Teri Lee is not a traditional taekwondo instructor. Her light complexion and straight black hair reflect her mother's Italian and French ancestry, but not her father's Mexican and Native American blood.

Her last name is Korean—from her ex-husband—but she grew up in Arkansas, and played basketball through high school and college.

She started her martial arts training in 1980 in a 9:30 a.m. class at Henderson State University, spending a semester in taekwondo before moving on to a Japanese style for the next six years, where she earned her first black belt.

Now she's Kwan Jang Nim—"Master Instructor"—Lee. She is now a fifth-degree black belt, having spent almost 25 years training, and has trained countless students through the different color belts that denote level on their way to their own high rankings, in the martial arts school she owns in Sunnyvale.

Lee has two sons, is involved in the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Team in Training program and has begun running and cycling in its events.

Everyday she greets, trains and coordinates the students that come through her school's doors. Inside, she answers phones while students yell, scream and grunt on the other side of her office's window in both of the school's two mirror-lined training rooms.

A steady stream of students pours through her door to look at her fish tank—with its elusive algae eater and colorful beta fish. They give her a hug, or ask for her help on certain parts of their training.

In 1987, she joined West Coast Martial Arts, a school founded by San José State University graduates Ernie Reyes Sr. and Tony Thompson, after meeting them during a West Coast-sponsored tournament.

A third-grade teacher at the time, Lee soon opened up her own martial arts school—West Coast Martial Arts Sunnyvale—in 1988. Today, the school has close to 600 students in a 5,200 square-foot space at 1350 S. Mary Ave.

She also handles all the financial and data-collection needs of the business and trains advanced students on their way to black belts and beyond.

And just as martial arts teach dedication, discipline and a drive to succeed as basic tenets to help students in all parts of their lives, those three qualities have been with Lee since her childhood.

Reyes and Thompson both stress that martial arts are about much more than learning to jump and kick, and they both say that Lee is a perfect example of that belief. Lessons on discipline, dedication and determination are lifelong skills and can be applied universally. The West Coast philosophy states it clearly when it says it's producing "black belts in life."

That philosophy is something Lee has been living since before she was affiliated with West Coast Martial Arts. She says her major motivator is a drive to succeed and accomplish goals she sets for herself, a drive that even Master Reyes—who has trained some of the best martial artists in the world—says stands out when you think about Lee.

"Other people have got desire, but she's got that intense, burning desire," he says.

The desire was born even before Lee began playing basketball, after watching her family struggle through personal and financial hardships.

"I get my work ethic from my mom and dad. They never had much financially, but I don't think I've ever known any two people who worked harder," Lee says.

Early on she decided to make her life successful and applied her desire and determination to that end.

"I know what can happen if you get on the wrong path, so I would say my desire stems from knowing what I want or maybe knowing what it is I do not want," she says.

In high school and college that meant dedication to basketball and close relationships with her coaches. She still carries those lessons with her today, and applies them in her work in her school.

"I really owe my dedication and discipline to the coaches who looked at me for what I could be, and that's why I look at someone I teach—and teach them—for who I know they can be," Lee says.

Lee echoes her masters when she says she hopes to pass on the education she received and encourage the students she teaches to do the same. All of the instructors at her school are former students and know firsthand the benefits of the West Coast instructional style.

"We think of this more like an education. It takes a student four years to get their black belt, like a diploma. It takes two more years to get second degree, so that's like a associate's degree, and three more for third degree, like a bachelor's degree," Lee says.

Lee emphasized that it's not just an education for children, but something anyone can benefit from, and in that, it lends itself to family participation.

"A lot of the parents will bring their kids and then sit on the sidelines. They'll start to watch, and then they think 'Hey, I can do that,' and they start," Lee says, pointing to a group of parents lined up watching their children train.

One of her students, Emily Garbe, first came to the school looking for a place for her son and daughter to train.

"After a full day of school, they need to get out and run and scream, but in a structured way," Garbe says.

