Orange County
Programs in Orange County
Our programs run year round at Ikazuchi Dojo in Irvine and at partner sites across Orange County, for students aged 13 to 22 from under-resourced backgrounds.
Two things happen here. Martial Arts and Leadership, our flagship program, runs as a course at UC Irvine and is what everything else was built around. Alongside it, we run programming inside other organizations, in their buildings and on their schedules, for students who would not otherwise reach a martial arts school.
Our flagship program
Martial Arts and Leadership
Students train martial arts and work through a leadership curriculum built around that training. The martial arts are real and so are the instructors, several of whom have been teaching for decades. The leadership half is not a lecture series. It gets tested in the room first, with people you did not pick, and then everywhere else.
The course runs at UC Irvine on the quarter system, ten weeks at a time, and it carries academic credit. It is open to high school and college students, and beginners are the norm rather than the exception. Cohorts are consistently full and we keep a waiting list.
Accredited Curriculum
Designed by experts in education, psychology and the martial arts, and developed through our accredited program at UC Irvine. The course carries academic credit.
Martial arts
Aikido, Kali and Brazilian jiu jitsu, taught by our own instructors. You train from the first week, whatever you have or have not done before.
Community
A community of friends and mentors that carries on well past the program. Most students arrive not knowing anyone in the room.
Cost, where it is, and how you get there
- $550 for a ten week quarter, $1,650 for the full academic year across three quarters.
- Full and partial scholarships are available for accepted students who need financial aid.
- Transportation. If getting here is the problem, tell us. We provide and coordinate rides where we can.
To ask about the course or about the next cohort, email hello@budoaccelerator.org.
Partnerships
Who we work with across Orange County
Our reach used to be limited by the mat space of one building in Irvine. Working inside other organizations, on their schedules and with the students they already serve, is how we get to young people who would never walk into ours.
Simon Scholars
Simon Scholars supports underserved students who show leadership potential, staying with them from their junior year of high school through the start of a career, with scholarships, college access guidance and leadership development.
Each year we run Junior Leadership Day with them, a full day leadership intensive for their high school juniors.
TGR Learning Lab
The TGR Foundation's learning lab in Anaheim has given local students free access to STEAM, health and wellbeing, and college and career programs since 2006, built around hands-on learning for young people from under-resourced areas.
We run a six week self defense and confidence course there for middle and high school students.
Project Hope Alliance
Project Hope Alliance works to end the cycle of homelessness one child at a time. They partner with Orange County schools so that students experiencing homelessness get case management, personal guidance and the resources to do well inside and outside the classroom.
We work alongside them for the students they serve in Orange County.
UC Irvine Summer Bridge
Summer Bridge is UC Irvine's fully funded program for first generation and income eligible students arriving at the university, running from late July into September.
Students take coursework, meet mentors, live on campus and start the year already knowing the place and the people.
Not in Orange County?
Budo Scholar is the same curriculum, delivered online, with a Scholar training at a martial arts school near them instead of at ours.