His father felt that his son needed toughening up.
His mother wasn’t sure. Up to this point, his main interest was focused on borrowing as many books that he could that dealt with Greek Mythology from the local library. This, and anything he could find on the great philosophers of the world. He had also come across a book that he found most interesting that told the story of Alexander the Great. His mother had no real problem with any of this; his father saw most of it as unhelpful reading material. They knew that he’d been bullied at school on several occasions. His father’s idea was to get him involved in some physical sport.
He felt that it had to be some close contact activity that would give him a few knocks, thus enabling him to take some of the rough and tumble that life was bound to dish out as he grew older. After thinking about it for some time, he came up with the idea of Taekwondo.
There was a club not far from their home, and after making an initial call, his father arranged to take him along to the first session to help him settle in. When they met up with the instructor his father introduced him as Lax. He went on to explain that his real name was Alexander, but when his younger brother had tried to pronounce it while at a very young age, it had come out as Lax. Chuckling about it, he told the man that from that time the nickname had just stuck.
Finally, his father left, leaving his son to deal with the whole new world he was entering. His instructor said, “OK, Lax. Let me show you around.”
As they moved off, under his breath, he whispered… “My name is Alexander.”