Today we’d like to introduce you to Mike Mench.
Mike, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Rebirth Martial Arts began last June due to an unfortunate need for children’s self-defense due to the modern threats they may encounter, and the lack of quality, realistic self-defense training that also helped them become better humans. From day one, our goal has been to make self-defense accessible to all, no matter age or ability, which is why we teach all ages 3+. We wanted to ensure that our students could handle situations they may have to encounter if they are putting groceries away in a parking lot, walking downtown, or simply attending classes at school. Today, we are still staying true to our mission by developing a non-profit that increases our ability to teach families our curriculum, regardless of financial ability.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Throughout our time in business, there have been obstacles. Using the same perseverance we teach our students and the strong community within our school, we have been able to keep moving forward to face any and all new challenges that come our way. The biggest struggle we faced was building trust in our community through non-financial needs. Similar to other small businesses starting up, while we wanted to give everything into our community, we had to ensure that we were able to stay open for our students. Luckily, many local schools and businesses were generous enough to allow us to teach our safety curriculum to their students so that we were still able to ensure their safety without financial barriers. We are forever grateful for these schools and businesses for helping us along our journey.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Rebirth Martial Arts?
Rebirth Martial Arts is a martial arts school focusing on providing high quality self defense training to all ages. Before anything else, our goal is for our students to be able to get home safely. Our students learn how to identify, evade, and get out of dangerous situations as quickly and effectively as possible. We are one of the few studios that teach true, age appropriate self defense – we teach children about the reality of the world and threats they may encounter, all while they are developing skills to keep themselves safe. We also, however, prioritize our students becoming better people as they grow with us by discussing personal development topics in each class such as integrity, self-control, and respect. Our students are required to complete community service, work in teams to solve issues that affect their community, and prove that they understand why personal wellness is important in order to test for their black belt.
With all of this, we also make sure that our students enjoy coming to classes, so you don’t need to fight them on becoming the successful person we are helping them be. We do this by integrating different martial arts aspects and drills to keep students engaged and learning important skills without them realizing. Recently, we played hide and seek in our school to teach cover, concealment, and how to hide in case running is not an option in a safety emergency. We teach kickboxing to teach students how to block from punches and kicks in case a school bully tries to use their “UFC” skills on the playground. We teach Bo, Kali, and Nunchucks to develop hand-eye coordination and practice habits while they are having fun.
We are proud to say that we smile when we receive calls and a parent says “well I don’t know if [my child] will stick with it, they have ADD/ADHD so it’s usually hard for them to stick with anything.” We smile because that’s our specialty. We work with students and how they focus and teach them how to process the information they have and use how they think to benefit them. We don’t make students leave because they’re having a bad day- we talk with them, work through it, and give them a plan to do better. We ALWAYS give a path to success and to do better. We are one of the only sports that is individualized with a team mentality. All of our students support each other, but none of them need to depend on another for success.
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
Of course, our families and students that trusted us from the start to make this business successful get the most credit. They had options to go to other schools but they chose us due to our previous instruction at another location and trusted that we would be successful and continue to support us. My Instructor, Ken Brayman, Founder of Krav Maga Shield, has also continuously helped us with ways to better our business and keep us moving forward for our students.
Pricing:
- Once a Week Introductory Program: $100/mo
- Twice a Week Introductory Program: $150/mo
- Black Belt Program: $200/mo
Contact Info:
- Website: https://rebirthmartialarts.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rebirthmartialarts
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61561087207031
Image Credits
Wren Mench – Rebirth Martial Arts
