Martinez Martial Arts Grows During Pandemic

Bloomfield, NJ — Sensei Marie Martinez has been practicing martial arts from the age of three. She has gone on to become a World Champion and a 30-time Grand Champion, competing in martial arts competitions around the world. In 2013, she began bringing her knowledge and skills to the community, holding martial arts classes as a nonprofit organization.

“I was teaching classes in different REC centers, trying to give back just the way my instructors taught me,” Martinez said. “That led to me just trying to do it as a part-time gig. And that led, after having my fourth child, I decided I could do this full-time. That’s how Martinez Martial Arts evolved. We currently have two locations and at this point, we do more than martial arts.”

The different facets and opportunities that Martinez Martial Arts now offers — summer camps, day camps, fitness instruction, monthly entertainment events and birthday parties — came naturally, as a way to further provide for the community.

“It was based on needs,” Martinez said. “We started doing evening martial arts classes for all ages, and that developed, case by case — we started getting a lot of students that had special needs or learning challenges. That evolved into different specialized classes in order to meet their needs and also enhance our curriculum, since all of our instructors are based in child development specialties. We started doing summer camps about four years ago, this is going to be our fifth year, and it’s been growing since.”

In the weeks leading up to the lockdown that occurred in early March of 2020, Martinez, noticing the way international countries were responding to Covid-19, began planning for a seemingly inevitable lockdown, finding a virtual platform that was easy to navigate for parents and kids, especially those with a language barrier.

“We started virtual classes the very next day,” Martinez said. “Of course, it wasn’t perfect. It was a learning experience. With that, what we tried to do was a lot of social distancing activities. Once things started lifting, we went through this crucial, grueling inspection — locally and state — in order to open up our summer camp. A lot of summer camps decided not to open up. Our avenue was absolutely the opposite. We’re there to serve the community.”

In order to pass the department of health inspection, Martinez Martial Arts had to establish hand sanitizer stations in certain areas. They had to have an additional, separate room for anyone who might be showing any symptoms. The staff was also required to perform temperature checks on all campers three times a day, in addition to having an extremely limited capacity, maintaining social distance and wearing masks at all times.

“The state and local inspection, the additions, the uncertainty, the obstacle definitely was how fast things change and how much on our toes we had to be,” Martinez said.

As the restrictions started to lift, Martinez Martial Arts kept increasing their offerings to the community.

“We decided to do more and more activities,” Martinez said, “such as curbside classes. We weren’t able to have classes indoors for some time; we decided to just do it in our parking lot. My thought process is either all or nothing. You’re either going to do it or you’re not going to do it at all. Our mission is more than martial arts. We want to be there for families. We see how martial arts helps, not just the students, but the rest of the family. And we decided to continue that despite all the changes day-to-day.”

Now, with vaccines being distributed and the number of vaccinated people constantly rising, Martinez Martial Arts is approaching normalcy.

“I wouldn’t say we are back to normal, but we are sure getting there,” Martinez said. “We continue to wear masks, for the safety of the children. We have to make sure that everyone is safe. The procedure still continues the same way as when we first started classes in the summer camps. The good thing about it is that people are used to getting adapted to what is our new life, and so that has helped with an increase in enrollments as well.”

Looking to the future, Martinez sees even greater expansion on the horizon for Martinez Martial Arts.

“We just opened up a second location in January. We have received positive reviews with the way our system works and the way our classes are going,” Martinez said. “We do see us expanding further. We have a great system here, not just health-wise and how to handle the pandemic, but also with our curriculum. Our curriculum rocks, it’s awesome.”

“We love what we do,” Martinez added. “We’re very happy to be in the communities that we are. We serve Belleville, Bloomfield and Newark — we’re on the border of everything there. It’s exciting for people to come join us and check us out for sure.”