A first structured activity for a Tyler three, four or five year old
Little Ninjas is the class at 117 University Place for children aged three to five. It is karate, a martial art, at a small child's pace: a bow in, a warm-up that is mostly a game, simple stances and blocks taught one at a time, a turn with a partner, and a bow out. The material is real — the start of the same curriculum our older classes follow — taught at the speed a three, four or five year old can hold.
Most Little Ninjas in Tyler are doing their first structured activity. They have not been in a class before, they do not know what a line is, and nobody has asked them to wait their turn in front of other children. Listening to one adult who is not mom or dad, following a simple instruction, standing in a line and handing the next turn back — things a five year old can do and a three year old is still learning.
A Little Ninja's class is the start of something with a standard: a stance, a block, a count, a belt that is worked for. Nothing about it is softer because the children are small — there is simply more repetition, more praise for trying, and an instructor who expects a three year old to wander off once.
Tyler has plenty of first activities to choose from — ball sports, dance, swim, gymnastics — and a four year old will enjoy most of them. What a karate class has that a field does not is a mat with a boundary and older children in the same building doing the same thing to a higher standard.
Tyler parents usually ask about siblings next. If a five year old is a Little Ninja and a seven year old is in the kids class, both train at 117 University Place — one trip, one waiting room. Our academy also sits next door to Caldwell Arts Academy, where our Tyler after-school students walk in from on the afternoons that program runs.