By Carlton R. Van Lowe, WI Contributing Writer, Thursday, August 3, 2006
The Hung Tao Choy Mei Leadership Institute uses the martial arts of Kung-Fu to teach young people how to stay healthy, avoid trouble, and focus on building a positive lifestyle.
Children in Meditation Abdur-Rahim Muhammad, founder of the Institute, was inspired to launch the Institute after spending time in Africa, where neo-colonialism compelled him to return home and offer youth skills and tools to act upon and positively affect the world in which they live.
"I wanted to develop an institution that was not just an arts institution, not just a physical fitness center, Muhammad said. But an institution that would train young people to be very very, conscious of the world that they lived in so that they would use all the power and the energy and the clarity of mind and vision…to do something not only in their community but be able to go out and change the world."
Founded in 1996, the Hung Tao Choy Mei Leadership Institute, located on Washington D.C.’s historic U Street, continues to teach martial arts, which providing students with discipline and a vision for participating in and improving their communities. Over the past several years the Institute, a non-profit organization, has also put on such community-based events as town hall meetings on health, violence, and other issues challenging the community. It also hosts fund-raisers, including one held in April, featuring Dick Gregory and Manning Marable.
Here I Stand Award 2005"We do these things ourselves, we don’t hire event planners or other people to put these things together for us, Muhammad said. This is how we train our young people to get involved and do positive programs and activities for the community, he added. You’d be surprised how many of our children, young people, even young adults, just don’t know how to get things done.
So what we teach is the science of achievement. What is that, it means you take one step and then another, and then another, one step at a time building blocks with basics getting things done."
The parents of students enrolled in Hung Tao Choy Mei praise the achievements and enhanced sense of character that their children gain as a result of their training there.
"It’s been able to support them in the idea of manhood. The Kung-Fu is just a vehicle to help teach them about the first level of self-defense, which is knowledge of self, and their roles and responsibility in a civilized society, said Sabur Muhammad the parent of two sons, Hadi, 12, and Nuri, 6. His sons also are learning how to interact properly with men and women.
Cyndi Lucas, whose daughter, Anaudia Hussain is enrolled in Kung-Fu classes at Hung Tao Choy Mei added, "It’s really given her self-confidence and a real tangible thing to show her that she’s competent at something and that’s been really important for her.
By being fully involved in their martial arts training as well as the planning of Hung Tao Choy Mei’s community events Muhammad hopes that the children emerge as well- rounded people of action. He explained that the students of Hung Tao Choy Mei lead by the example they set as fledgling community activists.
That’s how we lead. It’s the concept and the mind set of everything you do, Muhammad said. Do it in a sense that others want to follow and emulate your action.
