Caribbean Beat — January/February 2018 (#149)

Five questions for Akino Lindsay
What’s your superhero name?
Shringo, my alter ego. Shringo can block out all
tiredness and pain. But so far I haven’t needed
him to show up yet.
What are your favourite moves?
A tie. Tornado kick (360-degree turning kick):
it’s really cool when you execute it properly.
Reverse turning kick: it’s really hard, but if you
do it properly you can counter most kicks.
What do you do for fun?
Play Pokemon GO, text my girlfriend, play
football.
What’s your training routine?
Taekwondo training for four hours a day, four
days a week. Run once a week.
And your biggest fears?
Planes, elevators, getting old, flying
cockroaches, and getting kicked in the teeth.
Lindsay’s ultimate prize is Olympic gold. “If I’m doing
something, I want to take it all the way,” he says. “It would be
huge for Jamaica.” Kenneth Edwards, who represented Jamaica
in taekwondo in the 2012 Olympics, is the only athlete to do so
to date. Lindsay trains with Edwards on Jamaica’s combined
martial arts team, and is motivated to increase the recognition
of Jamaica’s success in the sport.
But that longstanding dream is now rivalled by a more
personal project: using his skills and talents to transform
the lives of young people in circumstances similar to those
he grew up in. On hiatus from the University of the West Indies
for a year, Lindsay is currently a coach in the Safer Communities
Programme, a multi-partner effort to reduce youth violence in six
volatile communities in Kingston.
The programme is led by Fight for Peace International, a
global NGO that uses boxing and martial arts to transform
young people’s lives. (Full disclosure: I run the Jamaica country
programme.) The SCP communities are
like Drewsland in income levels and levels
of violence, and it’s not hard to see why
Lindsay sees himself in the faces of his
young charges.
“Taekwondo changed my life. It’s
more than the training and the fancy
kicks. Now I see it as a way to help other
people,” he explains. “We’re keeping
children off the street. We’re giving them
a family away from family. My most
important role is to be there for them.”
Lindsay’s dedication as a coach in the SCP earned him a
nomination to the Michael Johnson Young Leaders Course, a
coaching development programme for young coaches around
the world. The programme is now providing funds and coaching
support for Lindsay to develop Math Ninjas, an innovative
approach to integrating math instruction into his taekwondo
lessons, which Lindsay designed when he recognised many of
his young athletes needed help with math.
“I love math and I love taekwondo. I’m fusing the things I
love to solve a big problem in Jamaica. Getting this right is as
important to me now as the Olympics.”
Balancing his commitment to the project with his Olympic
dreams is a challenge, but one that Lindsay is fully ready to take
on. “One thing I’ve learned from ISKA is you always have to find
a way to keep advancing,” he says. The person backing up is the
person losing.
“You never, ever stop fighting.” n
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