TEEN MARTIAL ARTS

Since teenagers often spend hours every day sitting at desks or in front of their phones, it’s essential for them to get exercise when they can.  Our Martial arts classes combine self defense techniques with calisthenics and stretching to provide a terrific full body workout.  The lessons they learn on the mat are things they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. 

Students will...

• Build Muscle
• Increase Bone Density 
• Improve Flexibility
• Enhance Coordination
• Strengthen the Heart and Lungs
• Maintain a Healthy Weight

Martial art classes for teenagers provide an ideal combination of mental, emotional, and physical benefits that help them become better students and better human beings.  Having control over your life, starts with having control over your body and being physically fit provides you with a significant advantage in all areas of life.

   "A healthy body creates space for a healthy mind."  

DISCIPLINE — to study, learn, train, and apply a set of rules or standards to achieve meaningful results.  

Discipline is an important life skill for teenagers.  It is also the foundation for restraint, patience, and respect.  It can be used to control emotions and maintain composer in times of great stress or pain.  Living a disciplined life starts with having a particular set of guiding principles that martial arts can help define... But, this is not learned overnight, it's a gradual process that compounds with daily effort.

In martial arts, there is an intrinsic motivation to achieve higher ranks, but everyone knows you can't aim for the highest rank immediately.  Students must first set smaller, more attainable goals.  To achieve these goals, they must establish a plan for growth, then set a routine and stick to it.  A highly disciplined student is able to focus their thoughts and actions for hours at a time. Then repeat that practice several days a week for years or even decades.

While growing up, it's important for a teenager to have multiple positive role models. A martial arts instructor can be a great option for kids.  During class, students will watch their instructors demonstrate how to be disciplined in training and disciplined in behavior.  Students can then duplicate these lessons as they train and prepare for their next belt test.  Once discipline is achieved in class, it will easily carry over to all areas of their life, such as... sticking to a exercise program, waking up early, being on time, or making better decisions when it comes nutrition.  Mastery of discipline is something students carry with them for the rest of their lives.

Positive thinking, practice, training, knowledge and socializing with other people are all useful ways to help improve or boost your confidence abilities. Confidence is not something you have, it is something that you practice, and it's a skill that can be learned.

Confident people believe in themselves and their abilities.  But, in order to get to that point, you must learn to face challenges and overcome them.  Belonging to a martial arts class that promotes education, physical fitness and teamwork is the perfect environment to challenge yourself.  As you grow in skill and ability, you learn to trust your mind, trust your body and trust your choices.  You accept your flaws and know that you have the power to change, grow and improve. THAT IS CONFIDENCE!

Martial arts training can help with many of the key components to mental health: 

    - Communication with others (positive social interactions)

    - Positive Environment (reduce negative stressors)

    - Exercise (stimulate the body)

    - Learn new things (stimulate the mind)

    - Express yourself (stimulate the spirit)

    - Set boundaries (saying "NO!")

The disciplined structure of a martial arts program combined with the guidance of an experienced and caring instructor is the ideal social activity for improving and maintaining mental health. Karate classes focus on building a strong mind-body connection while learning self defense in a positive social environment. 

Self Control is the art of "thinking before acting".  This is an extremely powerful tool that can be used to create a better future for yourself and others.  As a teenager, you become more independent and take on new responsibilities, you must also learn how your actions can affect everything around you. 

The first step to wielding this power is understanding what you're capable of physically and mentally.  In a martial arts class, students learn supreme control over their movements, starting with simple techniques like a punch or block, then chaining them together while increasing the control over mind and body. Students get to explore their capabilities and learn what they can and cannot do.  This is the foundation to gaining control over your impulses, emotions and ultimately your actions. 

All actions have consequences, this cause and effect is what gives us the power to shape our future.  This ability to recognize how our actions affect others is a crucial ingredient to learning self control.  Martial arts training requires students to practice with a partner, this teaches students how to safely train and compete with each other to prevent injuries.  This interaction with others teaches restraint, it also teaches students how to win a battle without losing a friend, which requires using both strategy and strength (thinking before acting).  This instills the fundamental need to continuously stay aware of your surroundings and respond with control.

-The focus of martial arts is not to have power over others... The true focus is to have power over yourself. 

Being a resilient person is the key to success!  Nobody gets through life without their share of failures and disappointments. It’s part of being human. 

Studying martial arts helps teenagers learn how to handle failure and how to pick theirselves up after a disappointment and continue moving forward in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement.  

Learning martial arts can be a humbling experience, there comes time in everyone training when things go wrong, a weakness is exposed and a student feels like quitting.  Remember... Failure is often the first step to success.  A student must learn that it will take perseverance, commitment, repetition and discipline to build skill and create strength where there was once weakness — and the same is true of every aspect of life!