Chai Graham: Bowen’s newest black belt

Chai Graham and his family are celebrating the hard-won recognition for the past six and a half years of work and dedication he’s put into learning taekwondo – on Saturday, he was awarded his black belt.
Chai says becoming a black belt was his goal from the very start, but his biggest challenge came with the fact he had to switch Masters several times along the way.
“There was one point along the way where he actually quit because he just wasn’t having a good experience with it anymore,” says his mother, Rebecca Salmon. “That was really heartbreaking. But when Scot Strachan and Michelle Park took over the studio here on Bowen he got back into it.”
At the age of 11 and one level below black belt, Strachan and Park urged Chai to take a position as an assistant instructor for the junior students.
“I really like getting to know the younger kids,” says Chai. “There is one kid named Hugo who really looks up to me, and I think maybe he is a lot like I was when I was little. He has tons of perseverance.”
Rebecca says that the experience of instructing helped Chai mature and gain confidence. That, along with some extra, private instruction in Squamish during the teacher’s strike, she says, gave him what he needed to try for the black belt this past weekend.
When asked about the most difficult part of the taekwondo promotion test, Chai says he was most nervous about the board breaking test.
“I got to choose the kicks, and set up their positions,” he says.
Michelle Park says that this exercise is a test of creativity.
“He has to tell the instructor where to stand with the boards and visualize how much power he has to generate within a certain amount of space in order to break them,” she says. “This really takes a lot of skill.”
Park says that to be awarded the black belt is a big achievement, but working as an assistant instructor points is equally notable.
“Not only does an instructor need to demonstrate skill and a knowledge of the subject, but he needs to demonstrate exemplary leadership and understand that he is a role-model.”
Chai says his goal is to put himself through university by teaching taekwondo, a prospect his mother says she is very excited about.