All the Right Moves

Summit Academy Students Realize Growth Through Therapeutic Martial Arts

^{Sensei Josh Minnick leads his Summit Academy Akron Middle School students in a series of therapeutic martial arts demonstrations at their recent promotion ceremony.}

As 19 Summit Academy Middle School sixth graders demonstrated a series of choreographed martial arts moves, their family members watched in awe. The event, the school’s twice-yearly Therapeutic Martial Arts promotion ceremony, showcased the children’s fine-tuned martial arts skills, which most of them have been honing since they were in the first grade.

^{Raymond Cross, a student at Summit Academy Akron Middle School, displays the board he broke at his school’s recent therapeutic martial arts promotion ceremony.}

A staple of Summit Academy Schools, Therapeutic Martial Arts provide students with physical and emotional tools to feel calm, resilient and successful inside and outside the classroom. During the ceremony, which was held at Summit Academy Secondary School – Akron on May 11, students performed a series of katas, or detailed martial arts movements. They were led by their teacher, Sensei Josh Minnick, and new black belt recipient, Paul Pemberton, a 2023 graduate of Summit Academy Secondary School Akron.

“The ceremonies function as a way for students to get to demonstrate what they’ve been working on in the dojo all year for their friends, relatives and families,” Sensei Minnick says. “They also receive a promotion in rank that moves everyone up one step on the ladder to black belt.”

^{Sensei Josh Minnick stabilizes a pine wood board as Summit Academy Akron Middle School student Raymond Cross prepares to break it.}

In addition to advancing to a new belt rank, or color (white, orange, yellow, blue, green, purple, red, brown and black, depending on degree), students also broke pine boards with their fists as part of the ceremony. Along with the strength, precision, conviction and speed this skill requires, board-breaking symbolizes to students their ability to overcome obstacles, Sensei Minnick explains.

^{Paul Pemberton, a 2023 graduate of Summit Academy Secondary School – Akron and a new black belt recipient, leads sixth-graders at Summit Academy Akron Middle School in a Therapeutic Martial Arts demonstration.}

After they broke the one-inch boards propped perpendicularly across two cinderblocks placed about a foot apart, the students grinned and giggled as they picked up their fragmented board pieces.

The students, most of whom began taking Therapeutic Martial Arts at Summit Academy Akron Elementary School, will continue their curriculum throughout their school years at Summit Academy. The trek is one of maturity and is often life-changing, Minnick says.

^{Summit Academy Akron Middle School sixth-grade students follow their teacher, Sensei Josh Minnick, in a series of therapeutic martial arts movements.}

“So many of the students grow in multiple ways throughout a school year — physically, socially, academically, emotionally,” Minnick says. “The group of students at last week’s promotion ceremony was a different group than they were in August. They have all grown in many ways.”

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