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Mr. Meisowitz:  Don joined the Leadership group about three or four weeks ago, and last week we got a call from his teacher saying that in the past couple of weeks, his behavior has been a lot better in class.  His attitude has changed, he’s helping out.  Basically, he’s been 100% different than he was before.  Ever since he joined leadership he’s improved even more.

Don Meisowitz:  I think Adventure Karate is fun and it’s very instructive for yourself, and you learn how to be successful in life.  I’m getting grounded less.  I’ve been doing my chores more and more often.  I’ve been helping out with everybody.  The reason I’m taking martial arts at Adventure Karate is because it helps me be successful in life, and you have something constructive to do instead of doing bad stuff.

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     Hi, I'm Wavia Jones and I live in Brunswick.  This is my daughter Jennifer who's also in Leadership Class.  I wanted martial arts for self-esteem and leadership skills.  Instead of being the follower, Jennifer will do what’s right.  Adventure Karate is developing her character.  It’s more self-control, focus, discipline, becoming a leader, and knowing what’s right and wrong,  
     I believe it’s helping her in school, where she’s not getting into a clique at school.  She’s becoming her own self, being a leader.  Like I had mentioned before, I don’t care if Adventure Karate costs $500 a month.  This is what she needs.  This is what’s going to help her future, build her character, and I believe that this instills enough in her that she can teach her children this way.  Money is not an issue.  She’s definitely going to continue doing this.  With Adventure Karate, you guys are a godsend, because this is just conditioning her for her future.

 Jennifer: I like Leadership because I have a lot of friends here, and they definitely bring out a different kind of personality in me, so I’m a lot more cheerful and happy.

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Brandon:  I like that you have a Leadership class and you get to do extra things that teach me how to have self-control and not to do what other people do.  Like you were saying today, not following the same path as other kids that do bad things.  One good thing is that I listen more now to my parents.  One positive thing is I’m taking more time to do my homework by studying more

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Mrs. Calhoun:  It’s hard because they’re so close and each only 15 months apart, so there’s a lot of fighting.  They wear the same clothes, so “You’re wearing my shirt,” and a lot of that stuff.  But it’s really calmed down a lot.  They’re really starting to try to talk more.  Before they’d get physical. 

 Mr Calhoun:  When the brochure was sent out to the house describing what the program was about, there were two things that appealed to us.  Number one of course was the teaching of karate skills for defensive purposes with two girls, and second was and more importantly the emphasis on the life-changing skills.  
     I’d say without emphasizing and making them aware of some of these life skills like self-discipline, self-control, about confidence, about wanting to be successful, how to deal with failure – Without learning about these things, then they won’t be as successful in learning skills in other areas.

Jessica:  I think my behavior has improved increasingly since I’ve been at Adventure Karate, and I think I’ve learned how to control my emotions more.  I used to always yell in my mom’s face and now I don’t anymore. 

Erin:  Sometimes we used to wrestle for fun, and sometimes one of us would call the other names or hurt each other’s feelings and now we try not to.

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Rodney Melillo:  Our kids, Reed and Aaron, are both students here.  Actually, karate was way low on things we wanted to do with the kids.  They play a lot of sports and are involved in a lot of activities.  When we read about what this school does – what the focus is – and came in and spoke with you and then saw it, was when we changed our minds, and both kids had to come.  It’s not about fighting at all.  That is amazing.  It’s really about what it does for them personally. 

     Within the two and a half months they’ve been here, they’re picking up the room on their own.  They get their laundry put in a basket.  They’re far more helpful.  They are far more self-disciplined, just in their mannerisms with one another.  When I introduce them to adults, they greet them and look them in the eye – things that they wouldn’t listen to when I was trying to get them to do it previously.  It’s more of The Karate Kid movie karate, without the fighting.

Lynn Melillo:  When I thought of karate before, I thought oh great, Power Rangers.  The kids are going to be kicking and hitting each other all day long at home.  That’s not it at all.  It’s the character issues like you said.  It’s the respect for adults.  It’s focusing.  It’s doing things without being told.  It’s having self-control, it’s less chaotic at home. 

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Linda Vandertown:  My daughter’s name is Kaylor and she’s 6.  She just started here about two months ago.  Before karate, I would say Kaylor was extremely shy, very timid, hanging onto me, fingers in the mouth, looking down at the ground, especially when she would meet people she did not know.   

