Patrick Culver: A Black Belt Among Us
“I look at you and see three ways I could kill you, and I'm not even thinking about it,” Patrick Culver explains to his now frightened interviewer. He then releases a litany of ways he could kill me- fist to the temple, top of the head, throat, with the pen in front of me he could stab me in about five different places to end my life. I realized that as he has explained about twenty ways to kill me, he hasn't even moved below my shoulders. Patrick laughs, “See, there's a reason I should be registered as a lethal weapon.”
Culver is eighteen, 5'7, and 160 pounds. He even admits that many people look at him and wonder why he would teach a self-defense class. They fail to see the first degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do who has trained in various martial arts, including Arnis, in which he also holds a black belt, for over ten years. Despite this, Culver decided to put his skills to use to make Franklin College a safer place. For the past two Sunday nights he has been teaching Franklin students self defense. As he explains, “I've got all this skill, why not give a little of it to them.”
The idea came to him after one Franklin College student was robbed at gunpoint right outside of her residence hall. “I just want people to feel safe walking around,” Culver explains. “Whatever way I can give people a feeling of self confidence is good.”
So far, Culver has taught two self-defense classes with a rather low attendance of only four and five students in each, but he's confident that his students are learning. “I'm teaching rather basic releases and how they can hold their own if they get into a bad situation.” The biggest thing for Culver is to give his students a positive attitude. “If you walk around thinking you matter,” Culver says, “you will avoid 90% of situations.”