Alternative Schools! What KarateBuilt Can Do For You! with Chief Master Greg Moody and Senior Master Laura Sanborn
Why Alternative Schools Are Turning to Martial Arts for Structure, Confidence, and Growth
More families than ever are choosing alternative education paths—microschools, homeschools, Montessori programs, and specialty schools designed to meet individual needs. These environments are thoughtful, flexible, and studen
t-centered. They’re also often lean on resources, especially when it comes to physical education, character development, and consistent structure.
That’s exactly where this podcast conversation begins.
In this episode, Chief Master Greg Moody and Senior Master Laura Sanborn explain how KarateBuilt Martial Arts partners with alternative schools—not as a business venture, but as a form of long-standing community service. For more than 30 years, their instructors have worked alongside schools to provide disciplined, safe, and structured programs that support students far beyond physical movement.
The discussion walks through the core of the KarateBuilt charter: discipline, constant growth, and integrity that shows up everywhere—not just in a martial arts school, but in classrooms, homes, and communities. You’ll hear why martial arts, when taught correctly, is not about fighting or aggression, but about self-control, decision-making, and knowing the difference between real danger and everyday conflict.
This episode also outlines practical ways schools can benefit: donated PE instruction, bullying prevention, character education, staff training, student recognition programs, enrichment events, and even fundraising opportunities where 100% of proceeds go back to the school. For students who need additional structure—especially those with ADHD, autism, or other developmental challenges—scholarships and specialized support are also part of the conversation.
If you’re a parent, educator, or school leader exploring how to strengthen discipline, confidence, and life skills in a modern learning environment, this podcast provides a clear, grounded look at what partnership can actually mean—and why martial arts can be a powerful ally in education.
Listen in to hear how it all works, why it matters, and how schools can get started.
Sincerely,
Ch. Master Greg Moody, Ph.D.
P.S. The Transcript: Alternative Schools! What KarateBuilt Can Do For You!
What we’re going to do is talk about schools, alternative schools. And we have tons of kids and tons of parents that love going to alternative schools, like microschools, homeschools, they do homeschooling at home, or Montessori schools, or special schools that are meeting their needs more specifically.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn:
Karate Built Martial Arts can do a lot for them. And I appreciate having Senior Master Sanborn here as always.
And thank you very much for being here, ma’am. Thanks for inviting me, sir.
Chief Master Greg Moody:
All right. Let’s talk about what we’re about and what we’re doing. So this might, you might be a parent of one of our kids, in which case a lot of this stuff you already know.
But if you’re not, if you’re one of these schools that are thinking about having us help you and work with you, you know, we’ll talk about this and what we’re about first.
And we do everything based on our charter and that Karate Built is a highly disciplined martial arts school. We measure results based not on who we exclude, but on students’ constant growth from the moment they start to Black Built and beyond.
And Karate Built, Black Built take responsibility to lead with integrity. And there’s three big things here that are important for us to, you know, you to understand if we’re working with you.
One is that we’re disciplined. It’s not about, it starts as a fundamental, on the fundamental piece of what we do is discipline.
Helping all of our students, not just our kids, understand what’s required of them, what’s expected, and then that they learn to do that on their own.
The second thing is, is that we really are thinking about constant growth. No matter where you start, we’re wanting to push you to grow at the rate you possibly, at the highest rate you possibly can.
We’re working towards excellence. And then the last thing. And that it works outside of our school. So if you see one of our black belts, they will be showing some of these characteristics, regardless of whether they’re in a martial arts uniform or not.
Let’s get started. Master Sanborn, anything to add there?
Senior Master Laura Sanborn:
No, it’s just it’s become so important to us lately to follow through on making sure they do have integrity outside of the school.
And we’ve got ways that we’re working on helping them with that, with our wristbands and things like that. I think that’s just another important part of our charter is how much we’re trying to help them do these things to be more successful.
Chief Master Greg Moody:
Yeah, trying to. Our students have always shown great discipline and leadership outside of our school. We’re expanding on that and kind of doubling down on making that happen.
Why do we work with schools? You know, we’re not working with them to, you know, is a commercial prospect.
We’re not trying to make any money off the schools. sure framework I’m Thank In fact, quite the opposite. All of our instructors are required to do community service.
