Ages [AGes 6-11] · Gibsonville, NC 27249
Boxing | Muay Thai | MMA
Kids Martial Arts in Gibsonville, NC
Three separate kids classes — boxing, MMA and Muay Thai — Monday through Thursday, straight after school. Coached, supervised, and built around children who have never done anything like this before.
No experience needed · Parents welcome to stay and watch · No contract · Cancel anytime
What Your Child Actually Learns Here
The martial arts are the delivery mechanism. This is the cargo.
And yes, they learn to defend themselves.
Real boxing, real Muay Thai, real MMA fundamentals, scaled down and taught properly rather than watered down. A child who has actually drilled these things is genuinely harder to bully, and knows it.
That knowledge is most of the point. Confidence is what stops the situation, not technique. The kid who carries themselves like they are not an easy target usually never has to find out whether they are.
The question every parent asks
"Won't teaching my kid to fight make them want to fight?"
It does the opposite, and there is a reason it does the opposite.
The child who starts fights is almost always the one who is frightened of them. Bravado is what fear looks like from the outside. Take away the fear and you take away most of the reason to posture in the first place.
A kid who has been in a controlled gym for six months knows exactly how hard this is, how much it hurts, and how little they actually want to do it outside. That is not theory. It is the most consistent thing we see.
We also just say it out loud, repeatedly, and enforce it: what you learn here does not leave this building, except to protect yourself or somebody who cannot protect themselves. A student who uses it to start something rather than stop something has a conversation with a coach, and their parents hear about it the same day.
If your child is already the one getting in trouble at school, tell us when you come in. That is not a reason to stay away. It is usually a reason this works.
What Actually Happens In A Class
Thirty minutes to an hour depending on the class, coached start to finish, with a coach in the room the entire time.
Line up and warm up
Class starts on time and starts the same way every session, which matters more for kids than it does for adults. Movement, coordination games, and enough running around to take the edge off a day spent in a chair.
One technique, broken all the way down
A jab. A kick. A way to get back to their feet. Coach demonstrates it slowly, then it gets drilled on pads and bags. Kids who pick it up fast get a harder version. Kids who do not get more reps and no comment about it.
Controlled partner work
Partners are matched by size and experience, wear protective gear, and work at a pace the coach sets. This is not sparring and nobody is trying to hurt anybody. It is two kids solving one problem together while an adult watches.
Conditioning, then line up and out
Games disguised as conditioning, then everyone lines back up and finishes the way they started. They come out tired, which is the outcome most parents quietly came for.
On safety, plainly
A coach supervises every minute of every class. Partner work is size-matched and geared. Nobody spars. Intensity is set by the coach.
We will not tell you a contact sport carries no risk, because it does, and any gym that says otherwise is selling you something. What we will tell you is that the things that actually cause injuries — unsupervised kids, mismatched partners, and letting them go too hard too early — are the three things we control hardest.
Stay and watch as long as you like. Most parents do for the first few weeks, and then start using the hour for themselves.
Who is coaching your child
The Same Coaches Who Train The Adults.
Coach Mike "Duckman"
Youth Program Lead
Coach Mike a 2-1 professional runs the youth program and the adult MMA classes. He coaches a nine-year-old the same way he coaches a competitor: slowly, correctly, and without ever making anybody feel stupid for not getting it yet.
He will know your child's name the first night, and he will remember what they were working on the week before.
Your kid is not getting the junior-varsity version of this gym. The striking your child learns comes from the same program run by Anthony "Arthur" Holt — 1982 New York Golden Gloves champion, 16-3 as a professional, former USA Boxing Team member, more than forty years coaching. Sean Alder runs Muay Thai.
That matters for a practical reason rather than a bragging one. Coaches at this level teach fundamentals properly the first time, which means your child does not spend two years unlearning bad habits picked up from somebody working off a video.
It also means there is somewhere to go. A child who falls in love with this at nine has a room to keep training in at fourteen, and at twenty-four, without ever changing gyms.
Read Coach Holt's full record →Where They Will Be Training
A real gym on Railroad Avenue, not a mat in the back of a strip mall.
A full boxing ring
Kids train on the mats, and they grow into the ring.
A real cage
Train like a pro
Room for you too
Open gym is included on every membership. Plenty of parents train while their kid is on the mats, which is exactly what the Family Plan is for.
Kids Class Schedule
Three classes, Monday through Thursday, straight after school.
Early enough that you are home for dinner. Come to one class a week or come to all of them — it is the same membership either way.
Kids Boxing
Monday and Wednesday
5:00 – 5:30 PM
Thirty focused minutes. Stance, footwork, hands and pad work. The shortest class we run, which makes it the easiest first one for a younger child or a nervous one.
Kids MMA
Monday and Wednesday
5:30 – 6:15 PM
Forty-five minutes covering striking, takedowns and controlled ground work. The most varied class on the kids schedule, and usually the one they ask to come back to.
Kids Muay Thai
Tuesday and Thursday
5:30 – 6:30 PM
A full hour of hands, shins, knees and clinch work. The longest kids class, and the one that burns off the most of whatever they have been storing up all day.
Mondays and Wednesdays, the two classes run back to back.
Kids Boxing finishes at 5:30 and Kids MMA starts at 5:30. Plenty of children do both — 5:00 to 6:15 in one go — which is a solid session and, more to the point for you, one trip and one pickup.
Add Tuesday or Thursday Muay Thai and they are training four nights a week for the same $125.
Adult classes run later the same evenings, which is what the Family Plan is built around.
Find Us In Gibsonville NC
Address
The Sweat Lab MMA and Fitness
106 E Railroad Avenue, Unit 180
Gibsonville, NC 27249
On the Alamance and Guilford county line. Five minutes from Elon, ten from Burlington, twenty from east Greensboro, and easy from Whitsett, Graham, Mebane and Haw River.
First night
Arrive about fifteen minutes early. Somebody will meet you both, show you round, and introduce your child to a coach before anything starts.
You will not be handed a clipboard and pointed at a mat.
Free First Class
Bring them in once and see what happens.
Leave your details and we will help you pick a first night. No pitch, no contract, no card, and nothing to cancel if it turns out not to be their thing.
Worst case, they spend an hour hitting pads and you have your evening back. Best case, it becomes the thing they will not miss.
Monday to Thursday · From 5:00 PM · No contract · Parents welcome to watch
The Sweat Lab MMA and Fitness · 106 E Railroad Avenue, Unit 180, Gibsonville, NC 27249
336-221-4257 · Kids martial arts serving Gibsonville, Burlington, Elon, Whitsett, Graham, Mebane and Alamance and Guilford counties.