Skills that matter

Unlike most sports, parkour and self-defense skills are directly usable in daily life. Feel safer, less restricted & more confident.

Better sports performance

The mixture of acrobatics, wrestling, and obstacle courses greatly improves agility, balance, and coordination. And by prioritizing adaptation over muscle memory, you quickly see results.

Superior teamwork

Our team building games are like Ninja Warrior meets Escape Room – designed to be impossible to beat without teamwork, and push strong problem solving and communication skills.

Tough and resilient

Falling, failing, and being uncomfortable are intentionally built into our lessons. Combine that with challenges that make you work through fear, and it's a recipe for one tough cookie.

Safety smarts

Though our gyms are well padded, we teach with the mentality that we're outside on surfaces like rock. So instead of learning how to stick your landing like in gymnastics, you learn how to minimize impact on your joints and avoid injury.

Rewild

Our bodies were not meant to sit at a desk all day. The mixture of rough housing, climbing, and jumping channels the powers of our wild instincts – restoring natural processes we need to stay healthy.

No Belts

Guardian Art is a community based system, so our levels work in clans instead of belts. Making the next clan is sort of like making the varsity team. We evaluate team skills along with physical skills.

This is why our curriculum is full of team oriented games that involve strong communication and creative problem solving.

No Respect

We don't teach respect in Guardian Art. Why? There's too many confusing versions of what it means. Every culture has a different idea of respect, and sometimes “obey your elders” conflicts with “do to others as you would have them do to you.” Some sports have a culture of disrespecting anyone less skilled… leading to toxic habits.

Lots of Care

Instead, we teach care. Easier to understand. More universally applicable. And when the foundation of teamwork is care, the lessons are much more powerful:

Better Communication

Through the foundation of care, students learn to encourage, help, and listen to each other.

Emotional Intelligence

Having care towards others leads to empathy and social awareness.

Mental Health

Appreciation, practiced through care, improves mental and emotional well-being.

Will Power

Having more care towards goals naturally increases effort.

Tough Love

First thing we teach in sparring is if you go too hard you could injure your partner, but if you go too easy, they cannot learn. With a culture of nothing easy, our care is tough love. It's why we're known for getting students to embrace challenges, work through fears, and learn from failure.

Part 1: Saving the Past

Many of the lessons in Guardian Art come from indigenous teachings, which are considered endangered. So without any business experience nor business aspirations, we opened up our first school in 2004 as part of a mission to keep these practices alive. This is why our outreach programs emphasize returning powerful traditions such as “Little Brother of War,” the original version of Lacrosse played by Native Americans.

Part 2: Saving the People

The stats are depressing. Of all ethnic groups in the U.S. and Canada, Natives suffer the highest rates of substance abuse, suicide, and violence. To help, we run free outreach programs for these at-risk communities across North America. We always knew it would be beneficial for any youth to learn Guardian Art, but its impact on Native communities is beyond what we expected. It's been akin to the rewilding effect of wolves in Yellowstone, as our outreach programs have:

• Helped reverse the devastation from genocide.
• Improved physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing.
• Empowered Native youth with their heritage.
• Deepened their connection to nature and sacred sites.
• Strengthened community spirit.

These outreach programs continue to grow with more support from our members through tuition, donations, and volunteer work. And as part of our curriculum, advanced students travel the world to directly help these communities – gaining valuable experiences.

Part 3: Saving the Future

Since time immemorial, Indigenous people have been caretakers of the environment. And despite making up just 5% of today's world population, they still protect 80% of the Earth's biodiversity. Their traditional culture and knowledge are key to a sustainable future for all. Therefore, we are currently working hard to set up cultural preserves to allow for land and cultural conservation on a larger scale.