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Parents enjoy spending time with their kids and often look for creative and quality activities to do with them. Kicking a soccer ball in the back yard, going to the local park to play catch, listening to music, or dancing together in the living room are all great activities to engage in with your child. However, consider for a moment adding a Karate class to that list of activities. The Martial Arts, Karate specifically, offers a tremendous opportunity for families to participate together in the same class while doing something that is beneficial to everyone involved. The phrase "A family that kicks together, sticks together" couldn't be any more truthful. More and more families are discovering that practicing Karate together actually encourages interaction between parents and their children, promotes sharing a common interest, and offers a number of healthy and fun benefits. So, you ask, how does practicing Karate provide these benefits? Regardless of age and skill level, Karate is a challenging activity. It offers a great exercise routine, teaches practical self-defense skills, and provides a structured environment that caters to each individual's ability. The mental, spiritual, and philosophical side of Karate can also build higher self-esteem, confidence, respect for others, positive motivation, and goal-setting skills.  The benefits of practicing Karate are many. Here are just a few that may pique your interest: FITNESS: Practicing Karate is an excellent workout that challenges the entire body and all of its muscle groups. Practicing Martial Arts burns more calories than most other activities other than swimming or running a 7-minute mile! Needless to say, it's a very good activity to maintain or improve your fitness levels and cardiovascular strength. SELF DEFENSE: Defending yourself is an important part of any practitioner's study of the Martial Arts. It is becoming more important and critical to possess a fundamental understanding and skill level of self-defense, regardless of age. Learning anti-bullying techniques and personal protection skills is just one aspect of the training. CONTINUOUS LEARNING: Karate is structured in a very systematic and progressive fashion that promotes constant refinement. Each Karate student is encouraged to practice individually and to seek knowledge for self-improvement and constant personal development. This type of teaching leads to interpersonal discipline and a solid work ethic. In a good Martial Arts school, you'll find there is always something new to learn and always something different to practice. This progressive content is introduced systematically so as not to overwhelm beginning students, while still providing a continuous challenge for intermediate and advanced students. SPIRITUALITY AND PHILOSOPHY: The philosophies contained in the Martial Arts are both valuable and beneficial to children as well as adults. The opportunity to study and practice these philosophies as a family can lead to very open and positive dialogue between parents and their children. Each of these different aspects of Karate and the Martial Arts has relevance to individuals of all ages, and consequently, parents and children are finding this to be a very enjoyable and challenging family activity for all who participate. There is nothing more fun than having a training partner — Mom, Dad, Brother, or Sister — to encourage you along the way. While training together, each individual brings their own view of the same activity to the overall experience, which leads to better communication and understanding between all family members. This improved communication will help put the "quality" in "quality time."  As you can see, enrolling in a Karate class is probably one of the best things you can do for your family. Start today and begin a journey that is well worth taking — one that will bring you and your family improved health, fitness, and fun.
