Free martial arts for jobless in Jersey

A Co. Westmeath man is teaching free martial arts classes to people who are unemployed at his New Jersey academy.

Patrick Cunningham, who hails from Coole, Co. Westmeath, told the Irish Voice on Monday he is doing his bit to help those who are out of a job feel better about themselves, all for free.

Cunningham, 45, who has been living in the U.S. since 1984, said he recalls only too well what it was like for him in 1992 when work dried up.

“I had my own furniture business and things were very slow,” said Cunningham. “I remember only going into the office in Brooklyn to check my messages on my answering machine. And I remember clearly how it felt not having anything purposeful to do during the day.”

After hearing that a colleague across the water in Manhattan was giving free martial arts classes to the unemployed, Cunningham decided it was a “great way to give back to the community.”

He also advertised his own free classes, every Tuesday and Thursday from 11.30 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. in his martial arts academy in Bayonne, New Jersey.

Cunningham, who has four boys with his Co. Donegal-born wife Alice, started learning martial arts in Ireland, but it wasn’t until he arrived in the U.S. in 1984 that he pursued his interest further. After a few weeks of going from work to the bar and back to work, Cunningham had a chat with himself.

“I said to myself I could have done this in Ireland, and I thought, What was the one thing I really wanted to do? It was karate,” said Cunningham, who then found a martial arts school in Queens, and his calling.

Cunningham, who moved his family back to Dublin in 1992 for three years but couldn’t settle, was graduating with belt after belt until finally he was high enough up the martial arts ladder that he began teaching for his own Tae Kwon Do teacher, Master Raimondi. Six years ago he stated up his own academy.

As soon as word got out on the street that free martial arts classes were up for grabs, people signed up. Both men and women, beginners and advanced, came to his Bayonne academy during the allotted time so learn – and some to brush up – various forms of martial arts.

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Nster.com