I Really Wish I Hadn’t Opened My New Karate Dojo In The San Fernando Valley
Co-Written by Troy Doetch
As a lifelong student of karate, I grew up dreaming of one day opening my own dojo so that I could impart my wisdom down to a younger generation of students. After years of considerable training and saving, in the spring of 2018, I finally felt I was at a place in my life where I could afford to go out on my own. With a name, a space, and an overall philosophy decided on, I thought I had everything figured out. And so, Mike’s Tike’s: Karate for Kids opened its doors in May of that year. But what I didn’t plan on happening, what I really didn’t see coming, was finding myself smack dab in the middle of some 40-year-old pissing match between two grown men here in the San Fernando Valley. That’s right, I opened my casual low-stakes dojo for children right in the geographic middle of Miyagi-Do and Cobra Kai and good God, what an ever-loving mess it has been.
The salad days of the dojo were good. We had a modest enrollment at first, but with positive word of mouth and some grass-root marketing efforts, Mike’s Tike’s: Karate for Kids was steadily finding its footing in the Valley. But that peace time didn’t last for long. My first inkling that something was amiss was when 9 teenagers spontaneously showed up for the “Mini Rock Star” class designed for 2 to 4-year-olds…
