A local martial arts school has been given a great honor after several of its members were invited to Korea for a celebration and competition. George and Amy Lloyd owners of Middle Tennessee Tae Kwon Do at 930 West Broad Street, Smithville, along with their son, Bane Averitte, have been invited to the Chung Do Kwan event.
“Our Grandmaster, Brenda J. Sell, is the highest ranked female marshal artist, has been invited to Korea for the 80th anniversary of Chung Do Kwan, which is the type of Tae Kwon Do we do,” George explained. “She was told that she could bring a couple of her high-ranking students and a representative of one of the schools in her association. She picked our school.”
“She picked Amy, our son Bane, and myself to accompany her. She calls us her entourage to Korea.”
Grandmaster Sell and her association is based in Lakeland, Florida, with affiliated schools located throughout the United States. The Lloyds say they are excited and nervous about the honor.
“Two days of the trip is a seminar, and I don’t know Korean, so I don’t know how that’s going to go,” George said with a laugh. “One day will be a competition, with everyone invited to compete. We’ll see how we do.”
“We will also be looking at the history of Tae Kwon Do, with a scheduled itinerary made for us,” Amy added. “Her (Grandmaster Sell) husband, the late Grandmaster Edward B. Sell, is the only American in the Tae Kwon Do Hall of Fame in Korea. He has a bronze bust and memorabilia of him is on display, and she has never seen that. He passed away in 2014. She’s not been to Korea in over 20 years, with the last trip being during 9-11 when they became stranded in the country for a time. We will be with her the first time she gets to see his honors. That’s pretty exciting as well.”
“He was the first American Black Belt, the first American Master, the first American referee, and did a lot to bring Tae Kwon Do to the United States. He started the first Tae Kwon Do school in America, in Trenton, Michigan. It wasn’t long after that that he moved to Florida,” George said.
George was born and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and trained under Grandmaster Edward Sell, before their move to Florida. He said that it was family and his job that brought him to Middle Tennessee.
“In 1999, my mother moved down to Cookeville, and later to Smithville. I got hired by the Nashville Fire Department soon after that and started working there, and still do. I decided I was not going to live in Nashville. By the end of 1999 and the start of 2000, I have lived in either Dowelltown or Alexandria.”
As for the school, George said it was started due to a lack of other schools that taught the same discipline. “Not very many Tae Kwon Do schools do combat training. We do. When we looked around at the schools in the area, we did not like the schools. There was nothing wrong with them, but they were not geared toward combat training.”
“I decided to open up a school and went to Florida to find out what I needed to do. Now, we’re here. We have a bunch of students, which are about 70 percent kids, and that’s how we got here.”
Middle Tennessee Tae Kwon Do opened in 2007 and offers classes starting from the age of three. We average about 100 students.
“We break classes down based on their age and help develop discipline,” George explained. “We are a lot about character building, not just punching and kicking.”
“We offer mini camps, and since we’ve been in this location, we try to do a monthly event,” Amy added. “We’ve done bottle flipping, a glow-in-the-dark dance, and we host two tournaments here, and have about 30 students on our tournament team that travel with us. We are getting ready to go to Florida for a National tournament.”
Amy is a third-degree black belt while George is a fifth-degree black belt having been training since 1979. Amy is originally from Idaho, but she and her son Bane have lived in DeKalb County for 13 years. “Bane started Tae Kwon Do when he was five, and just received his third-degree blackbelt in March. He is the only 14-year-old to be invited to Korea as a blackbelt. He will be competing in the World Championship.”
Bane, is a second-degree black belt and serves as an assistant instructor. Bane is a national champion and is one of the top 10 in the entire nation.
“If it were not for our students and their parents, we would not be going to Korea,” George concluded. “This school is their school.”
You can contact Middle Tennessee Tae Kwon Do on their Facebook page or call 615-225-7493.
