Starting any new activity can be intimidating.

We applaud your willingness to try something new and will do all we can to make your experience an enjoyable and rewarding one.

First off, if you're interested in classes for yourself, we offer classes in karate, aikido and jodo.

You can click on each of the arts to learn more about them.

Karate

Aikido

Jodo

If you are interested in finding a class for your child, we usually recommend that children (ages 4-10) generally start with karate, as the moves form a good foundation for children of that age range to build co-ordination and experience the martial arts for the first time.

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Is Karate Right For Your Child?

Traditional martial arts have always been rooted in the core ideas of self confidence and fitness. All martial arts are great and any art you choose for yourself or your child will be wonderful. What is important is not the art but rather the dojo and instructor. See our tips on selecting the Right Dojo and on tips for selecting the Right Instructor.

It's for this reason that the ancient art of karate remains one of the best outlets for children to develop their body, mind and spirit.

Read an interesting report on how exercise can actually help increase children's brain power.

Each 45 minute class is a mixture of warm up exercises, 'katas' Kata is a Japanese word refering to pre-arranged patterns of karate techniques that work both the body and the mind, as students are taught to fuse their mental and physical energy together. and drills all designed to teach the art in a challenging yet engaging way.

In keeping with the founder of our style of karate, "Matsubayashi-Ryu", philosophy that competitions and tournaments are not conducive to bettering oneself in the art of karate-do. They are a dead end in terms of training. So Renseikan Dojo does not partcipate in sport karate-style tournaments. It is our belief that sport karate does not truly build self-confidence and self-esteem the way traditional Karate training methods do. Our emphasis is on each child's individual improvement, rather than being based on how well your child performs in comparison to another child.