The BYU Karate Club meets at the Wilkinson center every Tuesday night.
“I think it’s fun because punching pads is fun after a long, stressful day,” says instructor Lorin Hendricks with a laugh. “It’s a style focused heavily on being ready for counters, which lends itself very well to being able to defend yourself regardless of how big the other person is.”
“We’ll focus on one thing each practice, maybe a kick or a punch or a block,” says Aubrey-Anne Anderson, a club member. “It’s an hour and a half of focusing on that one thing, getting like kind of okay at it, and then something different the next time.”
Lorin comments, “Generally, the people who like to come to our club are people who are looking for a little bit of exercise because you’ll sweat if you’re doing it right.”
The club has been around for over 25 years here at BYU.
“One of the more interesting things about our club is we’re actually, as far as I’m aware, the oldest club on campus,” he says. “We’ve been running continuously for 25 years. It is free to practice with us, and we just look for more to come have a little bit of fun. At the end, we usually end up playing some Super Smash, so we beat each other up virtually, too,” he laughs.
“I think people start to come because they think, ‘Oh karate is cool.’ That’s why I started,” says Aubrey-Anne, “But then I kept going because it just became part of my routine. Doing karate keeps me in a good state of mind, so if I stopped doing it, I think my life would be just a little bit harder.”
As Lorin mentioned, the karate club is free to join, so if you’re interested, feel free to drop by next semester.