If you're interested in starting your journey in Karate as a family and would like some useful information about the Martial Arts, we'd love to have you train with us at Claycomb Karate & Kickboxing in Fontana, CA. Give us a call at 909-600-6090 or visit us online at fontanakarate.com. Just remember: a family that KICKS together, STICKS together! Come train with us. 3 classes for $30. → fontanakarate.com/start
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Every school that's serious about your money-back guarantee, your child's discipline, and your time will charge you something for a trial. Here's why "free" is the red flag, not the reward. What a free trial is actually built to do A free trial isn't generosity. It's a funnel. Someone spent money to get you in the door, and now they need to recoup it — fast. The "free" week isn't training you're being invited into. It's a sales pipeline you're being fed through, and the training is whatever's left over after the pitch. The instructor's attention is on the close, not the craft. When a trial costs the school nothing to give away, the person running it is often not the head instructor — it's whoever's job is to get you signed before the week ends. You're being sold to, not taught. It attracts the wrong room. Free draws volume. Volume dilutes a class. A dojo that fills its mat with anyone who saw an ad isn't building the same environment as one where every student, kid or adult, showed up because they chose to invest something. The real cost shows up after, in the contract. Free trials are almost always the front door to a long-term membership agreement, priced to make up for the week they gave away. The pressure to sign gets heavier precisely because you didn't pay anything going in. You get zero signal about commitment — yours or theirs. Nothing was risked, so nothing is proven. A free trial tells you what a school looks like when it's performing for a stranger. It tells you nothing about what training actually feels like six months in.  Students training Shotokan Karate at Claycomb Academy in Fontana, CA  Two trials, two very different weeks The free trial — built to convert:
Why we charge $30 for three days Thirty dollars isn't a paywall. It's a filter — for the school as much as for you. It means we're not chasing a quota of free sign-ups, and it means the people on our mats during your trial actually want to be there too. Real Shotokan karate, taught by real black belts, with a lineage you can trace back generation by generation. Not a script, not a hard close, not a contract shoved at you on day three. If three days of honest instruction don't make the case for themselves, no discount ever will. That's the whole philosophy: family-operated, real lineage, no pressure, no gimmicks. Why we don't do walk-ins You won't find an open house at Claycomb. No walking in off the street to sit on a bench and watch a class. No drop-in, no "come whenever." Every visit is by appointment — and that's not an accident, it's a policy. Here's why. A school that lets anyone wander in whenever they want isn't protecting anything — not the class in progress, not the kids training, not your first impression of the dojo. It's optimizing for foot traffic, not for the room. Every other gym in this area runs an open-door policy. We don't, because an open door is a school that's built for volume, not for serious training. An appointment means when you show up, we're ready for you. Someone is expecting you, your visit gets full attention, and the class you're watching wasn't disrupted by a stranger walking in mid-kata. It also means you took a small, deliberate step to be there — which is exactly the kind of follow-through we're trying to build in every student who trains here. If a school will let anyone in the door at any time, ask yourself what that says about who else is going to be training next to your kid. A note from me personally I'm Shihan Joseph Claycomb, and I want to be straight about who I'm building this school for. I'm not trying to grow Claycomb Karate by stacking up as many sign-ups as I can get. I'm trying to grow it with serious families — people who show up because they want to learn the art itself, and who want their kids to actually gain what training gives them: discipline, focus, respect, real confidence that gets earned on the mat, not handed out. I'm passionate about teaching, and I'm passionate about my students' success. That's not a tagline — it's the reason I still get on the mat myself. What I teach is real Shotokan karate, no gimmicks, no watered-down curriculum dressed up to keep people entertained. If you train here, you're learning the actual art, the way it was passed down to me. This isn't babysitting. I'm not interested in being a place where a kid gets dropped off so a parent can get an hour back. I'm looking for parents who see training as something they're doing alongside their kid, not a service they're outsourcing a problem to. If you want your son or daughter to grow through consistent effort over time, we're the right room. If you're hoping one class a week quietly solves something at home, we're not. What I'm looking for are families who are going to stick. People who are in it because they actually want this for their kid, or for themselves — not people who disappear the second their school schedule shifts or their budget gets a little tight. I'd rather have a room of twenty families who train with us for years than two hundred who quit in a month. That's what the $30 trial is really screening for. Not your wallet. Your follow-through. — Shihan Joseph Claycomb, Claycomb Karate & Kickboxing Come see for yourself Three days on the mat. Thirty dollars. No contract pitch. Train with a real Shotokan lineage under Shihan Joseph Claycomb — kids and adults, Fontana, CA. |
FROM THE MAT | CLAYCOMB ACADEMY KARATE BLOGFrom the mats of Fontana's only authentic Shotokan dojo. Claycomb Academy covers real karate training, discipline & dojo culture for kids and adults. Archives
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Claycomb Karate | Traditional Karate & Kickboxing in Fontana CA
14976 Foothill Blvd., Suite #200, Fontana, CA 92335
TEL: ☎️ 909-600-6090
📍 GET DIRECTIONS📍
Authentic Shotokan Karate & Kickboxing · Fontana's Only Traditional School
TEL: ☎️ 909-600-6090
📍 GET DIRECTIONS📍
Authentic Shotokan Karate & Kickboxing · Fontana's Only Traditional School