Rod R.
Las Vegas, NV

A Minnesota family walks into Master Durant’s ATA studio…. kind of sounds like a start of a joke, right? Well, it’s not, this ATA is no joke!  From the moment we walked in we were greeted with a handshake for me and hug for my wife…I wish I received the hug…anyways Master Durant welcomed our two young kids into his studio with open arms. I watched Master Durant and his assistants very closely from the start and how the studio trained our kids and how he handled other students in his studio. After attending 3 classes or so I knew if Master Durant offered to babysit my kids I would have no worries, in other words I felt completely comfortable on how he handles his students! The exact quote that came into my head was Master Durant is firm when he needs to be but fair! I thoroughly enjoyed watching Master Durant teach a class, when students would get out of line like disrupting the class he is trying to teach he handles the situation very well, as a parent I teach my children to respect people and that’s what our kids did when they were on Master Durants time. I also enjoyed when Master Durant would get the parents involved in the tigers class… for example when he asked me to come onto the floor so he could show the tigers class what the 9 strikes looked like on a person with the bahng mehng ee weapon, I trusted him but the ninth strike made me nervous!! I really enjoyed the time my kids got spend learning from Master Durant, Jaden, and James.

There is one moment in particular that will always be remembered by us, we had just got the kids signed up for tigers sparring class on Friday’s our daughter was full on ready to go but our son was soooo nervous. He had his uniform and all of his gear on, he started tearing up and then started crying stating he was scared… we called over Master Durant and asked him if he could take a moment to calm our son down and get him on the sparring floor. Master Durant came over and sat on the floor with our son and explained to him that everything was going to be just fine and in no way was he going to let him get hurt. They both walked onto the sparring floor together and Master Durant was right there with our son through most his sparring rounds, by the next class our son was happily ready to spar and his confidence level was boosted!!! Master Durant was sooo good with our children and I wish we could still be attending his class.

Master Durant, Jaden, and James are about as good as it comes… except for Chuck Norris…he’s not better than Chuck Norris…