Her son needed physical therapy, and after looking at a number of different martial arts schools, she chose Lee's. Her children took to it instantly and, after watching from the sidelines, Garbe decided to get involved. She's now a red belt, and her son is red striped, one step above her.

She says her primary reason for doing it is the physical aspect and the exercise, but for her children it has become much more. They've learned discipline and respect while constructively blowing off steam at each practice.

"You have respect, not only for your instructor but also for your peers, and I think that's important," Garbe says.

Student progress is marked by advances through colored belts, from simple white up to different degrees of black belts, each denoting years of dedication. Within each color, students earn marks made of electrical tape that they wear proudly on their belts to show that they've mastered various aspects of their training.

"The tape is worth much more than just a sticker in school; they have to work very hard at it, and they feel very proud of it when they get it," Garbe says.

And because accomplishment and hard work are universal values, Lee says her school attracts students from all parts of the South Bay's diverse ethnic community. Because most martial arts come from Asia originally, she says there are many Asian students, but other ethnicities take part equally and they seem to come in waves. Most recently she has seen a rise in the Arab and French populations at her school, as one or two students from that group bring their close friends and family.

"Once you get one, and they're happy, you get them all," Lee says.

The family aspect—both of Lee's school and West Coast Martial Arts in general—is what attracts and retains students over the years.

West Coast itself is not a traditional school, because Reyes and Thompson have augmented the core kicking-based taekwondo teachings with other disciplines, including grappling, weapons, boxing and other arts. Lee's studio even offers Kardio Kickboxing classes.

"Taekwondo is about 70 percent kicking, but if you ended up on the ground, you'd have trouble, so West Coast is a more versatile style," she says.

Lee's school is one of almost 40 schools affiliated with West Coast Martial Arts throughout the United States. Each is individually owned, but operates as a part of the overall West Coast family. Reyes and Thompson hold meetings every Monday for owners like Lee, where the progress and continued growth of the schools are discussed.

"The benefit that I have, and that the other instructors have, is that we can network, which allows us to grow and single schools on their own don't have that," she says.

Lee has trained with both Thompson and Reyes and considers them both mentors and friends.

Jan Snyder—a former student of Lee's who is now the manager of the school and an instructor herself—says that it's that closeness between instructors and students that brought her back to West Coast in 2004 after leaving the school in 1995 for a high-tech job.

"I've got a couple of 5-year-olds that come in everyday and give me a hug and you don't get that in the high-tech industry," Snyder says.

When Snyder returned to the school one of the conditions was that if she got back into training Lee would take up cycling, a passion of Snyder's.

Lee—who had been doing Team in Training marathons since 1996—agreed to start cycling and the two friends set out getting her ready to ride, which included getting her a bike. She did her first 100-mile "century" ride in Tucson, Ariz. in November 2004.

Lee's drive to succeed and meet a goal came into play again when training for the ride. Her goal—helping others—was clear from the start, which made accomplishing it easier.

"I knew I would need a good reason to be out training and riding," Lee says. "I enjoy having a purpose, and if it's for a good cause, it's just a win-win for everyone."

She completed the ride with the support of her friends, family, and her Honoree Michaela Keating, the mother of two of Lee's students, who had needed a bone marrow transplant.

"When you think about who's there, and who's supporting you, and what you're doing it for, you don't think about the blister or the lost toenail," she says. "To me, that's just a great feeling when you can help people."

The drive to help people is something Lee says she sees herself following as long as she physically can. She says she hopes that—when she retires from owning a business and teaching martial arts—she can focus on volunteer work.

"I like how she spends her time helping people. Even though she's successful, she always finds time to help the community," Thompson says.

Lee says she gets that from her grandmother, who doesn't let arthritis stop her when she plays piano for her neighbors in her retirement home.

But before she retires, Lee says she can't see herself doing anything other than running her school, because it doesn't feel like work and is something she never could have dreamed she'd be lucky enough to do for a living.

"I feel very fortunate, because I love what I do. Even if I retired, I would still come in. I can't imagine not coming in, I can't imagine not being around the people I work with," Lee says.