Confidence

Discipline

fun and friendship

Physical Skills

Leadership and
Life skills

Self defence

Our Age Specific Classes are outlined Below​

New Saturday classes starting after easter! 

Panda Tots
Ages 3 and 4 Years Old

Panda Tots is our very own unique
‘Mum/Dad & Me’ martial art themed class
for pre-schoolers.

These classes are a fun based interactive session, with 1 parent to 1 child, aimed at developing key motor skills and coordination, all wrapped up in a bundle of fun!

Panda Tots classes are held every Saturday morning during term-time. 

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Little DRagons 
Ages 5 and 6 Years

Enroll your 5 or 6-year-old in our Little Dragons programme at Team Black Belt. Designed for fun and high energy, our classes boost confidence, enthusiasm, concentration, and listening skills.

We focus on physical coordination and agility in a supportive, structured environment.

With small classes capped at 12 students, each child receives personalized attention, ensuring they thrive and overcome challenges with our karate-based activities in our Little Dragons programme, which is  perfect for 5 and 6 year-olds.

Karate Kids 1 
Ages 7 and 8 years 


Our Karate Kids Programme aims to teach not only a system of effective self-defence but also to inspire confidence and self-esteem in our students through achievement.

We start every class with a 'Courtesy and Respect' bow, followed by a Warm-Up game, and then move onto our structured martial arts programme – emphasising fun, focus, and learning new skills.

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KARATE kIDS 2  
Ages 9 and 10 Years

Karate Kids 2 classes for 9 and 10 year olds are the next step up.

No longer an infant school type class, we begin to think about the upcoming move to ‘big school’, and the self-confidence and life skills they will need to be able to deal with anything that they might face.

Grading up through our belt system via their own effort and achievement, this begins to grow within them.

kARATE kIDS 3 
Ages 10 to teens  

Higher level Martial Art skills for sure - working towards a Junior Black Belt! Self-reliance, self-control and confidence all play a part in these Karate Kids 3 classes, but keeping a lighter side to lessons is still crucial to ensuring motivation remains high.

Balancing learning, discipline and fun is why children love coming to Team Black Belt, and why they stick with us.

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Adults Karate  
There's no Age restrictions here! 

Adults Classes ~ Ages 13 and above!

Social, friendly, supportive, positive, fun atmosphere – and yes, we even do some training from time to time!

Many of our Adult students have children enrolled in Team Black Belt, and are a friendly bunch who ‘do their best’.

We all have limitations and stresses but training with us is a great way to get a little ‘Me-Time’ and decompress in a fun, healthy way.

You may surprise yourself with how quickly your fitness, both physical and mental, improves.

We have all ages within our Adults classes; 13 yrs to 63 yrs average age range, and a pretty much 50/50 gender ratio split, so you’ll fit in just fine..  

Location

What3Words: fork.torch.volume.

Unit 7, Olton Wharf,
Richmond Rd,
Olton, Solihull.
B92 7RN

Click image above for Google Maps

Are you worried about your child
being Bullied?  

Combat Physical Bullying: Protect Your Child with Our Proven Anti-Bullying Programme

In the current landscape, bullying manifests in various distressing forms, with physical bullying being a particularly troubling aspect. 

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It's heart-wrenching for parents to witness their children coming home with physical signs of bullying, such as bruises and damaged clothing, especially after attempting to resolve these issues through school interventions. At Team Black Belt, we understand this challenge deeply. That's why our expert, Sensei Mike, has meticulously developed our Anti-Bullying Programme, drawing from his direct experience with his son's struggle against bullying during the crucial early years of secondary school.

Our programme goes beyond just addressing the immediate concerns; it's reinforced with our comprehensive, free 'Parent’s Guide to Bullying'. This guide is a valuable resource, offering "The Five Essential Steps to Safeguard Your Child and Effectively Stop Bullies Immediately."

Empower your child against physical bullying and ensure their safety. Explore our Anti-Bullying Programme today – a proactive solution for parents and children facing the challenges of bullying in schools.

Stop Bullies NOW - FREE Video Workshop. 

Introduction 

What a Bully Needs

Secret Messages

Confidence Machine

Ready For Action Drills

Quick Escapes

Know the Distance

Stun and Run

Self Defence

The Most Important Things

Why choose team black belt?

(Our Culture Statement)

Our Passion: Shaping futures Through Martial Arts
At Team Black Belt, our passion goes beyond teaching martial arts – it's about making a lasting impact on the lives of our students. We believe in the transformative power of Martial arts, not just as a physical discipline but as a tool for personal growth and development.

