Special Programs

Overview

The Visions Program
Young Adult Institute (YAI)
Deaf Program Seido Karate was founded in order to offer students a way to strengthen their minds, bodies and spirits. Each year, the school produces many skilled and powerful karatekas who achieve honors in tournament competition. Thousands of students from all walks of life train at Seido: men and women, young and old, heavy and thin, even people who have had back or knee problems. At the same time, and integral to the training, students strive to give back to society all that they have gained from karate.

Many students, for example, are involved with teaching karate to the blind, the deaf and the developmentally disabled, whose progress and determination in turn inspire the rest of the school. Also, each spring Seido sponsors a day-long benefit tournament, with competition in kata and kumite. The proceeds of the tournament are always returned to the community. In 1992, the tournament income was presented to a nonprofit New York City organization devoted to health care for drug-addicted infants and children born with the HIV virus. Another annual event is the winter clothing drive. Students travel to areas all around the city personally distributing warm clothes and food to homeless people.

These things are not performed merely as exercises in charity. Recognizing that we are all part of one community, students aim for inclusion rather than exclusion. As Kaicho says in his meditation lectures, none of us is perfect; we are all, in some way, lacking. By helping others we help ourselves, and together we can accomplish more than any one of us could alone.