I really enjoyed the classes with Aaron and Garrett teaching. The real world experience of slow sparing on the mats and standing up was humbling and eye-opening. I had previously taken many martial arts lessons in different disciplines that taught forms, punches, kicks, locks, throws, and combinations; none of which prepared me for actual hand to hand sparring. I remember feeling like a deer in the headlights the first time I participated in a sparring match. I thought I was quite prepared to defend myself and my family if needed. This class is not for everyone, but if you want to learn new things and try them out with class brothers and sisters of different body types this is an excellent group to work with. The intent is not to hurt our class mates, but to learn together the flow of martial arts. It is also quite affordable. Aaron is an exceptional instructor, man, researcher, and tactician. He really cares, is interested in learning new things, and seeing how they could work in different situations. This is really rare in martial arts groups as most of them have a set "gospel" of things that work and the way things should be taught, which is great for fundamentals and tournaments; though not great for higher level growth or evolution of a fighting form. If you already have some fundamental martial arts training or are just looking for a fun workout you should give it a try. I am looking forward to having enough free time to rejoin the group.
It should also be noted that there was a recent split in the dojo. When I attended classes, the instructors were Lee, Kevin, and Aaron. During my time there I attended mainly Aaron's classes. The split resulted with Aaron Johnson instructing the class associated with this Yelp listing, and Lee and Kevin have been working on setting up a separate group. History is full of splits in martial arts dojos. It is a common thing, though the first for Maikido. If you are looking around for a dojo, you should attend as many different places as possible to see which place is the best fit for you. read more