It’s a Tuesday morning and instead of sitting quietly in a classroom, legs under a desk and laptops open, there are 20 students doing push-ups, kicking heavy bags and otherwise beating up each other just for fun.
Why are they doing this, you might ask? Well, it’s because of Intersession.
Intersession is what CSD calls the week before spring break where students get to do an extracurricular activity with one of the teachers. The Intersession offerings vary from coffee tasting to college touring to martial arts.
Yes, you read it correctly, martial arts.
Now, normally schools don’t encourage fighting, but if it’s not technically school, it’s no holds barred.
U.S. History teacher, Anthony Yodice, took full advantage of this. Mr. Yodice, a former professional kickboxer with a couple of recorded fights on ESPN, now, after his heyday, wanted to share his passion with his students. Three years ago he started this opportunity.
Mr. Yodice’s Intersession consists of taking the students to three different martial arts gyms that he himself trains at over the three different Intersession days.
“I chose this Intersession for two reasons, Intersession is really supposed to be teachers sharing their passions with the students, and I’ve done martial arts since I was a kid, and I still do, so I wanted to share my passion with students,” Anthony Yodice said. “The other reason is because when I say that I do martial arts, kids always show a spark of interest and start asking me questions.”
On the first day it’s the tae-kwon-do dojo where students get to learn the basic kicks and punches that pave the way for the more advanced level.
Rawdy Garcia, a senior (‘24) said, “I used to do a muay thai which involved tae-kwon-do, so it was cool to get back into what I used to do, also I loved doing that tornado kick.”
On day number two, students try muay thai. Activities vary from punches and standard punch combos to a powerful gut knee drive. After the students do all the basics, they get to spar with some of the trainers in an extensive core workout.
Sophomore Liam Hogan (‘26) said, “I loved sparring with the trainers, it gave me a real sense of fighting and let me get tons of energy out. The workout afterwards I was not prepared for, sure made me realize that I need to train my core more.”
And on the last day, the new group of up-and-coming high school fighters go to an MMA gym which was Mr. Yodice’s favorite. At the gym, students train the basics of grappling and how to pin down competitors. They are also taught how to get out of a grapple.
Learning about all the different types of fighting was a joy. This author heavily considering doing muay thai after the football season.
Anthony Yodice had a great time showing the students his deepest passion. And watching them have so much fun doing the basics was an honor.
While Mr. Yodice had fun doing the Intersession, there was no way he had more fun than the kids did. Even weeks later, the Yodice Intersession group was still talking about how much fun they had.
