Taekwondo master hangs up belt
For 22 years, Michael Smith, a sixth degree black belt, and his wife, Glenna, have owned and operated Westside Tae Kwon Do, graduating 85 black belts with six master instructors.
Now, because of near catastrophic financial loss due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Michael’s dream of owning a taekwondo school is coming to an end. Their last class will be today.
The Smiths are in negotiations with Trevor Warkentin of Kees Taekwondo with an eye to an eventual transition of ownership of the school. A final agreement has not yet been reached.
A deal would see the Smiths’ students able to continue to train on the Westside under someone with a good reputation.
“He’s willing to take the risk, we’re not,” said Michael. “I’m 65. We’re not willing to go deep into debt to keep the business going. It’s just the wrong time in our lives.”
Michael had always dreamed of opening his own taekwondo school. He took his first lesson in the martial art 50 years ago.
He likes that taekwondo exercises not only the body, but the brain and enjoys the technical challenges such as being able to jump, spin 360 degrees and kick an apple.
The school started small as Michael kept his day job as a kitchen cabinet installer while running the school with Glenna at night.
The school bounced through every school gym, community hall or church hall at one time or another.
When the Smiths launched their afterschool program, which offered to pick up children at elementary school and bring them to Westside Kwon Do for training, they opened their first commercial space.
The school grew into a 6,000 square foot dojang, a taekwondo training hall, on Louis Drive, the largest Michael had ever seen.
The after-school program is Westside Tae kwon Do’s bread and butter and when local schools closed at the end of March due to the COVID-19, the program came to a stop.
“We had three months — April May and June with no after school,” said Glenna. “We’ve lost over $75,000 and that’s just in three months. Meanwhile, our expenses continued. “
“You can't keep doing that indefinitely,” added Michael.
The Smiths began offering evening classes with COVID-19 protocols May 19.
Every student trained on their own fourby-four metre square with two metres between each square to keep everyone safe.
While the summer evening classes have gone well, registration is low for the after school program.
“Parents are nervous,” said Glenna, adding she doesn’t blame them. “A lot of them don’t know whether they want to send their children back to school. “
Evening classes don’t pay the bills and the Smiths had to make the hard decision of either walking away and closing their doors permanently or having another black belt instructor and school owner come in and take over.
“We did everything we could,” said Michael. “We took advantage of all the government assistance we could get, we tried to cut expenses as much as we could. We did everything that every prudent business person would do.”
There will be a lot of tears today, said Glenna.
Westside Tae Kwon Do has had some kids as part of their taekwon-do family for 13 years.
“We’ve watched them grow up and they’ve watched us grow old,” said Glenna.
Glenna said she will probably end up working for the new owner and once Michael has helped transition the school to the new owner, he is contemplating returning to his old trade as a kitchen cabinet installer in Northern B.C. which is booming.
Evening classes at are expected to resume Sept. 8 and the after-school program Sept. 14.