A Passion Project for Community Service: Blue Wave Taekwondo Comes to HHS
This March Intensive, 2024, Blue Wave Taekwondo is making its first debut at Hanover High School. Since 2003, Blue Wave has been HHS’s non-profit neighbor, located just across the street at the Richard Black Community Center in Hanover, New Hampshire. Directed by co-owners Master Linda Smith-Blais and Master Stephen Hopkins, the abiding motto of this institution has not only been discipline and training for students of all ages, but the foundational spirit of volunteering. One student who has taken this principle to heart is sixteen-year-old Aryaman Bhaskar.
Aryaman is a junior here at HHS and, having begun his journey to black belt in third grade, has now attained his black-stripe (just one belt away from his destination). However, for Aryaman, taekwondo has always been more than athleticism and self-defense, but a tangible demonstration of how community service breeds achievement.
“When I started taekwondo, I was taught by college students that were black belts and high schoolers that were black-stripes. Now that I’m at that rank, it’s my turn.”
Aryaman regularly attends junior classes to coach lower ranks, but his aspirations to “give back” extend well beyond the dojang. Hosting his own MI, titled Taekwondo Bootcamp, Aryaman and his advisor, Clare Brauch (a physical education teacher here at HHS), hope to make some of these acquired skills, such as sparring and hand and foot techniques, available to his peers. This four-day course is intended for taekwondo novices and individuals with other martial arts training to offer an overview of some of the basic techniques and fundamentals of the sport. In the process of developing this training program, Aryaman has been able to reflect on the teaching he has received from higher belts in his own gym and how “rewarding” it is to be the teacher now himself.
Aryaman says, “To be able to show someone a certain form and have them perform it perfectly an hour later – you just know you have genuinely helped that person.”
From day one, taekwondo instills in its students not only how to be trained, but how to be the trainer – a lesson that this new leader has shown mastery of.
Although March Intensive selections are long closed, be sure to stop by student classes every Tuesday and Thursday from 4:30 to 6:15 at the RBC – it is just a stone’s throw from campus, and they would be more than pleased to teach you a technique or two.