Oyama Karate offers authentic and excellent karate training, perfect for those seeking self-defense, discipline, and realistic tournament experience. The dojo is led by experienced Grand Masters and senseis who provide personalized training and mentorship. With a focus on developing students' strengths, the school fosters confidence, focus, work ethic, and self-faith. Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned practitioner, Oyama Karate provides a lifelong training experience for all ages.
As parents, we make millions of decisions for our children through the years, some better than others, of course. The most beautiful thing about this is that some decisions are just right—the perfect decisions—and these echo throughout the child’s life. We put Draven in karate at World Oyama right after his 7th birthday. The kid was full of energy, always talking, and had an answer for everything. He wasn’t confident though. He was never meant to be a bully and lacked the confidence to stand up to one if it presented itself. He also suffered from asthma. Not any of these reasons, however, are why we decided to try out karate. He had mentioned he’d like to try, and being a kid that never enjoyed any sport at all, we jumped at the opportunity to get him into something extracurricular. Little did we know at the time that this would be one of the best decisions, maybe even THE best, that we ever made for him. Draven spent almost nine years training at World Oyama. His dad told him early on when he made it to a brown belt, he’d also start training. Fast forward to around the 5th year, Draven advanced to a brown belt, so dad had to keep his word! What great years that followed as they were able to experience this together! World Oyama taught Draven discipline, a different kind of discipline children learn at home, it taught him patience and calmness when in certain situations, and it taught him confidence. He’s never had to physically use any training, except for at promotions, competitions, and when he spars with his dad at home 🙂. What’s important though is that he has self-confidence to know he can use his training if necessary. He isn’t and never was the “best” in class, but it was apparent early on that these classes are not about who’s the best. The camaraderie of the classes, no matter the ages, and the self-accomplishment are what taught my son to excel and what mattered the most. It’s was never easy for him or his dad or me watching as a mother, but life’s never easy and it’s important for children to push through. As far as his dad, being older and new at karate, he loved the exercise, especially the stretching. Having suffered from back pain for years, the training eased the pain substantially! Ah, and the best bonus of all is that we really feel like it helped our son’s asthma over the years! He learned new and different ways to control his breathing, and this can only be attributed to his karate training. I could write all day and can’t completely convey the magnitude of what World Oyama has done for our family. We know Draven appreciates what he learned, and although he stepped back a few months ago (a newly driving teenager, so he’s learning to navigate the teen years at the moment), we hope he’ll be lead back one day . . . soon. Thank you Shihan-Dai Karl and all of the Senseis and everyone else associated with World Oyama! A special thanks to Saiko Shihan for making it all possible!
My kid loves it here. Great atmosphere, great teacher. Recommend!
I have enjoyed going to World Oyama Karate in Homewood for 12 years. I can’t put into words how much I have learned and gained from training here. Saiko Shihan is a legend and an amazing teacher. Shihan Dai Karl has also taught me so much and is awesome with the kid’s classes! I can’t leave a review without mentioning lunch class with Sensei David. Sign up you won’t regret it!