Today we’d like to introduce you to Jan Claude Orda.
Jan Claude, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
When I was a kid, my father (who was a martial artist himself) would come home tired from work and asked me what I wanted to watch on TV because he needed to take a nap. So I would request something like, “Mr. Rogers!”, then he, in turn, would put in a Bruce Lee movie. The next day my dad would come home with the same question, and I would respond, “Sesame Street!” My dad would then put in a Jackie Chan movie. As I grew up, my dad would send me to different martial arts schools. It was when I went to a Shorinryu Karate school, “Keller’s Martial Arts Plaza” that I started seriously training. My sensei, the late Raymond J. Keller noticed I had a talent for martial arts, and from there, I trained for three years until something happened within the dojo that caused the school to close. I then wandered from dojo to dojo, looking for that feeling of “home’ that I felt before. At the age of 16, I trained my first students from my church of St. Albert. From there, I would train family and friends whenever and wherever I was requested. In 2010, as I was still searching for that home dojo, I opened my own dojo in my garage hoping to one day find it. Little did I know, I was beginning to create that “home” dojo right in my very own home!
To open the Zenpan Dojo really was an act of faith. I was raised Catholic but didn’t really care much for God or practicing the faith until I broke up with my fiance at the time. So when I started the home dojo in my garage, it was something to help heal myself, get back to my roots of martial arts and find that peace I used to have when I was a kid. As time passed by, the dojo attracted people with their own stories of heartache, loneliness, insecurities, and similarly, others came to seek strength, get in shape, or develop the ability to protect themselves. I also was learning more and more about the faith and actually practicing it religiously (pun intended) for once in my life. I noticed the more I put God first, the more things moved towards the dojo growing. I hesitated for a long time to open my own dojo because it’s not like I’ve won a bunch of martial arts tournaments or have a black belt in any martial arts style. I simply love people and love martial arts. So by God’s grace and simply the way he knows how my mind works, he pointed me towards the one great inspiration that helped me push past my own doubts, Bruce Lee.
One of the greatest martial artists of all time had no black belt or championship trophies, yet he loved people and loved martial arts and look where that got him! Knowing all this, I realized as long as I remain focused on continuously learning, have faith and keep loving people, then the Zenpan Dojo would become a reality, and before I knew it, it did.
Has it been a smooth road?
You already know the answer to that! The road is never smooth! The greatest struggle honestly was my own self-doubt, pride, and lack of faith in God’s ability to do miraculous things with me and those around me. I also constantly sought to appease my parents since they have always done right by me, and I wanted to make sure they felt at peace with whatever I did. Of course, having a decent paying, secure job was the primary concern, so that was the kind of job I kept searching for. However, even though I did well at the jobs I worked, I always felt like I had to be somewhere else. These jobs included, janitor, secretary, Smoothie King, Target, AMC, UPS, billing clerk, youth minister at St. Albert and Notre Dame, photographer, videographer, veterinarian assistant, eBay merchant and my most favorite job of them all, Metro Bus Operator! That job taught me the most when it came to learning about what it means to be human. The stories I heard, the types of people I encountered, the weird events that happened all helped me grow tremendously as a human being. God always prepares you for what you will become. You just have to have the patience and perseverance to get there.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Zenpan Dojo story. Tell us more about the business.
The Zenpan Dojo specializes in training beginners in martial arts, kids self-defense, women’s self-defense, and having a very challenging, yet balanced, fitness and conditioning class. At the moment, I think we are also the only place that teaches with lightsabers in the Greater Houston Area! However and most importantly, putting God in the center of what we teach and practice in the dojo. We always open with prayer and close with prayer.
What I am most proud of is our atmosphere. People have always said how warm and welcome they feel when they walk in. It’s relaxed, and people feel they can just be. I’m also proud of the fact that we don’t have A/C! We toughen up the “Zenpandas” (people of the Zenpan Dojo) through the heat of summer and the cold of winter!
What sets us apart from other martial arts places is that we have a structured lesson plan that teaches the students basic self-defense techniques that covers grappling and striking so whether someone tackles you to the ground or tries to punch you while standing up, we teach how to defend from a variety of situations. The lesson plans also have strategies, concepts, and philosophy that help the student understand martial arts on a deeper level. It also helps the student keep up with how often they have trained each technique because under each technique are boxes where they put the date in which they practiced it.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
As the Force wills. HA! Honestly, in 5 years, I would love for a bunch of my students to do an epic lightsaber battle on those bridges above 59 going towards downtown. Imagine driving down the freeway and seeing a bunch of red and multi-colored lightsabers flashing in the night…though it might cause people to not pay attention to the road so maybe not? Haha!
I would also love to get a bigger and better training center. Since I am a big anime nerd, I would love to create a “Ninja Warrior” type obstacle course and train the next generation of Hokage’s and improve the current hyperbolic time chamber (That is a reference for anime lovers to know.)
Pricing:
- -FREE TRIAL WEEK: Try any of the classes to see if you like any of them or all of them!
- -$20 drop in rate
- -$120 and up for classes
- -Special deals throughout the year! Believe it!
Contact Info:
- Address: 10511 Windsor Ln. #115, Houston, TX 77031
- Website: www.zenpandojo.com
- Phone: (346) 240-8991
- Email: zenpandojo@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zenpandojo/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zenpandojo/
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