Inner Combat Training

The hardest opponent a kid faces is the one in their own head.

Inner Combat Training teaches Toledo kids to fight that one. Martial arts discipline and behavioral wellness, four mornings a week, free to every family we serve.

Cost to families
Free
Ages
6 to 16
Schedule
Monday–Thursday
9:00–11:30 a.m.
Cohorts
Four
Neighborhoods
Toledo 43607
43610 · 43620
Community partner
Soul City Wrestling
and Boxing Clubs

What the program is

Inner Combat Training pairs martial arts instruction with structured social and emotional learning. Kids train in a small, consistent cohort with the same instructors every session, which is the part that does the work: the technique is the vehicle, the relationship is the intervention.

The program serves families in the 43607, 43610, and 43620 ZIP codes. There is no fee, no equipment purchase, and no minimum experience.

Behavioral wellness is built into the session rather than bolted onto it. Facilitators teach, and they are trained to recognize when what a child brings to the floor is beyond what a training program should handle. At that point the job is to hand off to licensed behavioral health, not to treat. Instruction is keyed to developmental stage rather than age alone — the reasoning is here.

That path is documented, role-restricted, and auditable. The safeguards page lays out exactly how.


Why martial arts, for this

Repetition builds regulation

A form is the same movement, done again, under gradually increasing demand. That is also the shape of learning to manage a hard feeling without acting on it.

Contact is controlled, not avoided

Kids in these neighborhoods are not short on exposure to conflict. Training gives it rules, a referee, and a stopping point — and gives a child the experience of choosing to stop.

Progress is visible

Advancement is earned in front of the room. For a child whose school record is a list of deficits, a demonstrable skill gained in eight weeks is a different kind of evidence about themselves.

Mornings are the gap

Out-of-school hours are when unsupervised risk concentrates. Monday through Thursday, 9:00 to 11:30, is deliberately placed there.


Run by people who build the record system too

Inner Combat Training is a program of EDM Health Services, a physician-led health services and health informatics company in Toledo. The same organization builds KATA, the behavioral health record and safety-workflow platform the program runs on.

That matters for one practical reason: consent capture, mandatory-reporting workflow, role-based access, and de-identified analytics are not features we hope a vendor supports. They are the system, and they were designed against Ohio statute before the first child enrolled.

EDM Health Services, LLC — Toledo, Ohio. SAM.gov UEI FSMJREGJGPJ3, CAGE 91US7.