Garden City Tae Kwon Do

Good news! We will be starting Taekwondo classes at the Grimsby YMCA on March 30 as part of their youth program. Classes will be Thursdays at 5:30 for the younger kids and 6:30 for the older kids. Registration will be through the Grimsby YMCA. We look forward to meeting new students and continuing with any former students from St. Catharines who wish to join us.

We regret to announce that we will not be running classes through the YMCA youth program this summer due to a lack of students. People seem to be hesitant to join the YMCA given the uncertainty regarding the future of their facilities in St. Catharines. We expect to tray again in September.

We have made arrangements to begin classes through the YMCA youth program on Wed. July 13 at Price of Wales school in St. Catharines. The class for 6-9 year olds will start at 5:15 and the class for 10-14 years olds at 6:15. We plan to continue running classes through the YMCA in the future, although the location may change. Please contact the YMCA to register.

Unfortunately, we have not had enough students sign up to run the class at this time so we are moving the start date back to the beginning of July. Hopefully by then there will be more information about where the YMCA will be running programs in St. Catharines and people will be more comfortable committing.

After two long years, we are finally able to restart Taekwondo classes at the YMCA. The YMCA will be operating their youth program out of the St. Catharines building starting April 30. Our classes will begin May 4th and continue Wednesday evenings from 5 to 7pm. Ages 6-9 in the first hour and 10-15 in the second hour. Please go to the YMCA website for more information on how to join. We look forward to seeing you there.

For those of you who have been checking in here looking for news, we are currently making plans to restart classes with the YMCA youth program, most likely in late January. The specifics are not yet decided, such as where and which days of the week. Information will be posted here and through the YMCA as it becomes available.

As many of you have heard, the YMCA is closing its facilities in St. Catharines and are not planning on continuing any of their fitness programing for now, including the youth programs of which we were a part. We are considering where we want to go with Garden City Tae Kwon Do from here and I will post any new info on this page as it becomes available. We will want to get through this pandemic and any closures or restrictions before offering classes again. I hope all of our students are well and safe.

We are still waiting to see when the YMCA will start the youth programs again. They are opening in phases and are not yet running programs for children under 13. Keep checking the YMCA website for updated info.

Looking at the YMCA Niagara website, it seems that the St. Catharines facility will not be running programs until at least September. Please check with their website for updates. We hope to resume classes and see all of you soon.

I see some people have been checking here, perhaps for updates on when we will start classes again. I do not have any news just yet but we plan to start up again as soon as the YMCA and the province will let us. Meanwhile, students can practice the first two forms using the videos I posted earlier. This is one thing that can be practiced at home safely. I hope to see you all soon.
Master Steve Balz

I am posting videos of Pattern 1 and Pattern 2 so that our students can practice at home. White belts must learn Pattern 1 to earn a yellow belt. Yellow belts must learn Pattern 2 for their second yellow belt.