Kneeling in a loud tournament hall, a father delivers a pointed message to his daughter in full sparring gear:
“I don’t care about the result. I care about you getting in there and performing the best you can.” The father is Jadi Tention, a six-time world champion who brings that exact philosophy to his students at TCK Modern Martial Arts in the Bronx.
Tention founded the dojo, located at 2955 Webster Ave, with a curriculum that rejects focusing on a single traditional style. Instead, he teaches a hybrid system combining karate, kickboxing, and jiu-jitsu. For over 20 years, he has used martial arts to equip students with self-defense skills while emphasizing internal development and resilience.
Mentorship Beyond the Mats
For Tention, physical training is explicitly tied to character building. “Our agenda here is to create the best version of you,” he says, noting that without a focus on personal growth, martial arts would just be violence. Growing up in a single-parent home, he recognizes that many children in his community need positive role models to guide them.
He views his classes as a tool to develop young people and expand their horizons, hoping to show them that “the world is bigger than the Bronx.” The gym’s core values include mental toughness, emotional intelligence, and leadership, with Tention focusing on building his students’ strength from the inside out.
Building Mountain Climbers
The conversation with his daughter followed a difficult tournament where she struggled to find success. Tention used the moment to reinforce that performance and effort matter more than immediate victories. Following that exchange and a shift in focus away from simply winning or losing, he notes that she has taken first place in her subsequent four tournaments.
That lesson extends to every student who walks onto the mats at his school. Tention sees his role not as someone who removes obstacles for his students, but as someone who prepares them to face challenges head-on. “It’s not my job to move your mountains,” Tention says. “It’s my job to make you a mountain climber.”