What About Adults’ Karate?
“What if I don’t have kids who want to do karate? I alone am interested in adults’ karate classes…”
-Anonymous Adult
If this is you, you are not alone! Modern martial arts are generally more popular for child students. When karate first came to America after WWII, it was primarily an activity for adults. The Karate Kid movie helped usher in the age of karate for children and we are still in that age. But adults’ karate is an important part of the equation. On the one hand, dojos benefit from the participation and support of mature students. On the other, adults have a lot to gain from training in karate.
Our Dojo’s Adults’ Karate Program
Our dojo will gladly take adult students into our dojo family. We love to have more positive, supportive, hard-working adults walk the karate path with us. We are a family-friendly, traditional dojo and kids are welcome in nearly all classes and activities. So if you cannot be family-friendly or you have a problem with children, then sorry, this is not the place for you.
Our youngest students are three-years-old. So far, the oldest students in our adults’ karate program have been in their 60’s. But I have met men in their 80’s who successfully train elsewhere in the same style that we do. Our school’s “oldest student success story” is of a man who started with us in his 50’s. As a solo karate practitioner nobody else from his family took part in karate classes. He earned his black belt at 60 years old. As he supported the dojo, he continued on to become a sensei before retiring and moving away.
Benefits of Adults’ Karate
He has said many times that he highly appreciates the relationships forged at the dojo in our adults’ karate program. And also the ability to continue his traditional karate training which he started as a younger man in the military. Additionally he has mentioned being pleased about the modality of enjoyable, dynamic exercise that karate allows.
Speaking for all of the instructors at our dojo, we value having him as a close friend (though now long-distance). We enjoyed all of the time both teaching and learning from him, one of our wiser students. And we very much welcomed all of the moral support that he gave our dojo. Much of the time that was his support of time, energy, ideas and resources. Sometimes he couldn’t lend a hand. But he was consistently aware of the dojo’s ongoing various projects and he asked about their success.
In our adults’ karate program, we have seen more mature students give back to the dojo in many ways. Their life experience allows them to do so in more ways than youth or younger adults. We appreciate and respect adult students for that. And we also know that they get out of it just as much–and often even more–than they put into their training and dojo involvement.
-Jenifer Tull-Gauger