Uechi Ryu Karate Arizona / Walden Martial Arts

We Change Children’s Lives Through Karate

A child’s success throughout life is a direct result of positive life skills learned early. Traditional martial arts training provides these powerful and indispensable skills. Perseverance, discipline, self-reliance, fortitude, initiative, crisis resolution, resilience, creative thinking, honor, respect and a litany of other life enhancing qualities are absorbed in real time in a dojo. They are persistently introduced and reinforced, embedded within the culture of the martial arts and the karate experience itself. “Shape a child's future through the life transforming potential of karate.”

How Traditional Karate Training Teaches “Life Skills”

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry reports that sporting events provide the opportunity to teach children how to handle disappointment, competition, frustration and anger in a respectful manner. Modeling positive behaviors that are taught by coaches, parents and sporting officials encourages children to use the same tools to solve conflict in other areas of their lives.

Quality traditional karate training goes even a step further than simply mentoring students while they train. The majority of  life skills taught to young martial artists are done while training inthe art. All students experience the vast spectrum of human emotions while on the karate path; frustration, anger, envy, sadness, exhilarating happiness, resentment, fear (both real and
perceived), the motivation rollercoaster, etc. In the karate school, mentoring happens in real time. In other words, the child is mentored while experiencing the emotion, which is vastly more productive than through lecture.

In addition to emotional understanding and control, the mental focus required to execute extremely well defined karate moves spills over into a child’s everyday life that will eventually improve study habits, school performance, and the ability to listen and follow directions. These experiences instill confidence in the child. A confident child is more resilient to peer pressure.

Vision

Our vision is to give every child in Glendale, Arizona the opportunity to learn life skills through the training of traditional karate.