At the Mt. Pleasant ATA Martial Arts Training Center, where dozens of students from preschoolers to adults learn and practice four days a week, martial arts training is a family legacy.
Brandon McQueen, 31, has been an instructor there for four years.
“I’ve loved martial arts my whole life,” he said. “I joined a class for the first time when I was 7-years-old. My mom let me decide then if I was going to stay with Tae Kwon Do or not, and I didn’t understand what I needed to understand when I made that decision.”
He walked away for a bit, but eventually he was pulled back in by his family.
“The reason why I came back was because I was the oldest of seven kids,” he said. “And I’ve always had this strong belief that at-risk kids on the fringes of society can be helped and pulled back in by becoming a part of something bigger than them.
“My brothers and sisters only had me and my mom, so I paid for them to join Tae Kwon Do. About a year later, in 2012, they asked me to come join back in with them and I accepted.”
He joined the instructor trainee program eight months later.
“I taught from 2012 to 2015 and then took some time off,” he said.
“I returned this past August after Master McQueen got ahold of me. He let me know that the amount of students in the school had fallen below a certain point, and that if I didn’t come back and help he would have to close the doors.”
Master Ken McQueen, a third cousin removed, inspired him to continue the McQueen family legacy in Tae Kwon Do.
“He’s picked up a lot of things very quickly as an instructor,” Ken McQueen said. “These are some things that I’ve learned over years and years of training. Over 40 years of experience. Some things take longer than others to pick up, so that you can relate to people. Martial arts comes down to respect, discipline and coordination. All of those things are involved in becoming an adult.”
So he came back, put out some feelers, put up some flyers and advertised on Facebook.
Growth has been strong in recent months.
“We’ve probably signed up around 80-100 students since then,” he said. “Some tried it out, and some stayed, but it was better than what we had. When I came back there were eight or nine students enrolled. We had 40 kids sign up at first with a back-to-school discount. Now, we bring in 10-15 (new) kids per sign-up session.”
McQueen never planned on teaching martial arts to the youth, but he’s glad that it’s part of his life now.
“Watching the kids grow is my favorite part of instructing,” he said. “Being an instructor was a second thought to me. It wasn’t something I ever really considered or thought about. But since being an instructor and watching kids develop from white belt to orange to yellow that has been very fulfilling.”
McQueen, who is also an elected trustee on the Mt. Pleasant School Board, teaches four classes during the week at their classroom on the upper level of the Mt. Pleasant ICE Arena.
They are the traditional class which has a beginner and advanced level, the Tiny Tigers class which has brought in more than 15 kids each time he taught it, and the adult black belt instructor trainee class.
The Tiny Tigers class is $45 for four weeks of training with two classes per week, while the other classes are $65 for the same amount of time.
All classes have testing every eight weeks.
“We are also working on building a special tigers class,” he said. “It would be for people with physical or developmental disabilities.”
Some kids don’t stay, so the numbers even out to having around 50 students enrolled at all times.
“I think we live in a time where martial arts are needed,” he said. “Some people are going through unpleasurable circumstances and they need a coping mechanism. Instilling life skills through martial arts at a young age could be very beneficial.”