During these times we continue to be inspired by the creativity of people who are trying to have an impact on society and help each other. Nadja and Martin wanted to help karateka during these times and created by chance the World`s largest Online Dojo for Karate.
Karate is known to train your mind, to strengthen your character and to keep you fit, but so far it was connected to training in the dojo with other people. Suddenly all dojos were closed and karateka were desperate as they could not train anymore as till then there was little resources of digital training solutions. Karate is a lot of self-discipline and you can easily train even in a small space of 1m x 1m by yourself.
When Martin was live streaming teaching a class on facebook on March 19, it was surprising that lots of his karateka friends around the world were watching and training to his class from their homes. The feedback was so positive that we decided to carry on. Within 52 days we grew organically to over 11,000 members (as per today 05/09/2020). The members are from over 110 different countries around the world and it is everyone: top athletes, karateka with over 40+ year experience, younger and older folks, beginners, observers, contributors, they see themselves as a big karate family.
We offer 1hour classes daily live streamed in our fb group and once per month a 3-day weekend bootcamp (called “mini” Gasshuku). We are completely for non-profit and all instructors are given their classes for free.
Through the power of our network and also the growing power of this platform we could offer a range of top instructors from all around the world so far, the key highlights that individually 4,000-11,000 views per class:
The key benefits of the platform according to members are:
OSS, Nadja & Martin (Co-Founders)
HOW IT WORKS:
Karate is known to train your mind, to strengthen your character and to keep you fit, but so far it was connected to training in the dojo with other people. Suddenly all dojos were closed and karateka were desperate as they could not train anymore as till then there was little resources of digital training solutions. Karate is a lot of self-discipline and you can easily train even in a small space of 1m x 1m by yourself.
When Martin was live streaming teaching a class on facebook on March 19, it was surprising that lots of his karateka friends around the world were watching and training to his class from their homes. The feedback was so positive that we decided to carry on. Within 52 days we grew organically to over 11,000 members (as per today 05/09/2020). The members are from over 110 different countries around the world and it is everyone: top athletes, karateka with over 40+ year experience, younger and older folks, beginners, observers, contributors, they see themselves as a big karate family.
We offer 1hour classes daily live streamed in our fb group and once per month a 3-day weekend bootcamp (called “mini” Gasshuku). We are completely for non-profit and all instructors are given their classes for free.
Through the power of our network and also the growing power of this platform we could offer a range of top instructors from all around the world so far, the key highlights that individually 4,000-11,000 views per class:
- Yoshiba Ohta: 7th Dan and Chief instructor JKA England
- Geir Larsen: 7th Dan JKA Norway Chief instructor and member of JKA Shihan-Kai
- Chinzo Machida: 5th Dan JKA Brazil and record winning MMA fighter
- Mourad Saihia, 5th Dan KWF Algeria with over 10k views of his class!
- Don Sharp: 7th Dan JKA Canada and former World Champion JKA ’96 in Kumite
- Sandy Rantzow: 4th Dan JKA Sweden, multi time European champion, with record views
- Jerome G. Mhagama: 5th Dan JKA Tanzania
- Dimitri Papadopoulos: 5th Dan JKA USA and several times US national champion
- Tamara Wwengkang, 5th Dan and President of JKA Netherlands
- Arnaud Vicaire, 4th Dan JKA Belgium and Vice World Champion JKA in Kumite Team
- Petra Cifkova: JKA Czech Republic and 3rd place World Champion JKA in Kumite
- Boot Camp #2 weekend May 8-10 with in total 7 classes
- Sensei Rodrigo Rojas, JKA Chile and current World champion JKA in Kumite
- Lyoto Machida, 3rd Dan JKA Brazil and 10 times UFC champion
The key benefits of the platform according to members are:
- The opportunity to train with instructors from all around the world, you would have otherwise never had the chance to (58.2%)
- Having a digital resource for Karate (19.6%)
- As people are more and more busy nowadays, finding time in your day to not just train but also commute back and forth to the dojo is often difficult or people might travel a lot because of work and can`t attend a real class in the dojo. Karate@home saves them time and helps them to continue training (13.5%)
- And last, but not least we had some people claiming that this platform made them start training again, as they were too embarrassed to go to the dojo (8.7%)
OSS, Nadja & Martin (Co-Founders)
HOW IT WORKS:
- The instructor curation/vetting is done by Nadja and Martin. They want to make sure a certain standard is ensured but also to get a great variety of instructors from different countries, genders, ethnicities. The beauty is that you might train with instructors that are super famous, but also new ones you will otherwise never get the chance to train with. We are not affiliated to any association but it needs to be Shotokan Karate. It is a great platform for the instructors themselves as well to get to more popularity.
- The Event calendar is posted latest a week in advance on the fb group and page and members can sign up
- To watch the classes instructors will go live in the fb group at the time of the class and it will be uploaded afterwards on the fb page & you tube! All instructors are not professional directors or DOPs, so there is by no means the expectation of professionality and this authenticity and realness makes this group even more intimate
- The fb group is also a great community where members are posting interesting things around the topic Karate@Home and can get inspired, it is a great platform to exchange with other karateka around the world
- “I can see and I appreciate the class. The good thing coming out of this lockdown is being exposed to the different instructors and black belts I might not have otherwise gotten to train with and their own perspective on our beloved art” (Brian, USA)
- “I just want to say thank you, Every night at 18:00 I try to train karate, it is so great with al the sensei from all over the world (Jessie, Sweden)
- “A silver lining to this pandemic situation… excellent karate instruction shared around the globe readily accessible in our homes to all (Christina, USA)
- “Oss…Thank you and I really hope that this continues past isolation, When normal routine kicks in” (Vince, Mauritius)
- “For me such and enrichment in every way, such an unbelievable opportunity to get to know and get training from so many sensei! I would have never had met in this life. The Spirit is amazing. (Dagmar, Germany)
- “Great idea! Karate is family, we are not isolated, and the trainings are really good tool to remain fit, and to keep contacts with outside world (Francoise, France)
- “Thank you again for setting up this group, which I am sure is quite a lot of work being the scenes. This for me is a remarkably positive thing amidst an otherwise terribly difficult period for many. I look through the videos and cannot believe that, at the touch of a button, I can train and re-train with so many excellent instructors. All this positive energy, too... Of course, of course, we cannot wait to be back in our real dojos, being corrected “live” by our respective instructors. But in the meantime, what a fantastic idea this was. Thank you! Oss! (Emily, England)
- La vida es karate y karate es la vida (Juan, Spain)
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joinkarateathome
- Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/KarateAtHome/?ref=bookmarks
- Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/533907517263470/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtqGRGJtFEQiF-eHwhgRDWg/about?view_as=subscriber
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/karateathome/?viewAsMember=true
