Karate and baseball on Nuns’ Island: the complete sport of the other season

01The short answer

02The other season

Baseball and softball are played outdoors, in the warm months; the dojo is indoors, all year. It is the simplest complement there is: when the field closes, the dojo hour is there, and when the field reopens, it is still there. A player who starts in September has the whole off-season to learn the basics, and is back on the diamond in spring without having stopped training.

03A complete programme, in the same hour

An inning is played; an hour at the dojo is performed, start to finish. In the WKO Shinkyokushinkai first-year textbook, an examination covers kihon, ido geiko, kata, conditioning (knuckle push-ups, jumping squats), flexibility and kumite. Conditioning and flexibility are not what you do before the season to last: they are part of what is taught and graded, on the same footing as technique. That is the sense in which karate is complete.

The 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities gives each described activity a MET value — a multiple of the energy spent at rest. Baseball and softball are listed at 5.0; karate at a moderate pace is at 10.3, and a beginner’s slower practice at 5.3. These values describe an activity as it was observed, not your class or your game: a beginners’ class is closer to karate’s 5.3 at a slower pace than to 10.3. Baseball asks for reading and explosiveness at the right moment; the dojo hour asks for a continuous effort. Two different demands, and that is what makes them complementary.

04For a young player: the second sport

The American Academy of Pediatrics writes, in its 2016 clinical report on sports specialization, that participating in multiple sports, at least until puberty, decreases the chances of injuries, stress and burnout in young athletes. Sport for Life, the Canadian long-term development body, puts it another way: early specialization makes no sense if the aim is healthy, lifelong participation rather than the podium. Baseball teaches hitting from one side, throwing with one arm and reading a pitcher; karate teaches blocking and striking on both sides, with no object, facing a partner. Two sports that do not overlap, and that is exactly the point.

05What the dojo adds for a baseball player

Active time. At the dojo there is no dugout and no outfield: everyone works every technique, all the time, in the line, and nobody waits for their turn at bat.

Both sides. A hitter has a side; a pitcher has an arm. At the dojo nothing has a side: every block, every strike, every kick is repeated left then right — Kyokushin techniques describes that catalogue.

Nothing to prepare. A baseball bag has its glove, its bat, its helmet; for a karate trial class, comfortable clothes and a bottle of water are enough, and the karategi is bought only once the decision is made.

06Baseball keeps its coach

The swing, the throw, reading a pitcher and positional play are learned on the field, and this page does not promise a longer hit. What karate brings, it brings as its own — and if your child loves baseball, they will keep loving it. Parents will find their pre-trial questions on Kyokushin for kids.

07On Nuns’ Island, in practice

The dojo is at 550 chemin du Golf, suite 010, on Nuns’ Island (Verdun), and also serves LaSalle, Pointe-Saint-Charles and the Sud-Ouest. Children train from age 4 to 13, adults from 14, five days a week: the schedule gives the groups and times, the pricing page the monthly rates.

The first class is a free trial, and there is nothing to buy beforehand: comfortable clothes and a bottle of water are enough — what to bring to your first class has the list.