Children's classes
Hughes Karate-do offers children’s karate classes for kids aged 5 and up. We provide
a structured yet fun environment for learning Karate that helps children build their
concentration, physical ability, and confidence.
Our Little Tigers class is for the smaller kids just starting out. Our emphasis
is on basic stances, movement, avoiding attacks, punching and kicking. The child
is introduced to kata with “Basic form #1”, and continues to grow with other kata
such as Naihanchi and Pinan. These are the same kata the adults learn, with applications
appropriate for young minds. We teach basic self-defense techniques against various
attacks which are simple and easy for the smallest child to learn, while also providing
realistic self-defense applications. Everything we teach the children is solidly
grounded in traditional Okinawan Karate, so as they grow up and continue to train
they learn increasingly sophisticated applications for every basic move they learned
when they were smaller.
Intermediate children continue to build on the basic foundations. The emphasis is
on polishing their techniques and growing a more thorough understanding of fundamental
karate principles. These kids spend time on developing strong kicking and punching
techniques, learning how to fall without being injured, and light, realistic sparring.
Study of kata continues, with more difficult kata being introduced and practiced.
Children learn more applications for the moves in the kata, and practice on each
other.
Older kids and teens receive training that is similar to what the adults receive.
Some kids, depending on skill level and maturity, may train with the adults. We
are very mindful of the serious nature of what we study and are careful to temper
what we teach when younger kids are around. Even leaving out some of the more joint-crunching
concepts that the adults study, the older kids still receive a rich grounding in
the fundamentals of Okinawan karate.
Hughes karate-do has experience training kids with special challenges. We enjoy
teaching such children and find them to be very good students. If you are considering
karate training for such a child Sensei Hughes would be happy to discuss this with
you further. Feel free to visit our dojo during class times, or you can contact
Sensei here.