Empowering Every Child
We're dedicated to empowering every young individual who steps into our dojo. Martial arts is a fantastic way for children to build confidence, learn respect, and develop discipline. These are skills that extend far beyond the mats – they're life lessons that shape our students into confident, responsible, and resilient individuals.

A Supportive Environment
We've cultivated more than just a training centre; we've built a community. A place where children feel safe to express themselves, challenge their limits, and celebrate their achievements. Our dojo is a space where friendships are formed, respect is nurtured, and every child feels valued and supported.

Instilling Life-Long Values
At the heart of our culture are the values of respect, honesty, perseverance, and kindness. We instill these values in our students through every lesson. Our aim is to not only develop skilled martial artists but to nurture well-rounded individuals who carry these values into their everyday lives.

Celebrating Every Achievement
We take pride in celebrating every milestone, big or small. Whether it’s mastering a new move, breaking through barriers, or moving up a belt, every achievement is a step towards greater self-belief and resilience.

This is why we do what we do at Team Black Belt.
We're not just teaching martial arts; we're helping shape the future, one child at a time..

Click on the image to Connect to Social Media

Team Black Belt Blogs

For More Resources Click on the image below

Team Black Belt's Student Knowledge Site

Sensei Mike's Business Books 

The Adventures of Mighty Mitch Children's Books.

How does team Black Belt 
Help Children? 

Martial Arts is a fantastic activity to get children involved with, and as all children are different there are many different ways your child will benefit from participating.

some of The Mental health and development benefits are...

A Major Confidence Boost - A feeling of self-assurance coming from an understanding of your own capabilities and qualities. This is one of the most instant and noticeable things to happen when a child starts with Team Black Belt.

When training in Martial Arts a child a starts to believe that they can cope with, and deal with, unexpected challenges which they may encounter. This uplift in Confidence has almost no limits in which they will benefit in all areas of their lives.

Renewal of Self-esteem - With Confidence comes a renewal of self-esteem and self-worth, leading children to interact more with the world around them. Claim Their Space - Use their Voice - Feeling better about themselves leads them to be able to speak up, ‘claiming their space’ more in both the classroom and social settings.

Having a sense of purpose - The goal of gaining their next belt gives children something to aim for – and learning how to set clear goals and then achieve them is a valuable life lesson to every child.

Better Focus and Concentration
– Learning to focus and concentrate is a skill. We teach them how to listen and watch carefully, and then translate what they have observed in to an action. But telling children to ‘pay attention’ is pointless, unless they know HOW to pay attention.
However, even our youngest customers can learn HOW with this simple mantra that we repeat with them…

~ Pay attention with your eyes - Look at the teacher.
~ Pay attention with your ears - Listen to the teacher.
~ Pay attention with your brain - Think about what you are seeing and hearing.
~ Pay attention with your body - Keep it still.
~ Pay attention with your mouth- Keep it closed unless asked something.

This cycle leads to the development of this ability, and as we say in class, Practice makes Permanent!

Reduced Stress - a Positive Outlet – With today’s 24/7 online access it’s harder than ever to shield children from the turmoil and worries of the adult world around them. Add in their own unique pressures of friendship groups, schools, exams etc and it’s no wonder that time out should be taken for children to protect their mental health equally as well as their physical health. Training and exercise combined with fun in our classes is a great de-stressor, with massive benefits to their overall health.

Rules Boundaries and Structure - The structure of our classes and the "cool" subject means that children are only too happy to work within the boundaries and rules that we insist upon. Doing so means that they also learn how to self-regulate and control their impulses, which like everything is a skill that has to be learned and practised.

This skill can then start to be applied in other settings when necessary, such as classrooms, public areas, relationships, and when older, employment settings etc. Learning behavioural self-discipline is one of the most important life lessons we can ever learn. 



Some of the Physical and Health
benefits are…. 


Strength - Repeated movements and holding positions builds muscle strength. Did you know a typical session of Martial Arts uses every muscle in the body!

Flexibility - Many of the Martial Arts movement have a yoga influence, and the ability to kick the highest is a great motivator for a child to try to increase their range of movement.

Endurance - The ability for the body to keep going push through and develop is an integral part of what we do.  

Aerobic capacity - Karateka (people who perform Karate) have a great engine, we are constantly on the move creating and using energy.   

Balance - Moving kicking and transferring your body weight leads to enhanced balance.

Co-ordination and Proprioception - Martial arts is a fantastic tool for developing coordination and proprioception (knowing where your body is in space), again useful in many situations in life. - 

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Our Guiding Principles  

Our guiding principles are:-

That we will positively affect the lives of children, both Physically and Mentally, by raising their Self-esteem and Inspiring their Self-confidence to Soar.

We will Support, Boost, Champion, Encourage, Motivate and Inspire them to reach their Full Potential.

