Answer: The Stages of Childhood Development™ was created from thorough research. The results have shown that children experience specific characteristics at distinct age levels throughout their childhood. We've taken these studies and used them as our guidelines when establishing the most effective and efficient martial arts programs. No longer will a 12-year old child become bored in class because a 6-year old was slowing the class down. No longer will a 4-year old first experience frustration because he couldn't keep up with the rest of the older kids. The programs are age-specific to maximize the growth of your child. We didn't want to cut corners. We want your child to be the best he or she can be at every stage in their martial arts training.

Answer: For the same reasons why we made the classes age-specific. If we try to mix your children together with such differences in their growth stages, then most likely one of them will enjoy the program, and the other won't. Plus, we will be restricted in how effective our instruction is to your children. As we said before, we want your children to be the best they can be at every stage of their development.

Answer: The average child under the age of 7 has a very short attention span, especially in such a comprehensive activity such as the martial arts. Studies have shown that children's ability to retain information falls off substantially after 20 to 30 minutes. After about 20-minutes students begin to tune out and, although some may continue to stay focused, they are no longer processing the information they receive. Since the average child under the age of 7 has a short attention span, the way to overcome the problem is to train with less time, but more energy. That's why or classes are non-stop from the beginning to the end.

Answer: Teaching children martial arts and especially self-defense before they develop their fundamental skills is like teaching a person how to drive a race car before they even know how to drive. The fundamental skills are necessary to participate in the martial arts, therefore martial arts training is limited and used only as preliminary tools to build the fundamental skills.

Answer: Every lesson taught plays an important role in self-defense. The most important lessons in self-defense come from self-esteem and confidence. Although your children may not know it, as they train in the martial arts, their self-esteem and confidence increase, which is extremely important in any potential situation that may require self-defense. The physical portion of self-defense is very limited until they are socially, mentally, and emotionally competent.

Answer: here is no guarantee that a child would not use martial arts on another child, especially if they are not training in the martial arts. Only when they begin training in the martial arts will they learn the dangers of hitting others and have the proper role models to teach them the proper uses. A good saying is “it's better for a bully to pick on a child who's a black belt than a child who has never trained in the martial arts, because the black belt has the training and the confidence to walk away”.