Thank you for years of Balanced Life Skills Martial Arts. The new website is https://josephmichael.coach/. You can reach me at 410-320-8564 or by email at joe@josephmichael.coach

Balance Life Skills was started in 2003 with the mission of using the martial arts training as a vehicle to encourage and share and build the character of our students and to help parents bring out the best in their children and families. After 16 years of training students and working with families, we held our final black belt test in December of 2019. During those years we’ve had a great deal of opportunity to have an influence on students and to build their virtues and to really draw out of them their very best. I have watched students grow from three- and four-year old’s to going to college, getting married, having their own kids and even serving our country in the Navy and Air Force. I am so proud of each of them for being their best selves.

Every time I walked out on the mat, I felt the responsibility to bring something to our students that were going to be helpful, maybe not right then at that moment, but at some point in the future, they could look back and use the lessons presented in making a decision or choice in life. Also during that time, I spent a great deal of time and effort in writing a blog post almost on a weekly basis for the last 15 years dealing with different virtues, different character traits, life skills and how kids and parents could cooperate with each other to bring out the best in them.  And I have to say that it was the working one on one with families and children that was the most satisfying part of my life as an instructor.

Over the past 32 years, I’ve spent a great deal of time studying the art of teaching, studying child development, coaching, classroom management, with the goal of becoming a better person myself. It’s with that experience that I’m now dedicating the rest of my life to sharing what I have learned and practiced with families and classrooms. Every family is unique, just as each of us is special, so learning to clarify what is important to us and then learning the best ways to pass that on to our own unique children while bringing out what is best in each of them is what I hope to do for others.  I am doing this by offering to coach, conducting seminars and whatever other ways that might become available to fulfill my lifelong mission to help all caring adults be the best that they can be especially regarding their children and students.

I am going to keep the Balance Life Skills website up just as it is, while working on the JosephMichael.coach website, because you will find many of the things that we discussed with students on a weekly basis, virtues such as responsibility or respect or confidence and many others, along with life skills like anger management, perseverance, and even time management. So, we’re going to leave that part of the website up.

So while Balanced Life Skills, the martial arts school is closed, I hope that you will still enjoy what has been written here in the past in our blog and at the same time feel free to visit us at JosephMichael.coach and see what we are offering the community, schools, and parent groups in the way of seminars and training to continue the mission of bringing out the best in our children and ourselves.

Please contact me with questions or if you are looking for a speaker at an event.

You can reach me at 410-320-8564 or by email at joe@josephmichael.coach

Thank you once again for years of training at Balanced Life Skills Martial Arts.