Shotokan Karate Leadership School, Santa Rosa CA

My family and I love training at Shotokan Leadership School. At first, we enrolled our 4 year old son but after a year, my husband and and I and our 4 year old daughter enrolled too! Now our son is 6 and almost a purple belt and has become so much more disciplined! We are all learning more self control, getting exercise 3 times a week and are part of a much larger family. I never knew I was capable of such a thing and now I’m so committed! Our goal is for all of us to receive our black belt!

My now 14 year old son has been going to Shotokan for going on 2 years now. I have sat in for many of the classes and the teachers are all phenomenal! They do an excellent job teaching the kids both technical and soft skills that they don’t always get a chance to learn in typical educational settings. I’ve seen my son bloom and develop in his karate practice and gain so much confidence overall as a person since he started. I look forward to seeing his continued growth as he works towards his goals.

This program is just amazing. I was looking for an activity for my grandson and found this leadership school. Besides learning the art of Karate, incorporated throughout in simple ways the children learn how to set goals, work together as a team, as well as lessons in dealing with bullying and conflicts with others. For example, as a warm up an obstacle course is set up. The first part the children are asked how many foam blocks they want to jump over without touching and land on their feet. Next time around they can revise the goal based on how they did. Teamwork plays into it as children control the traffic around the rest of it. It is a fully formed curriculum based on a story of a boy who makes it to the top of a mountain (his full potential) after being bullied in school. If every school had a program like this, our children would truly flourish in preparation for being the future leaders we need.

I have a background in martial arts, so when looking for the right Karate school for my son, I was very pleased & grateful to have found Shotokan Karate Leadership School which resembled the style I practiced in the past with Japanese culture & training. I love their leadership training in addition to the physical martial arts training. They really focus on building good character in an individual. The Sensei’s are very good with their patient and effective instructions. The kids feel comfortable in the class to be themselves & never bad about not knowing a technique. They truly care about the kids. & students and the atmosphere is very positive & fun. I highly recommend this school to anyone looking for an authentic Japanese style-Shotokan style martial art with focus on creating strong leaders & self confidence.

If there was an option to leave less than 1 star, i would.
I recommended this to my partner to take her kid brother to and when they went, they where appalled by the instructor. He was bragging about holding a 5 year old down and choaking him out until he submitted. Then went on a rant about how nobody should ever talk back to sensi and how the kids should only listen and not have anything else to say. They also informed me that he bragged about sending a kid to go sit in his mothers lap out of fear. Their kid brother was scared and never wants to be taken again. On top of that he tried to sell them on the classes for 30 minutes and only had them learn somthing for the last 10 minutes at the end.
Terrable, who brags about choking a kid into submitting when your a fully grown man? Just, no. Are you teaching boys how to abuse others? Because that is what that sounds like.
I, for one, recomend getting better instructors.