending and usually funny. The kids and adults alike act as if they are in fear of disappointing her, though they never purposely disrespect her, not even the kids. But at the same time they seem to adore her.

“Throughout my time in karate, I very strongly feel that both the type of teaching, as well as the teacher herself, helped to shape my personality and values, as well as most others who attended her class,” Nomura wrote. “Jacki has always emphasized respect, discipline, and mindfulness, and this translated quite easily into everyday life.”

As you watch Long explain exercises to the students, young and old, there is a twinkle in her eye and in the students’. The most impressive aspect goes beyond the little kids who just like it when she makes them laugh and the adults who appreciate her for all she is. It’s the reaction of the teenagers that gets me every time. There are teenagers who have that same twinkle in their eye.

I asked 16-year-old red belt and Costa Mesa High School student Tyler Kerce why he thinks the teens in the class are so kind and helpful.

He said the negative attitude and bad behavior gets weeded out. You either learn to drop the attitude or you drop the class.

Judging from what I’ve seen and what other parents talk about, plenty of kids stick with it and actually change their behavior. Even if they don’t make it to red belt status (traditional karate’s version of a junior black belt), they often last long enough that behavior such as rowdiness, arrogance or even just shyness go by the wayside.

Her love for the sport and her ability to share it grew through years of training.

Long wasn’t allowed to take any martial arts classes in high school so in college she jumped at the chance. She started with judo and moved to traditional karate from there.

“I didn’t have any goals,” she said. “I never thought I’d be a brown or black belt.”

But in 1978, as a brown belt, she began helping in Sensei Fumio Demura’s Santa Ana dojo. The world-famous instructor became her hero.

She said she copies her teaching style from him because “He’s magic with people.” I’m not sure she realizes that the look she gets in her eye when she talks about him is the same look her students have when they talk about her. Though she may not have started out with any major goals, she ended up getting her black belt and winning many international and local tournaments.

She’s been teaching at the Costa Mesa dojo since 1981. The atmosphere at the dojo is continued through black belt Roy Center who helps teach classes. The Costa Mesa High School teacher looks a bit intimidating, but ends up being as understanding and gentle as you’d expect from that class.

When she’s not teaching karate, the former high school teacher balances her life through her art work. Long creates and teaches “tear art.” She also lights up when talking about her daughter and grandsons.

Long’s daughter decided to join karate as a child and both said in the beginning the young girl didn’t take it seriously. Of course that didn’t stop her from winning a national title at about 9 years old. Now she is a black belt with three sons who take Long’s Costa Mesa class and consider her “Jacki” while there.

Asked whether they prefer grandma or Jacki, they all prefer grandma. I have a feeling grandma doesn’t make them do push-ups.