     Well, first of all, fingers are not in the mouth anymore, which is really nice.  She gives eye contact, she’s a lot more confident about herself, and has higher self-esteem.  She’s energetic.  I feel within the short time span she’s been at Adventure Karate, the before and after results are incredible. 

     I think it’s really important that I mention something to the parents who have daughters.  I had an immediate trust with Sensei Stronsick and my daughter Kaylor.  I know that Sensei Stronsick is very respectful of her, wants only the best for her, and wants only for her to achieve the best from herself so that she will do well.  I feel very comfortable and trust Sensei with my daughter Kaylor.  And that’s very important for moms to know out there with daughters.  

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Olga Delgado:  My name’s Olga Delgado and I’m the grandmother to Anthony Reese who is 7.  He’s been coming to Adventure Karate for about a total of seven months now.  Before he came to Adventure Karate, he wouldn’t listen.  It was always an attitude.  You’d tell him to go make his bed, and he’d say, “Yeah, yeah, in 10 minutes.  Let me watch my cartoons.”

     Now when he comes to my house he respects me.  He’ll listen to me.  I don’t need to talk to him 2 or 3 times anymore.  I see the difference.  He’s definitely learning, and the discipline is so good.  And I’m glad that he uses that word “Focus,” because the first thing I tell him is, “What did sensei say?”  And he says, “Oh, Grandma, I know I gotta focus.” 

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Robin Hartzell:  My daughter’s name is Gabrielle and she’s 8.  She’s been coming to Adventure Karate for a little over 2 months.  What I like is that you tend to be very patient with the children.  You don’t degrade them.  In a positive manner, you are able to get them to re-focus, and I think that’s really a very positive thing.

Gabrielle:  I love it and I like that you don’t just say do stuff.  You actually talk about what you can do to make your parents happy.  And I learned that you have to ‘give it to get it.’  That means if you want something in life, then you have to give it to get it.  Like if you want your mom to take you to a special place, you have to do something for her first.” 

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Diana Brown:  I’m the mother of Tyler, age 9, and Andrea, who just turned 11.  At home Tyler would throw a two to three hour fit just to get his room cleaned, kicking and screaming on the floor, toys everywhere – he would through them out of the toy box and make a bigger mess than before.  Now of course, the results after being at Adventure Karate, the teachers, his babysitters, the whole works, are just absolutely amazed. 

      His grades have gone up.  His grades were on a C/D average, and now he gets straight A’s.  In the last two and a half months, I have never even seen the trash full.  He gets up in the morning and it’s taken out.  I don’t have to ask. 

     I will tell you my first reaction, and that is with Tyler’s anger problem.  I did not want him going to school beating children up.  That was my first concern with signing him up at Adventure Karate.  I was extremely surprised at how it does just the opposite.  It teaches him discipline. 

      In previous years, Andrea was very shy.  She didn’t have a whole lot of friends.  In fact, all of her birthday parties have been with family only.  Now of course, her self confidence has risen to extremes.  She has tons of friends.  We just had our first slumber party for her birthday.  We had tons of girls over.  And for the first time she ran for Class President and only lost by one vote.  That didn’t make her quit, she volunteered to help the President out at any time that they may need some ideas or help running the show. 

      Now, it used to take Andrea about 3 to 3 ½  hours to do her homework every night.  She now knows how to remain focused and doing her homework now only takes anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. 

          Lastly she just put on weight over the last few years.  And from going to Adventure Karate she is losing about a half a pound every week, and she has actually dropped, I believe a total of 7 pounds in the last 2 ½ months. 

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Melinda Myer:  My children are Joey, he’s 12, and Sophie she’s 9.  Joey will be going to a middle school this year.  So he’ll be exposed to all sorts of things that he has never seen before.  And at this age, the conversation at home is harder to draw him out, harder to find out what’s going on.  As a parent, you ask questions, “How was school today,” and you get very limited answers out of it.  So I feel that the lessons that he gets here at Adventure Karate, in terms of how to deal with peer pressure are very subtle.  He’s not even aware that he’s been taught them as they’re being taught to him, and I think he keeps those in his head, which is nice. 

