Lah Thao for a while had his eye on a new space for his martial arts business, Rising Son. The parking was limited, and his school was growing without the space for it.
That changed recently. Rising Son, which had been located on Pardee Street in Wausau, recently moved into a much bigger space in Rothschild.
The building, which Thao describes as formerly part of a Siemens complex with laboratory space, now holds over 5,000 square feet of mat space, and that doesn’t count the space for the mixed martial arts cage, conference room, changing rooms and other rooms that line the walls.
Thao actually learned about the building from a student. He was among those taking a self-defense class from Thao, something he jokingly called “geriatric taekwondo” — a class aimed at very pragmatic techniques for self-defense.
The new space solves a lot of the problems Rising Son had at the old location — there is enough mat room that more than one class can happen at the same time. That not only helps Rising Son expand its classes, but it also allows families to finish earlier — fitting in extra training at the old location could have meant staying until 11 p.m. or midnight.
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Rising Son’s move to Rothschild
Rising Son for almost two decades has offered a mix of martial arts classes. Thao himself is a former professional mixed martial arts fighter and has two professional fighters in his gym now — Scotty Writz and Kyle Zimick. But they also offer individual classes in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, boxing and taekwondo.
Now, with the new space, he hopes to introduce a kids’ striking class, a new Wednesday-night self-defense class, and possibly even tactical training with help from police officers. (This reporter earlier featured a story about Thao working with the Wausau Police Department in a jiu-jitsu program.)
Thao also wants to start a tutoring program, helping student martial artists with their homework, and possibly even make arrangements for those who can’t afford his school to train if they show dedication to their schoolwork and improving themselves.
For Thao, building good people is more important than building champion fighters. “I mean, building champions, that’s great,” Thao says. “But if you suck as a person, it doesn’t even matter.”
Thao says martial arts can lead to better discipline and responsibility in real life, for adults and children alike. Rising Son has already produced many of those success stories. “I’m kind of greedy. I want more stories,” Thao told The Wausonian.
It’s part of that reputation that led to a positive response from the village of Rothschild. He said staff and leadership were extremely helpful when he wanted to rent the new space in the village.
And once the building issues and approvals were worked out, moving the mats and setting them up took a remarkably short amount of time. Thao said with all the gym members who showed up, they moved all those heavy mats from one gym to the other in a couple of hours at most.
Cosmetic improvements and decisions about how to best utilize the space (a small plyometrics room might transform into a children’s play area as more members have been requesting it, for instance) will happen in time. But the important thing is for the mats to be ready to go so martial artists can keep training.
And so now the program can continue to grow.
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