July 29, 2026
FINDING A GOOD SCHOOL
If you’ve tapped “kid’s karate near me” into your keyboard, or “self defense classes” and been overwhelmed by the results, don’t panic. Here’s some help. Well, a little anyway. You see, the great thing about modern life and the information explosion is the bad thing about modern life and the information explosion.
Truth can get drowned out in an age of too much info, right? It’s a bit nerve wracking because you feel like you need to be a self-trained expert on everything in order to make a contextual decision. And that’s like being thirsty and trying to take a sip from a fire hydrant. Sometimes having way more than you need is worse than not having enough.
So anyway, here’s some help to put things into context.
Greenville, South Carolina is in the midst of a boom. You probably noticed. Lazy country roads have yielded to the madness of gridlock. Construction is as common as people who’ve never heard of a turn signal. And there’s no more easy parking downtown. Not too long ago you could find a spot on Main Street with some regularity. And in the shade! And no, I’m not talking about the 19th century. This was 20 years ago, for crying out loud.
Not that there was as much to do downtown back then, so you have to take the good with the bad.
It’s like that with martial arts and kid’s karate searches too.
Of course, this article is clearly biased. That should go without saying but I’ve learned in life that you should say it anyway. The bias is obvious considering that I own Greenville Academy of Martial Arts. But the thing is, not everyone is looking for the same thing and trying to sell people on something they don’t want is not just a little ethically suspect, but a bad strategy long term too methinks.
First, you have two bookends for school types.
On one end are the traditional karate styles that have been around for a long time. Tae Kwon Do and other karate schools are generally geared toward kids’ enrollment, so their instructors are usually experienced and professional as far as that goes. If your child is highly competitive, something like Tae Kwon Do, which has tournaments and demo teams, isn’t a bad idea.
How do you know if you’re getting a good karate school? Well, the easiest gauge of that is via the school’s accreditation and chief instructor. If you care about quality, this is the crucible. In a wealthy boomtown like Greenville we’ve attracted to the market the gold-digger version of martial art schools otherwise known as the franchise. A franchise isn’t the same as accreditation. The difference is critical.
An accredited instructor is usually a life. A dedicated martial artist. Someone who loves the craft. A hobbyist can buy a franchise and sometimes they do. (Remember what I said about being biased? Don’t shoot the messenger here). Of course, there are exceptions in every field, so, therefore, a simple check of the chief instructor’s background is telling. What have they been doing with their career? Who trained them and what is their relationship with their instructor and organization?
A brand new school with a young instructor could be a red flag of inexperience but so can a middle-aged franchise owner too. Usually, a franchise exists to make money on martial arts whereas a dedicated master makes money teaching what they love and would do it for free. In the end, there’s never a substitute for real masters of their craft teaching the standards and skills of the method they’ve given their lives to…and that can be in any method.
In all, we’re looking for character and consistency first. If you visit a school and can’t ask tough questions, leave. We aren’t talking about being rude. We simply mean something like, “how long have you been training and who taught you?” Every serious martial artist knows the special impact of those questions. The instructor should be more than happy to answer those questions and you should have no trouble looking up their past. It’s 2026, for crying out loud!
Anyone can get a snazzy social media presence these days, right? What you’re looking for in hiring a karate, kung-fu, or martial arts instructor is honesty and character. If you don’t get transparency on this issue, walk.
Now, if you’re interested in the best fighting styles and all that, things change a bit. And this brings us to the other bookend: the modern combat sports program as martial arts program.
The traditional karate methods are not going to produce the best application skill for you or your children compared to boxing, MMA, or BJJ in the short term. This isn’t because the traditional methods are inferior so much as it’s a matter of training focus. An MMA school is going to have students sparring earlier and more often than a traditional program. Furthermore, the realism of that sparring, including targets (punches to the head, for example) are usually better than in karate.
But there’s a tradeoff. In boxing there’s obviously the issue of head trauma, so you have to watch how much contact there is. Who wants little Johnny to be punch drunk before he’s old enough to drive? Some karate schools go really hard in sparring and kids get kicked in the noggin, so there’s that. In MMA and BJJ there’s not only head trauma at risk but nearly every other issue too. Including things like ringworm and staph infections. Totally not kidding.
If you want your child to turn into a killer and be the next UFC champion there are a host of risks to that. I’d naturally try to reason with you that those risks aren’t worth it, but this article isn’t about that. The point is: some schools dish out beatings and injuries pile up. Here’s the toll on one teenager I know of in a nearby MMA/BJJ school:
- torn ACL and meniscus
- Broken foot
- One case of ringworm
- Concussion
And that’s not completely unheard of, nor an extreme case.
Bumps and bruises are going to happen in every field of athletics, yes, but we now have a phenomenon wherein many “regular people” are training like champion fighters. The problem with that is they are taking all the risk that goes with such devotion but not getting paid handsomely for it.
My honest advice is that the fight game is brutally demanding and if your child needs that much aggression in life, see about getting him/her into the Marines early. The chances of your child (or you) becoming the next UFC champion are pretty slim. Sorry to say that, but we need to. I see the insurance and liability numbers in the industry and the UFC has created an explosion in training related injuries. You are warned.
If you’re looking for a very practical method for yourself or child, you simply can’t go wrong with boxing, Muay Thai or BJJ. But you really have to be careful. My advice: find a BJJ school that doesn’t push people into competing, and/or a boxing gym that has light sparring. Listen to the coaches…if they keep mentioning toughness and rarely reference safety, that’s a clue.
Some schools have after school pickup and your child may be eligible for that depending on where they attend. This has the obvious pro of being super convenient if you’re working late and/or don’t want to sit in carpool lines contemplating life and bumper stickers. The con is that it’s rather pricey and the busier the program is, the dicier the supervision.
The cold fact is that other organizations have tons of regulations for after-school care. Martial art schools sort of slip through the cracks on this and often have teenagers doing part time work and instead of asking if you want to upsize your order they’re managing bullies and other dramas. In one case a few years ago an irate grandfather called me to demand an explanation for why his beloved grandson’s face looked like he’d gone a few rounds with Tyson the day before in the afterschool program. It took me awhile to explain that my school doesn’t have afterschool pickup. The grandfather, furious over the child’s injuries and lack of communication from the school, simply hung up on me once this was adequately relayed.
Of course, this isn’t to say that everyone’s child is sure to get slapped around like the Cowboys’ Super Bowl hopes every year, but if you want to make sure you’re aware of what’s happening with your child’s life, that’s a risk you’re going to take.
In summation, and to repeat, be clear about what you’re looking for in the first place. Don’t join a BJJ school thinking it’s like Tae Kwon Do. Second, look for character and professionalism in the instructor. Don’t let your love of a particular martial art method like BJJ or JKD cause you to overlook clear warning signs in the instructor’s character.