It’s part of what they do. We’ve been doing this for over 30 years in Arizona and longer than that across the country.
The second thing is we want martial arts to have a great name in the community. Unfortunately, sometimes it has a bad name because of MMA or movies and they see people beating each other up and they think, that’s what martial arts is about.
We were trying to make sure that martial arts has a good name in the community. And the last thing is, of course, if somebody would like to do martial arts, we’d love for them to consider us as one of their options.
The first one’s really important. Our instructors really are required to do community service. And so this is one way that we do that.
And the second one also does seem to happen a lot that people don’t really understand martial arts. So it doesn’t get a good name.
They think it has to do with either, you know, MMA in particular, people that are bloody and beating each other up.
And that’s not what it’s about conceptually. I think people understand that. But we want to get. That message out to anybody that we can.
And so let’s talk about what we can do for your school, what we can provide. we’ll first start with physical education.
Obviously, we can donate time from our instructors. One of the things we can do to help you with your PE classes, different breaks in your classes, coordination, balance training.
Our black belts have to do things that most other athletes couldn’t do. We can help with all of that.
So for PE teachers, they love us for this. And it’s a safe, structured physical activity. When we come to your school, we’re not going to be doing things where, in fact, it’s about self-defense.
It’s not about them hurting anybody or being physical with people. Sometimes people might say, we’ve heard people say, well, gee, if you come, we don’t want them to kick and punch each other.
Well, I guess my answer to that is, if you’ve ever seen a playground, you’ve seen kids kicking and punching each other.
That’s without any kind of instruction on What we help them with is when that’s okay and when it’s not.
And it is okay if they were in a dangerous situation where they had to survive. That would be perfectly okay, and we want them to be able to do that, but we want them to know the difference between that and even somebody pushing them on the playground.
That doesn’t mean they need to kick them or punch them or anything. But for the most part, I think most people that listen to this would agree that’s not a conversation that educators have.
The conversation is, what happens if this happens? What do you do? And the kids don’t know. If a kid pushes them on the playground, what are they supposed to do?
And that’s what we’re going to help them with. Something that does not hurt anybody, but also make sure they’re safe.
So we cover bullying. In fact, my background is, my doctoral work is on bullying prevention. And you can see my book, Bullying Myths, Truths, and What to Do on Amazon.
It’s an Amazon bestseller. That’s something that we do in these classes.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn:
Other things that you’d add here, ma’am? Yes, sir. One of the things we’re very specific to Where do you use your martial arts?
And to us, it’s very important that they use their martial arts everywhere. But the part of martial arts that they’re using is discipline, respect, safety, all of our life skills, honesty.
We’re teaching those all the time, and we expect them to take that with them. Even if we did it in a physical education class at a school, we’re still going to talk about the same life skills that we want the kids to use at their school.
Chief Master Greg Moody:
Yeah, that’s a really good thing that we say, but people don’t understand. If we say, where do you use your karate?
Our answer is everywhere. That means we know when it’s okay to defend ourself, kick, or punch if we had to, and we know when it’s not.
That’s using your martial arts to be able to have something happen that might be strange, or might be upsetting, or might even be potentially dangerous, and able to think through the process so you make the right response and you make the right decision.
That’s using… And that’s doing it everywhere. Plus what you said, which is a high, high level of discipline, which is the first part of our charter, which means how we treat other people, how we operate.
That covers everything in the rest of our lives. Martial arts isn’t just in our martial arts school or when we’re in a tournament or things like that.
It’s everywhere. And that’s something that we want to help you provide. And that would have a ripple effect of discipline and respect throughout the school.
Microschools with limited staff, you may only have yourself running the school in a team of maybe helpers once in a while, but this allows us to help support your environment.
Montessori environments also often you don’t have a big team and a lot of extra resources like a big, huge public school.
So that can help you. And then, of course, with homeschools, you might have a co-op or some times where you need movement and PE or a lot of our homeschools, students.
We do some classes with them and then they come to our martial arts school. to take classes. Another thing we provide is character education and life skill talks.
We can do workshops, and in fact, the book that’s on there and my book, my first book, The Life Skills of Leaders, these are things that we have available to help your organization with in all these different areas.
Self-discipline is a big one right up there. Knowing what to do and what not to do without being told.
Self-discipline is when you can do it without anybody letting you know that, and that’s what we want for our kids.
