New Year's Resolution

Hi!

One of my New Year's Resolutions is to get back into martial arts as a family activity. Last year, I trained briefly with some folks at Intel in the gym in OC2. They're good folks and I enjoyed my time with them, but I didn't feel it was a long term solution to my problem. The problem, of course, is that I needed to have somewhere to train on a regular basis and I really wanted it to be with my family.

We did some thinking and established some criteria that a school would have to meet in order for it to be a solution to our (no longer just "my") problem. First, it'd have to be a style that we all could enjoy and would help us to grow. Unofficially, this ruled out TKD since we wanted to feel like we were all going to start at the same level. Second, it'd have to have classes that allow us to train at basically the same time. We didn't want a school with a schedule that would require us to go there at certain times for the kids, and certain other times for the adults. The classes didn't have to be mixed, but they couldn't be so disjoint that it'd be a hassle. Third, we know Joshua will want to train with weapons, so we'd like to find a school that has some weapons training in the curriculum. Of course, the usual criteria apply as well: good facilities, nice people, reasonable tuition rates, competent instructors. We narrowed our choice down to three schools:

Ja Shin Do

Isshinryu Karate

Hung Fa Yi Wing Chun

All three schools meet the usual criteria. Isshinryu Karate might seem to violate the first based on the same reasons that we unofficially ruled out TKD (I'm already a black belt in Isshinyu), but since it has been so long I'd feel like I was starting over anyway. We still haven't made up our mind, but are planning to visit the Ja Shin Do school next week to try a class. I'll post again after our visit...

Thanks,
Matt