Enshin Karate Stanley

Best karate dojo in the Denver universe. Family foundation, embracing of members, authentic genuine unique karate, solid practice encouragement challenge and kindness

I have long been looking for a good place for my teenage son to get into martial arts. He had dabbled before, but we hadn't found the right fit. We seem to have found it. Enshin employs friendly and highly capable folks who make their clientele feel welcome. They are creating a community of eager learners here and there's a really wholesome feel. He's been told that he can attend either the kids classes or the adults' and he feels welcome at both. Thank you for creating an environment he is excited about being a part of!

This place is amazing! I take my daughter here and she loves it! The instructors are awesome and they do an amazing job at supporting the community. I highly recommend this dojo to anyone looking to get into martial arts or developing their skills.

My personal experience with this organization is that I trained, as a black belt, for their Sabaki Challenge tournament in Japan. During my training for Japan, the coaches told me that I should expect to fight a heavyweight woman; They told me that the bracket was set up in a way where I would probably fight a heavyweight. Mind you, I am a lightweight, and this is a knockout style tournament, with no padding or protection. On my flight to Japan, it was terrifying because I still had no idea if I would be fighting someone my own size, or fighting someone around twice my size. I didn’t find out until minutes before my fight, whether or not I would have a fair fight with someone my own size, or have to fight a heavyweight. That situation was completely inappropriate! Ultimately, I ended up fighting a lightweight, but that in no way takes away from the fact that the bracket was set up completely inappropriately. Imagine how you would feel if you traveled to a foreign country to compete in a knock-out style tournament, and you didn't know whether the fight would be fair, or unfair, until minutes before your competition.nnAdditionally, this was a particularly strange experience because just months prior, this organization put women’s weight divisions in place for the 2018 Sabaki Challenge. In fact, I was asked late to compete in that tournament, with only six weeks notice, because the coaches told me they decided to add a lightweight division. I’m not sure what their motivation was to only have weight divisions for women during that one tournament, when after that tournament they took the women’s weight divisions away again. Meanwhile, the men still consistently have three weight divisions (must be nice).nnDuring the tournament in Japan, this heavyweight woman was around twice the size of ALL THE OTHER female competitors in the tournament. That was extremely inappropriate and not okay! Sure, I too would love to compete in a tournament where I knew I was going to be twice the size of all my other competitors, but that doesn’t make it appropriate. If I were fighting someone half my size they would be around 50 pounds, and that would never be allowed; But for some reason, it was okay for this heavyweight woman to fight in a tournament where all the other competitors were lightweights. This speaks to the blatant favoritism that the leaders of this organization showed by allowing this heavyweight woman to compete in a tournament with only lightweight women. The way that this organization should have handled this situation was by telling this heavyweight woman, “If someone in your weight division signs up for the tournament, then you have a fight. If not, our of fairness to the other competitors, and out of respect for their safety, you do not have a fight.”nnThis organization should do what other martial arts organizations do (like women’s judo, women’s mma, women’s muay thai, women’s jiu jitsu etc) and have mandatory weight divisions for women. It was completely inappropriate for this organization to tell me to expect to fight a heavyweight woman who was almost twice my size. If you are a small female reading this, I hope this review can spare you a similar experience to mine, and I recommend that you compete in martial arts tournaments elsewhere.

Authentic karate with classes for all ages taught by experienced, talented instructors.