Goal-setting, confidence, all these things. Obviously, bullying prevention. I should probably show this book if somebody wants to get it online.
From Amazon, they can get that. And then, of course, stranger awareness and safety. And all these are backed by materials and content that we can provide for you.
One thing that’s great about this is this is built into our martial arts program. So when our instructors come and teach this at your school…
They’re, they’ve been doing this all day, every day, forever. They’re experts at all of these topics. Anything else to throw in there, Senior Master?
Senior Master Laura Sanborn:
One of the nice ways they can use the books is they have worksheets in them that directly tie into whichever life skill it is.
They’ve got not only really clear directions on how to talk about it and how to ask questions about it, but worksheets that families can use to make sure they understand the different life skills.
Chief Master Greg Moody:
That’s a great point. And we can, we’ll provide and donate the materials that you need to the school. So this isn’t something you have to pay for anything.
We’re happy to do that as part of our community service. Other things we can provide, guest instructor days. Our instructors can come in.
They can be PE teachers, workshop leaders, enrichment. It’s great when you have project weeks or different types of things going on.
You know, one of the things we also do is do staff training. So during this time we can train the staff.
On some of the topics, including class management that we have a special affinity for and have a lot of expertise in helping you with.
Tnext thing the schools really love is we’ll donate to your schools. Our instructors can set up programs with special classes, after-school enrichment programs, help you with your fundraising events if that can help, and then help your PTO.
So a couple ways we do this. One is we often will have schools have us come in and do a class for a couple weeks or three weeks that they charge for.
could be $39 or whatever the school wants to, or $40, and parents pay that, and 100%, 100% of that money goes to the school.
We’ll donate the materials, the uniform, if that’s what we’re going to do in the class. We’ll donate everything. We can also do other programs where if you just want to have the PTO generate some income, they can, any, any of your students of
The students at the school that want to do martial arts, let’s say they pay, you know, $49 for a program to get started.
We give 100% of that money back to the school because we’re truly trying to help the school grow and earn the money that they need for all the supplies and different things that really the government falls short in providing to you.
Anything else to add there, ma’am?
Senior Master Laura Sanborn:
No, those are pretty straightforward. Those are the ones we do. And it’s easy for us to come into your school and explain how each of these work specifically.
If there’s one you’re interested in, you can give us a call. We’ll be calling you anyway. And just check with us on, oh, that one sounded like something we could do really easy.
And a lot of these are very easy and require next to no time from the school itself or any investment from them.
It’s just us coming in and donating time for them. Yeah, we want it to be really easy for you as the, as the…
Chief Master Greg Moody:
You know, the operator of the school or the principal or whoever is, you know, working with us on these types of projects.
And in addition, while we want to be easy for you and there’s not much work, we also wanted to mention that all of our instructors are fingerprinted and background checked is required by the state law.
We have our guys all ready to go with those types of requirements. We’ve been working with the schools for many years.
That’s why we do that. Another thing is scholarships for students. You may have some students that would benefit from the structure that we provide.
We have very we get many, many, many referrals for kids with autism, for kids with ADHD, for kids with occupational or defiance disorder, other developmental issues.
We get lots and lots of referrals to our to our academy for that. If you have one of your students that needs that, but maybe they don’t have funds or maybe they don’t have access to it.
We can provide a scholarship for those students.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn:
Student recognition, top student awards, that kind of thing. knew there was something there.
Chief Master Greg Moody:
Yeah, top student awards. I’m glad you brought that up. This kind of goes under the category of supporting your students getting better grades.
A lot of times when kids get in the top 10% of their school or they get all A’s or whatever criteria you use to determine school success, they get free pizza somewhere, they get some other award.
What we provide is, for as many as you want, we can give them martial arts classes and lessons. We’ll give them that for free so that they can supplement what they’re doing and as a reward for what you’re providing for them and their great school success.
So that’s another one. Or we get some schools wanting to use us for top attendance awards. A kid that maybe never was sick at all during the school year and was there all the time, they get an award.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn:
This can be one of their awards that we provide to them. Along those same lines is a pizza party for you.
Everybody to come in if, you know, if you want to celebrate something specific that your students have done, we will do a pizza party with the class for them.
