SPORTS

Getting His Kicks

Kickboxing champion Ken Levy wants
to help others improve their fitness
and self-defense ability

MIKE ROSENBAUM

Sports Writer

ate last year, Ken Levy
was confused. A mental
health worker at Kings-
wood Hospital, he was
also an undefeated
kickboxer who- owned the Michigan
lightweight championship. And he
was a man in search of a future.
Levy finally found what he was
looking for while training at the CMI
health club in Southfield. "I used to,
once in a while, come into the aerobics
classes," he recalls. "And I realized we
were using a lot of the same muscles"
as in kickboxing. Levy turned that
realization into what he calls
kaerobics, a combination of
martial arts and aerobics de-
signed to improve a person's
fitness while teaching self-
defense techniques.
Now the 28-year-old
Southfield resident is reduc-
ing his mental health work,
training hard in kickbox-
ing and teaching an in-
creasing number of
kaerobics students.
Levy teaches at
area health clubs,
including the Maple/
Drake Jewish Com-
munity Center,
works with Ford
Motor Co. executives, and children in
the Dearborn Heights school district.
"My main goal is getting into
substance abuse centers, community
mental health facilities . . . I've work-
ed with a lot of people who are men-
tally handicapped. And people that
are on drugs. They spend their whole
life looking for drugs. Here they come
up to a (rehabilitation) place, they
have nothing to do with their time.
Exercise gives them a chance to fill
that gap, give 'ern self-esteem and im-
prove their physical fitness level. Give
`em a natural way to relax, rather
than using drugs."
For now, Levy is content with the
growth of his health club classes.
At a recent CMI class, 10 stu-
dents, eight of them women or girls,
arrive in a downstairs workout room
with mirrors on two walls. Levy puts
them through stretching and light
aerobics with mellow music in the
background. The music gets bouncier
as the exercise becomes more strenu-
ous, as in any simple aerobics class.

90 FRIDAY,APRIL 1988

It soon becomes obvious that Levy is
not teaching routine aerobics.
As his students' feet bounce off of
the wood floor in time with the music,
Levy shows how to strike an oppo-
nent's forehead with a palm. "This
throws your opponent off balance and
opens up the throat," he yells. Levy
then starts hopping around the floor,
demonstrating the various kaerobic
self-defense moves. He shows how to
escape an attack from behind, then
grabs several students so they can
perform the manuever.
Levy repeats his messages, at
times hammering them home like a
drill seargent, at times simply yelling
encouragement. He tells his students
to do whatever is necessary in an
emergency, stressing escape rather
than confrontation. His techniques
include punches, kicks and lethal
moves from unusual sources. One mo-
ment he demonstrates a kick he
might use in the ring. The next mo-
ment he thrusts his hand forward
with index and middle fingers extend-
ed and yells, "Two fingers to the eyes,
Three Stooges!"
Physical techniques are not the
only skills Levy uses in his self-
defense classes. He must use
psychological techniques to put his
students in an aggressive frame of
mind. "I have to put them in that
mode, in that frame of reference. It's
embarassing to a person to walk in a
class and do this at first. So I've got
to give them permission. It's hard for
them to publicly and openly do
violent things. But once I've given
them permission — for one hour, we're
going to be violent, we're going to
think self-defense — they soon get in-
to it. I notice that the women especial-
ly . . . are very co-ordinated. They're
in good shape, they can deliver good
punishment. And they get motivated
to use it. They're scared of this rapist
out there, they're scared of being hurt.
So the attendance is picking up."
Sometimes, though, Levy must
take the opposite perspective. "I'm
not stressing going out and getting in-
to fights and learning how to fight
people. I'm teaching how to escape,
how to hit the right nerve center and
get out. And street smarts. How to im-
plement the technique. With my
adolescents, I've got to be careful with
them. I stress to them all the time,
`This isn't for the street.'
"Kids, they say, `Do you get in
fights?' Because they want to see, the