Parents Who Choose Us

There are several reasons why 4S Ranch & Rancho Bernardo parents choose our martial arts school for their kids.  We ensure they have the right combination of practical martial arts and character development.  Many 4S Ranch martial arts schools put an over-emphasis on character development without actually teaching them the skills they need to defend themselves.  Because of this kids become disillusioned with the martial arts as they grow up, deciding their martial arts training hindered rather than helped their development.  We want to make sure the training our kids receive is high quality, so that when they become adults they feel it has a huge impact on their focus, self-control, confidence, and leadership.  

Our 4S Ranch Martial Arts school believes in motivating kids not just with karate, but with achievements in all areas of their lives.  We want our students to be thinking about growing not just on the mat, but in their daily lives.  We give examples in our kids martial arts classes of five main skills to work on.  We say skills because we want students to know these are things they can get better at.  Just like one student might be a bit stronger, someone might have more self-control than another.  We go through everyday examples to make sure they know it.  It’s not just in Karate class kids need to have focus.

Students of the Week

We always pick a student of the week and give them something to show they earned it.  We look for students who elevate the class and make them all stronger, influencing them in a positive way.  We also look for students who have been working on something like self-control in class and highlight them making an effort to improve.

Merit Badges

Our merit badges rotate out monthly and are a way to get students to practice off the mat.  Whether it’s a blocking set, kicking set, or pushup merit badge, kids are constantly trying to earn them.  We encourage fitness goals for kids and disguise repetition with our badges.  Kids can improve their discipline by looking at their training in a new way.  

Student of the Month

Every month we pick a student who has been exceptional all month long.  We honor them with a small plaque and post them up on the wall so that we can remember their achievement and contribution to the school!

5 Animal Character Program

We offer free character  cards to parents who enroll their children in our martial arts program.  These cards have self-control, discipline, leadership, honesty, and respect on them with examples of each.  Parents review the card with kids daily, marking it off every day the child does well.  They return the cards to the school and receive a patch, wristband, or star.  When they complete all 5 they receive a five animal patch.  

Leadership Week

We want our students to learn how to influence their friends for the things they believe in. If they enjoy the martial arts they can invite friends to come to leadership week.  Students are awarded with a special stripe and token for having a positive impact on their friends’ lives.  

Our students train in the martial arts for their own growth, but sometimes they want to learn how to help teach and instruct others as well.  We sometimes invite students who show an interest in teaching to our leadership classes.  Students spend about a month learning how to help out on the mat in the class and begin assisting the younger kids martial arts classes.  These classes don’t  cost anything extra, but we teach a lot of concepts that they can use for positive relationships and teaching for the rest of their lives.  Things like understanding learning styles, class control, how to correct kids in a positive way, and how to redirect students who are misbehaving or having a hard time focusing.  Some 4S Ranch martial arts schools charge for leadership programs but we think that’s silly, we want our students to enjoy teaching and growing, all they need is to show an aptitude to be a great leader on the mat.  

All of our 4S Ranch instructors were once students at our school.  We don’t bring in someone from a different school or organization to run classes, we want parents to know that our program works.  We think the best way to see that is to see a young man or woman running classes who used to be a 7 year old white belt in the back, now a 2nd degree black belt instructor.  All of our instructors have gone through our leadership program, and then our instructor certification which requires 50 hours of shadowing an instructor and then running classes, as well as a written exam.  We are proud of our instructors, we love watching them grow, and we don’t want to limit that growth. If our instructors decide it is time to leave 4S Ranch for college or a new career we always encourage it!  Check out our students page and read some of the stories of past students.