Chief Master Greg Moody:
Yeah, with the class or, you know, if you’re a parent of a homeschool child, then we have some events that we do as well.
That’s another thing that we didn’t mention. Every month we do different events. I think we did a we did Nerf-mageddon last time.
You got to got to have a Nerf war and we have all kinds of different things. We have Nerf war and ice cream and events.
And what we can do is invite your school, particularly for the types of schools we’re talking about. We love working with these types of schools, the Montessori schools, alternative schools.
I don’t need to share the screen here, I don’t think. But but charter schools, any kind of school that, you know, kind of doesn’t fit the regular mold.
They might need some additional services. And so our activities that we do can be one that you can take advantage of and we can certainly help you out with.
You know what the cost is for that. We wouldn’t ask for any money if you guys want to charge for it and then have them come to our event.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn:
We’re running the whole show so we can do everything for you with that. And we can customize that. If there’s a specific theme that they’ve been working on for the month or for the week or whatever, we can follow along with that same thing and do an event that matches their theme and ties everything all together with a big pizza party and an event at the end and how to show off everybody with Yeah, think it might be good to finish up with, again, a reminder of why we’re doing this.
Chief Master Greg Moody:
We’re doing this, number one, because our instructors are required to do community service. Number two, because we want to have a great name in the community and want everybody to think highly of martial arts and not the bad images they get of martial arts like in MMA and the movies or other things.
And then lastly, of course, if somebody wants to come to Karate Bill Martial Arts to do lessons, or in fact if they go to any martial arts school, we’d love for them to come think of us first.
Thank you, ma’am. Thanks very much.
Senior Master Laura Sanborn:
We look forward to working with you.
Chief Master Greg Moody:
You can contact us. You go to our website at KarateBuild.com. Just click contact us and there’s a request form there.
You can also call us. Our number is 480-575-8171 and that’ll help you with getting in contact with us directly and we’ll get right back to you.
Yes, sir. All right. Thank you, everybody. And I hope everybody has a great day.
P.P.S. Get Dr. Moody’s Book on Bullying – Click Here
KarateBuilt.com and KarateBuilt Martial Arts have been selected as the nation’s #1 martial arts schools for EIGHT YEARS IN A ROW!
KarateBuilt L.L.C. was founded in 1995 by Dr. Greg Moody, an 8th-degree Black Belt and Chief Master Instructor, KarateBuilt Martial Arts and Karate for Kids offer lessons for pre-school children ages 3-6 and elementary age kids ages 7 and up are designed to develop critical building blocks kids need – specialized for their age group – for school excellence and later success in life.
KarateBuilt Martial Arts Adult Karate training is a complete adult fitness and conditioning program for adults who want to lose weight, get (and stay in shape), or learn self-defense in a supportive environment.
Instructors can answer questions or be contacted 24 hours of the day, 7 days a week at 866-311-1032 for one of our nationwide locations. You can also visit our website at KarateBuilt.com.
About Dr. Greg Moody: Dr. Moody is an eighth-degree black belt and chief master instructor. He has a Ph.D. in Special Education from Arizona State University (along with a Master’s Degree in Counseling and a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering – he actually is a rocket scientist). He has been teaching martial arts for over 25 years and has owned eight martial arts schools in Arizona and California. Chief Master Moody is a motivational speaker and educator and teaches seminars in bullying, business, and martial arts training, around the world. See more at DrGregMoody.com.
Dr. Moody is also a licensed psychotherapist and maintains a practice at Integrated Mental Health Associates (IntegratedMHA.com) where he specializes in couples therapy and men’s issues.
The KarateBuilt Martial Arts Headquarters at KarateBuilt LLC is in Cave Creek, Arizona at 29850 N. Tatum Blvd., Suite 105, Cave Creek AZ 85331. You can locate the Chief Instructor, Master Laura Sanborn there directly at (480) 575-8171. KarateBuilt Martial Arts serves Cave Creek, Carefree, Scottsdale, and Paradise Valley Arizona as well as Grand Rapids, MI.
Also, check us out on Today in Business and Educators Observer!
Here is Dr. Moody’s Amazon Author Page with over 16 of his Amazon Bestselling books: Click HERE
P.P.P.S. From a parent:
“Since joining this program, my son Herman is more disciplined, motivated, and unstoppable in every challenge he faces!” – Emily Green