       It has been very hard though for Sophie.  Sophie’s not an athletic type of person, and we’ve tried to introduce Sophie to all sorts of different activities, and she’s really had a hard time staying committed to any of them.  I’ve always said to her that if she’s going to commit to something, she needs to do it for a year and find out if she really likes it, and if at the end of the year she doesn’t like it, then she’s allowed to switch to something else.  But that’s been a real challenge for her. 

     I was surprised because Joey started first at Adventure Karate, and Sophie came to watch, and I really thought it would be too physical for her or that she would say, “No, I’d rather do yoga,” or something that’s very low key.  But she came home and said she really wanted to try.  So I’ve been very impressed with the effort that she’s made here.  

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Anna Tadios:  I have a 6 ½-year-old son Nathan. Some of the things that he’s learned from Adventure karate so far have been to be kind and nice and stay focused.  All the reasons why parents would want their child to do well in school are reinforced here.   

     Here’s something that just happened.  All the kids were playing soccer, and one or two of them wanted Nathan to kick the ball really hard, because that’s a lot of fun, right, kicking the ball really hard?  Well Nathan knows that if he’s going to kick the ball, there are windows around the house, and other kids can get hurt, and he goes, “No, I’m not going to kick the ball really hard!”  So he didn’t.  So the other kids proceeded to say, “Oh, come on Nathan, do it!  Do it!”  [Nathan replied,] “No, I’m not going to listen to you.  I’m going to remain focused.  I’m going to kick the ball the way I want to kick it.”  And they started resuming play. 

      The parents afterwards came up to me and said, “Gosh, how did you teach your child to do that?”  And I said, “You know what?  It was from Adventure Karate.”  And that’s how he learned how to ignore all of that peer pressure that was going on, and names didn’t hurt him and obviously didn’t affect what he was supposed to do, which was the right thing.

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Krista Ricci:  I have three children.  Alexandria, she’s 9, Tristen he’s 6, and Nicholas, he’s 4.  I’m a stay-at-home mom right now. 

     Before taking classes at Adventure Karate, it used to take ALexandria about 5 hours to do her homework.  Now, it’s getting done at least within 2 to 2 ½ hours.  As a matter of fact, today I was gone for a little bit and she had to walk home, and when I walked in, she had already come in and was already doing her homework.  I didn’t even have to tell her to do her homework. 

     From what I’ve seen here, this is more on the inside rather than just the physical outside.  As a matter of fact, here I’ve been learning stuff just by watching it.  And it’s almost like when you know you can do it, you don’t really have to do it, instead of when a person doesn’t know how to fight and they feel like they’ve got to go and prove to a bunch of people that they are really tough.  At Adventure Karate, I see that they’re getting confidence, and they’re learning so many outside things as far as taking care of themselves at home and then taking care of themselves at school, and how to have respect for other people and themselves. 

     And my kids actually are not going to school and saying, “I’ll show you some moves.”  Even when they talk about it, it’s more on the level of, “Yeah, I’ve been working harder on my homework.  It’s helped me out here.”  It’s not about, “Yeah, I learned how to really kick your butt.”  Nothing like that at all, and that’s in all honesty.

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Rhonda Rondeau.  My son’s name is Mason and he's 7 and goes to Adventure Karate.  He used to have a lot of issues in school, and a lot of people told me that he may be ADHD and told me to try various things.  I had at least 3 friends tell me to either try a low dose of Ritalin, or put him in a really good karate class. 

     In any case, he’s doing things that he’s never done great.  He comes home, and the first thing he does is look at his Job Chart.  He picks up his toys.  He brushes his teeth.  He even tells me, “Can I brush my teeth now?”  And I say, “No, you haven’t even eaten dinner yet.”  He asks me every day, “Was I cooperative with my brother?”  He gears towards these things, whereas before when he would take a shower, he’d throw the towel on the floor and left it behind there, and I’d pick it up.

     Since Adventure Karate, he’s been doing more in the house for himself than he’s ever done in his 7 years of life, and these things that he’s doing, he’s doing for himself.    

     You can go anywhere and get kicking and punching karate and belts and tournaments and all that kind of stuff, but the stuff that he’s learned at Adventure Karate I think is going to be invaluable to him.

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