SW Portland Martial Arts Blog

Tournament Time

August 5th, 2023

We love our kids tournaments! They are an awesome time to give students a chance to put their skills to the test in sparring, grappling, and forms. This year’s fall tournament will take place on Saturday, October 9th from 9AM-Noon.

This year, for our fall tournament, we are excited to change up the sparring section for the older kids (8 and up). Instead of point sparring, the older kids will be playing continuous sparring – in which they are awarded 1 point for every leg kick, 2 points for every body shot, and 3 points for every head shot. Like everything, it’s an experiment with safety, skill, and fun as our guidelines.

You can sign up on our events page.

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Intro to Martial Arts

May 31st, 2023

Our onramp program for kids has been a huge success so we thought… Let’s do the same thing for adults.

Four our first swing at it, we’re offering onramp programs for the following martial arts program. Students must be 13 or older:

Systema, Tuesdays @ Noon
MDP, Tuesdays @ Noon
BJJ, Tuesdays @7pm
Muay Thai, Wednesday @10am

Each class will meet for one hour, four times in the month. Cost is $60 for the series, a $20 discount off our drop-in rate.

Go to the Events page to sign up and for more details.

Here’s a (very) brief description of each art:

Systema – An eclectic art focused on breathing, relaxing, and self defense. There are no belts or ranks in Systema. It is a practical martial art for everyone.

MDP – A broad art that covers the basics of striking, throwing, grappling, self-defense, and forms. The name, Mo Duk Pai, means “Martial Ethics Method.” The goal of the art is to build competence and compassion.

BJJ – A grappling and throwing art, BJJ is a sport that focuses on chokes, joint locks, and learning an art that can be actively tested against resistance.

Muay Thai – A striking art, Muay Thai is a sport that focuses on kicks, punches, knees, elbows, the clinch, and sweeps.

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Teen MMA

April 21st, 2023


Got a teen in your life? Do they want to train martial arts? Are they intimidated by adult classes but scoff at kids classes?

Perfect. Come on in to our teens MMA class. Wednesdays at 6pm and Saturdays at 11am.

Coach Alex gears the class to all levels – beginners are always welcome.

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Summer Camps

April 13th, 2023
SWPMA Movement Arts Camps

Our Summer Movement Arts Camps are back! Our awesome action-packed weeks that work to help campers connect and expand their horizons in a safe, supportive environment. We strive to provide quality martial arts instruction as well as giving the kids a peek at lots of other movement arts by bringing in fantastic guest teachers, and talk about mindset and control-of-self. Choice, outdoor time, fun new experiences – galore!

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Meet You Where You’re At

February 24th, 2023

Some kids can jump right into our martial arts program, no problem. Others hesitate. Some try to jump right in and then decide they weren’t actually ready to leap in. In short, everyone is different.

We’ve always prided ourselves on meeting students where they are at and moving forward from there, so we’re not sure why we haven’t thought of the idea of an intro series for kids before but suppose we have to meet ourselves where we’re at too?

Whatever the case, we’re going for it! We’ve offering up one series for 6-9 year olds and another for 10-13 year olds. The idea is to introduce students to consent, ethics, control, punching, kicking, contact, throwing, falling, grappling, and forms – so that when they are ready to join the ongoing program, they feel good about it and know how to communicate well with their partners and keep themselves (and their partners) safe, learning while building resilience.

Ever improving, ever moving forward.

Check the events page for more details, times, and pricing.

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