For one night only at the James Bohan Rink inside Juniper Valley Park in Middle Village, kids learned how to punch and kick from trained martial artists at the Middle Village Players Roller Hockey League self-defense night on Thursday, July 27.
The MVP Roller Hockey League continues its abundance of community-driven events before the season begins next month and one of those nights featured the Queens Soo Bahk Do school for the traditional Korean martial art of Soo Bahk Do.
Paul (Pogo) Pogozelski, the president of the hockey league said he invited the Korean martial arts school as a means to help fellow small business owners and to expose the kids to more types of physical extracurricular activities in the area.
William Trevino, referred to as the school’s Sabomnim — also meaning master — introduced the martial art to the kids in attendance, alongside his fellow instructors. Trevino is a 5th-degree black belt and a certified master instructor with 30 years of experience in Soo Bahk Do.
Instructor Michelle Redaj, whose children also attend Queens Soo Bahk Do and participate in the hockey league, was thankful for the opportunity after a challenging few years for the school.
“We decided that we would like to try to do something for the kids or local kids to try and see if we could get some of them into our studio,” Redja said. Three kids from the event visited the school’s studio afterwords, Redja added.
The school opened in 2015 on 69th Lane studio in Maspeth. Once the COVID pandemic began, the school was forced to continue operating over Zoom and they eventually had to close their physical locations. They were able to secure a space at a nearby dance studio but also couldn’t share the space anymore due to a flooding issue.
“Now we started up again and now we share space. We rent hours from two different locations. One, Moves and Motion Dance Studio in Middle Village. We rent a couple of hours there one night of the week and then we’re also at Maspeth Martial Arts. But we’re still our own school, we just share space.”
The Hockey League will continue to host events throughout the month, leading up to the start of their season in September. The Queens Soo Bahk Do school also encourages anyone interested in joining to contact the instructors online or through email at info@QueensSooBahkDo.com.
