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.

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 and

in September 2023 we moved into our current home at Olton Wharf.