Tae Cole Tae Kwon Do owner and master instructor Maggie Messina recently returned from Dublin, Ireland, with another medal in hand.
Messina won gold in the 2018 World Karate Commission’s Championships in the women’s traditional form competition in late November. Messina said she is known as one of the best stylists in the world in that category, and she is no stranger to bringing home hardware either.
The extent of Messina’s accomplishments do not fit completely onto one page, as shown by her website, let alone several walls at her studio in Albertson. She’s been named master instructor and director of tens of locations, won numerous fighting championships and traveled the world competing. Her studio is lined with gold medals, championship belts, photographs of her travels and memorabilia like a Noah Syndergaard signed baseball bat.
Tae kwon do, which Messina has taught for more than 20 years, is a 5,000-year old systematic approach to discipline and self-defense using fists and feet, according to the TeamUSA Olympic website.
Messina is now trying to redirect the attention she’s receiving to the causes she is championing.
The world of competitive fighting has always been skewed in favor of men’s competitions and often still is, Messina said. The attention paid to and particularly the cash prizes for women were diminutive, Messina observed as she rose through the ranks, she added.
“You go through a lot as a woman in this field,” Messina said. “But times are changing.”
In her own effort to level the playing field, Messina has personally sponsored several national and international events, doubling the cash prize of the male divisions for the women grand champion titles.
The initiative, titled “Female Fighters Matter2,” is part of Messina’s campaign to empower and encourage young female athletes and change the fighting industry for the better, she said.
“It isn’t going to just happen,” Messina said on equality. “We’ve got to go out there and do it.”
Messina’s efforts have not gone unnoticed. After doubling the cash prizes for female martial artists at the National Martial Arts World Tryouts in Detroit, another independent sponsor raised the cash prize for men, too.
Messina was overjoyed that the campaign was able to affect the entire tournament for the better, she said.
Though she could not pin down a number, Messina teaches “a lot” of students at her studio. Messina loves children, teaching and is just as dedicated to helping educate young students as she is fighting for equality.
Messina’s desire to help “build a child from the inside out,” is in part inspired by the struggles she faced growing up.
Growing up in the foster care system, from a poor neighborhood in upstate New York, Messina struggled in her teenage years while attending boarding school. She watched family members struggle with drug addiction and was homeless briefly at the age of 17.
Something deep inside gave her the courage to keep going despite the odds, she said, and she discovered tae kwon do.
“It was the one place everything just disappeared,” Messina said. Tae kwon do offered her a chance to go into a meditative state, where nothing on the outside mattered.
Working as a radiology project coordinator at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Brooklyn, Messina always had her eyes on continuing down her tae kwon do path. When she got the chance, she opened a studio in Albertson, a 700-square-foot space.
“I knew when I was a brown belt that this is what I wanted to do,” Messina said.
SWERV, another organization Messina spearheads, empowers “at risk” youth to achieve more. Messina said she wants to use herself as an example.
“I broke my back not to be a statistic,” Messina said. “I want to pay it forward.”
Messina is now a 7th Dan black belt in Kuk Mu Kwan tae kwon do, a high rank and even more impressive achievement for a woman. Messina was mentored and maintains a friendship with Suh Chong Kang, an illustrious figure in both Korean and American tae kwon do.
Messina said she has fought tooth and nail to be where she is today, and that nothing in life comes easy. Messina and Tae Cole are going to continue to working toward paying it forward, hosting competitions throughout the state, county and world.
“This is the year we’re going to change the world,” Messina said.
