Our Mission:
Our goal is to increase the quality of life of our members and clients by teaching personal safety skills, mind/body awareness, and the self-defense mindset that generates self-confidence and a greater sense of personal empowerment, well-being, and security.
We offer traditional martial arts, self-defense, and fitness classes for men, women, and children. We'll teach you effective physical resistance techniques so you can respond confidently and convincingly if you are ever faced with a threatening situation. In addition to punches, blocks, and kicks, we also take great care to teach and reinforce the principles of risk reduction so that you're less likely to become a target or victim of violence.
We seek to promote greater understanding and appreciation of the traditional martial arts and ways through formal training and education, and we aim to develop martial artists into positive role models and leaders by teaching strong, positive character traits: the virtue of patience, the power of kindness, and the importance of respect.
We want to enable more people to discover the many benefits of lifelong martial arts and self-defense training. We offer adaptive self-defense classes for people of all levels of ability, and proudly bring professional, customized self-defense training directly into the workplace with our traveling seminars.
Our Vision:
At our dojo, we want to keep traditional martial arts training relevant to living in the modern world. Beyond the development of physical skill, our Black Belt curriculum focuses on teamwork, character development and building the leadership skills that will carry over into all areas of your life. We strongly encourage all martial artists to make worthy contributions to their neighborhoods and communities, so the students in our programs participate in community service activities as part of our Black Belt testing process.
Our dojo is a center for peace education. We balance the "martial" aspects of our training by studying peacemakers and humanitarians, and by embracing the principles of nonviolent communication and peaceful conflict resolution. We believe that "practicing self-defense" includes living a healthy lifestyle, practicing conscious consumption, and taking care of our environment.
About the Emerald Necklace
"The Emerald Necklace" is the name of the interconnected system of parks and waterways that winds its way through the city of Boston. Designed and engineered in the 1800's by Frederick Law Olmstead (who also designed New York's Central Park), the Emerald Necklace connects Franklin Park Zoo, the Arnold Arboretum, Jamaica Pond, the Jamaicaway, the Riverway, and the Fenway by a unique and beautiful system of paths, gardens, streams, and open spaces. From within the Emerald Necklace, it is easy to forget that you are actually inside a major urban city. Just as the Emerald Necklace connects the various Boston neighborhoods, Emerald Necklace Martial Arts seeks to bring Boston-Area residents closer together as a community. More information about the Emerald Necklace can be found at http://www.emeraldnecklace.org/
The Emerald Necklace — a man-made system — can be viewed as a metaphor for martial arts training and Black Belt excellence: what appears to be natural and effortless is actually the result of determined vision, collaboration, and many years of hard physical work.
The kanji behind the dragon are the Japanese characters for "bu" (martial/military) and "do" (way/path). Thus, "Budo" is the "Martial Way." The Martial Way, (or, warrior's path) however, is not merely a means for achieving physical superiority or victory in combat, and preparing for an actual physical confrontation is not the only purpose of martial arts training. The primary goal of martial arts training is the development of discipline and impeccable character. Followers of the Martial Way seek self-knowledge and self-perfection by studying the ways of adversity (combat, strategy, and tactics) on physical, mental, and emotional levels — and, the most worthy opponent lies within ourselves!
