Soon, the sounds of boards being kicked and mannequins being punched will echo from a former Pilates studio on Palisades Drive.
Soon, karate students — toddlers, teens and grown-ups — will fill the space, heeding the shouted instructions of their silver-haired sensei, Gerry Blanck.
That’s because, soon, the Gerry Blanck Martial Arts Center, a small but much-loved business that burned in the Palisades fire 15 months ago, will return home.
“Everybody’s freaking out. They’re so happy,” Blanck, 71, said of his students and their families. “I always wanted to come back.”
Blanck, who taught in Pacifc Palisades for 43 years before the fire, was unsure whether he would be able to return after flames tore through his Marquez Avenue karate studio and the apartment he shared with his daughter, who manages the business.
Most of his students lost their homes, and he didn’t know if enough of them would return to the Palisades to keep the doors open. He quietly worried about money, even as he resumed classes in Santa Monica, where another sensei let him borrow space.
In January, Blanck got a lifeline: a $50,000 grant from Build Back Pali, a nonprofit started by three teenage boys — including a former student — to help small businesses return to the community.
This month, Blanck began a three-year lease on the roughly 1,200-square-foot new space about a mile from his old dojo, in an unscathed strip mall in the Highlands neighborhood that includes an Italian restaurant, a wine shop and a Starbucks. He is already teaching private lessons, with the grand opening slated for June 1.
The Build Back Pali grant — which was contingent on Blanck signing a lease in the Palisades — covered his deposit and several months of rent, he said.
Small businesses like Blanck’s “are really the heart of the Pacific Palisades community; they’re the places where families gather, kids grow up, and people feel connected,” said 17-year-old Mason Cohen, who founded the nonprofit with his best friends, Jake Yoon and Dylan Fullmer.
The boys met in kindergarten at Village School in the Palisades — a campus that burned.
Cohen, a junior at Windward School in Mar Vista who moved back to the Palisades late last year, took karate lessons from Blanck when he was 5. He remembers learning how to chop a piece of wood with one punch. Blanck, he said, “has not only been a great instructor but has been a fixture within the Pali community for many decades.”
In the Palisades, T-shirts from Blanck’s dojo are ubiquitous. He instructed many of his young students’ parents when they were little. He sponsors local Little League teams. He marches every year with a group of kids in the local Fourth of July parade.
A former world kickboxing champion who came to the Palisades from the Florida Panhandle in 1982, Blanck has sparred with boxing champion Sugar Ray Leonard and trained actors Tom Hanks and Steve Guttenberg. He taught actress Pamela Anderson how to kickbox when she was starring in “Baywatch.”
Blanck’s return has been a morale boost to Pacific Palisades, which is still a giant construction zone. Many businesses have not yet reopened, if they plan to at all. Most residents who lost their homes are still living elsewhere.
Palisades Village, a luxury outdoor mall owned by billionaire developer Rick Caruso that was saved by private firefighters, will be closed until August. The rebuilding of the destroyed Palisades Branch Library remains a long way off, though a temporary library opened in two portable buildings in February. Gelson’s Markets announced in March that it would eventually rebuild in the Palisades, but “formal redevelopment plans have not been finalized.”
Blanck said he has about 70 students — less than half his roster before the fire. But almost all of his current students plan to follow him back to the Palisades, and some who didn’t want to travel to his temporary dojo in Santa Monica are planning to sign up for classes again.
Robert Read said his 12-year-old son, Theodore, who earned a black belt just before Christmas, is happily following Blanck to the new dojo.
The Reads lost their home in the fire and are living, for now, in Brentwood. As soon as Blanck started teaching in Santa Monica, Read brought his quiet, grieving son back to class. It was therapeutic.
“The fire chased off a lot of people that have been there for a long, long time, so to see him make it back is really important for a lot of people,” Read said. “It gives them hope, you know?”
Kiley Hoiles, a 15-year-old who also lost her home in the Palisades, will keep taking classes in the new karate studio. She recently got her black belt, too, and can’t imagine stopping now.
“I’m so happy for them and proud of how far they’ve come!!!” she said in a text message, referring to Blanck and his daughter, Danika Dallas.
In March, Blanck, who had been living temporarily in Santa Monica, moved into an apartment across the street from his new studio.
Walking through the airy studio with high ceilings and pale wood floors, he spoke excitedly about his plans. He’s going to cover one whole wall with mirrors and hang up punching bags. He’ll frame photos of his students and hang them all over the place. And he’s going to display their trophies — so many trophies.
Asked if he’ll put up any photos of the fire, he got quiet.
Probably not.
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