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Classes

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Instruction is oriented to adults and young adults (12+). We consider younger students on an individual basis and are happy to have children train with their parents, but we have no separate kids' classes.

Sessions are 90 minutes long. We practice traditional techniques, do frequent full-contact training on pads, and incorporate body-weight strength-training and stretching.

Given the current COVID surge in Edmonton, as of 8 October, N95 masking is mandatory for indoor classes. We have seven windows which we open as much as the temperature allows and monitor ventilation with a CO2 meter. We run both a mechanical HEPA filter and a UV air purifier. 
Integral to our tradition is the commitment to take care of each other and the larger community. We are fortunate to be guided by an international public health expert, and we will relax our masking requirement if and when he tells us that local COVID conditions allow that.

Lucy, one of our black belt instructors, doing plyometric chest-clap push-ups (pre-COVID).
 

New students are welcome anytime! Anyone with a sincere desire to learn Seibukan is invited to try a class for free, regardless of experience or level of fitness. If you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail or text Doug (contact information is at the bottom of each page) or use the contact form below.



 

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Contact Us

The dojo kun hanging in the hombu dojo

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Class Schedule and Fees

In person: Tuesdays and Thursdays 1900-2030 and Saturdays 1000-1130.

Online:  Monday 1900 - 2000 MT and Sunday 1100-1200 MT.


Fees (in-person)

First class is free; first month is $50, which covers mandatory annual Karate Alberta dues.
 
After that, $70 per month or $710 per year ($130 discount). If three or more members from the same household are training in-person, the tuition for the family is $180 month. We are privileged to have a special relationship with Strathcona High School and its students and staff can train in our dojo for zero tuition.

From the beginning, our policy has been that anyone of good character with a sincere desire to learn Seibukan karate should be given an opportunity to do so, regardless of their financial circumstances. Our tuition is among the lowest in the city, but if you want to try our karate and can't afford our regular rates, please contact us and we will make arrangements which will allow you to train. 

 

Fees (online)

First class is free. First month is $50 for students 12+ and $45 for students under 12. This covers mandatory annual Karate Alberta dues. Thereafter, tuition is $45 per month for an individual or $60 per month for a family of any size.

 

Facility and Location

We train in the beautiful dance studio of Strathcona High School, 105 A St NW at 73 Ave NW in Edmonton. The studio has sprung hardwood floors and mirrored walls. There is plenty of free on-site parking, and buses stop nearby on both 106 St and 82 (Whyte) Ave.

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Mokusō. We do silent meditation to open and close class

Education and karate as the transformation of what you are: a little more about our approach

Few would dispute the possibility of radically transforming your body through good nutrition and exercise. We understand that we can greatly change our physical selves, even if most of us don't. That can start with something as simple as doing push-ups regularly.


The transformation of the body is an alternative trope for learning. When education is conceived as the acquisition of skills and knowledge, it's as if those are objects you can possess. Hence the metaphor of adding to your toolbox. What you've learned is what you have.


What you own is structurally and conceptually different from what you are. You, the subject, use the knowledge, the object you have acquired. As the image of the toolbox implies, this can be very useful.

Karate dojo kun (oath of the dojo) in Okinawa

Yet changing what you are, including but beyond your body, is very different from adding to what you own. The first line of our dojo kun (the oath of the dojo that we recite every class) is, "Jinkaku kansei ni tsutomeru koto 人格完成に努めること": "Seek perfection of character."


It's common to say someone has character, but that's misleading, because character is what someone definitively is. It's what you are.


Unfortunately, for a lot of karateka, the dojo kun means no more than polishing the selves they already adore, so they shine a little more brightly. For others, it's just empty words. And then there are the self-centered, boastful, bigoted, and ignorant.


I think we need to take the dojo kun seriously. For all but the terminally narcissistic, perfection of character is an impossible ideal, and the seriousness of a karateka can be measured in how they recognize the distance between what they are and what they should be.


And how much they're willing humble themselves and sweat to get a little closer.


There is no reason why anyone who practices karate needs to be that serious. A person can benefit a lot from karate as just exercise. But for the more serious, seeking the impossible perfection of character portends fundamental changes in who and what they are changes that they may not even be able to imagine at right now. It's a lot more than adding to your toolbox. Yet I think this is ultimate power of education far beyond good martial arts, but exemplified in them.


The seriousness of karate is the potential to radically transform us.

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