This is to be achieved by engaging with them through Martial Arts Activities and the use of Personal Safety programmes and Personal Development tools, in a Welcoming, Warm, Safe, Positive and Professional Environment and Structure.

Our Values 


Courtesy
Respect
Friendliness
Honesty
Positivity
Achievement
Hard Work
Encouragement
Perseverance
Loyalty
Kindness
Strength
Discipline

What Parents say about us 

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Joanne O

"My 8 year old daughter absolutely loves her karate school, she has been attending for over a year now and still gets excited every Thursday for her lesson. A lovely welcoming school teaching the children courtesy and respect. 5 stars for Team Black Belt.

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Katy S

I've been watching my nephew here for a while now, and it's fantastic to see Mike not only teach his students the skills of Karate, but also the skills to be respectful and polite at all times, with a brilliant high level of discipline too. Fantastic to see! 

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Leanne  H

Just brilliant, the kids absolutely love going.
This is a fantastic school and brilliant with children I highly recommend to anyone that is looking for a fun weekly class with lots of benefits, with not only a chance for the children to make new friends but also parents to get to know each other by meeting every week and having a coffee whilst the kids train in martial arts A****** 

Meet Sensei Mike

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The day I passed my Black Belt was the best day of my life.

I had worked for it. I had sweated for it. I had focused for it and I had earned it.

The feeling of achievement and acceptance from my peers was like nothing I had ever felt before, and have rarely felt since.

I was 19 years old and ecstatic, I felt indestructible; my confidence in my own abilities was unshakable.

Over the course of the next 25 years I was to create and run my own business and at one stage employed over 300 people!

It was down to that day... that one day, when I knew I could achieve anything I set my mind to.

Now I try, in every minute of every lesson, to give that feeling of accomplishment and self-belief to the students who attend Team Black Belt.

It's my Mission, my Passion and the reason behind Team Black Belt.

Since starting Team Black Belt I had had over 50 students graduate to Black Belt and I take great pride knowing what they have accomplished physically, but even more so in knowing I have helped create balanced, motivated and positive human beings who are a credit to themselves and their families. 


Meet Mitch - He's to Blame !  

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Hi, I'm Sensei Mike and this is the story of Team Black Belt, and how we came to exist.

Yes, it's all his fault.
Let me introduce you to Mitch, he's my son and in this picture he's seven years old.

Back in 2006 I had been training in the Japanese art of Wado Ryu Karate for over 30 years. I had reached my 3rd Dan (degree) Black Belt and wanted to get Mitch involved with the art that I loved so much and that had done so much to shape my life.

So I took him to a Traditional Japanese type Karate school, with high hopes for him and a great father and son bonding activity. So much for that.

He hated it! 

He said he was bored marching up and down doing the same things over and over again never being able to get it quite right.

He didn't like being in a class with children who were much older than him and he felt uneasy around some of the adults in the class, (some of them were three and four times his body weight).

I could see things were not going to work out so well. It was now that fate, for once, landed on my side.

Another Karate instructor, a friend of mine who ran a school in Coventry said that he was not going to reopen his classes after the Christmas break (only a couple of weeks away) so I told him I would take it over from January 5th and so Team Black Belt was born a school gym in Coundon Court School, Coventry.

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Later in the year of 2007 we managed to establish the hiring of a room at Solihull Ice Rink and we rapidly expanded the size of Team Black Belt.

Our rapid growth was in part due to our ethos of making Karate and Martial Arts child friendly and age appropriate.

Mixing core skills with fun and games, life skill lessons with high energy classes.
By 2008 things were really moving and it was time for our own full time home, our very own Team Black Belt full-time, fully equipped and fully matted Martial Arts Academy.
In September 2023 we moved into our current home at 

Olton Wharf,  7 Richmond Rd, Olton, Solihull. B92 7RN .

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it's Just
a Martial Arts Academy  



Things get built here - Stronger bodies. Fitter bodies. Confident bodies.
Things get broken here - Barriers. Silence. Sweat. Shyness. Loneliness .

....but it's just a Martial Arts Academy

Friendships are forged. Community is created. We rally together in the sad times. We celebrate the good times. We laugh together.
We cry together. We lift each other in good and bad times.

.....but it's just a Martial Arts Academy

We conquer our demons. We relieve our stress. We quiet the voices in our heads. We feel at home here.

.....but it's just a Martial Arts Academy

We train together. We improve together. We learn together. We grow as individuals and we grow, together.

.....but it's just a Martial Arts Academy It's the date in our diary we never miss. It's the time for us to be carefree. It's the place where we can let go. It's part of our lives. It's our family.

It's NOT JUST a Martial Arts Academy!

Welcome to Team Black Belt. 


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