The Real Karate Kids Project is just one link in the chain of projects, activities, ideas, and lessons Karate USA Family Martial Arts Academy is using to help redefine martial arts for the new millennium.
For thousands of years, martial arts has been an excellent way to develop physical skills, mental focus, and self-defense in students. But in 2010 (our founding year) and beyond, the problems faced by our students are far different than what today’s martial arts schools are addressing.
When one in three students born after the year 2000 will be affected by Diabetes, learning how to kick and punch doesn’t seem so relevant. If we teach students great striking and grappling skills but lose them to poor nutrition, addiction, drunk driving, or preventable disease, we’ve failed as teachers.
Our intelligent curriculum aims to correct this trend by bringing immense relevance to the study of martial arts for the future.
Certainly, we test students on the quality of their physical technique and skill. But martial arts transcends that. To be relevant in the next era of martial arts instruction we must also test students on their quality of thought, quality of living, and quality of their contribution. ~ Kevin Geary
In today’s world, healthy eating is self defense. Conflict resolution, random acts of kindness, community involvement, family unity, leadership training, addiction prevention, universal respect, empathy, and self-mastery are all forms of self defense when the term is redefined for future generations.
The Projects
As part of Karate USA’s intelligent curriculum, students are asked to take what they’re learning in our academies out into the world. They do this not only to improve the lives of others and the community, but to set an example of what a real martial artist is and to learn valuable life skills and experiences they can carry with them forever.
Doing these projects creates awareness in the community, solves problems, and improves lives, but it also develops a student’s leadership skills, planning skills, enhances their creative capacity, improves their ability to problem solve, cultivates teamwork, highlights the importance of goal setting and working on a schedule, nurtures effective communication, and teaches students to finish what they start (something many adults have trouble with).
There’s too many benefits to list. The point is that this project will place students far beyond other children that do not undergo this training.
Students who participated in organized, project-based community service were 22 percentage points more likely to graduate from college than those that did not and were more likely to have improved their Reading, Math, Science, and History scores. ~ teachnow.org
This website is the home of the project’s online portfolio. The projects here are completely conceptualized, planned, and executed by our students. Our current goal is to complete and record 500 projects.
If you’re in Atlanta, come join the movement. If you’re outside of Atlanta, thank you for your visit, we’d appreciate it if you spread the word by liking us on Facebook. If you’re a school owner that would like to participate, get in touch with us.