The new martial arts academy on Madison Street in Lansdale offers kickboxing, TaeKwonDo, and after-school programs.
Madison Street in Lansdale is getting a kick out of honor, respect, courtesy, integrity, strength, concentration, courage, discipline, confidence, perseverance, and, most importantly, community.
Red Dragon Martial Arts, an active contributor to the community, has a mission – the traditional Tae Kwon Do and kickboxing school wants to prepare students for the responsibilities of citizenship, while empowering them to enrich their personal and professional lives.
It looks to entice that attitude and its programs at its new 325 Madison Street, Suite F1012 location, which opened last month after moving from its former site in Colmar, Hatfield Township.
Red Dragon Martial Arts During Discover Lansdale’s First Friday at 7 p.m., Red Dragon will hold a large martial arts demonstration outside its headquarters in the courtyard at Lansdale Station Apartments on Madison Street.
“First Friday will be the big thing for us,” said Chief Operating Officer Steve Sweet, of Hatfield Borough. “We are trying to get the word out about us.”
Sweet said there will be children doing a team demonstration, a weapons demonstration, and a bo staff or nunchuck demonstration from 14-year-old Hatfield resident and instructor Robert Bass, a 4-time World Champion and 13-time National Champion in Taekwondo fighting weapons and forms.
Master Eric Williams.
Instructor Robert Bass.
Instructor Jazzlyn-Star Williams.Red Dragon Martial Arts is led by Sweet’s business partner and 3rd Degree black belt head instructor Master Eric Williams, of Hatfield Borough, a Taekwondo Kukkiwon certified weapons and self-defense specialist and 2011 AAU forms champion and record holder, who opened the business in April 2021.
Alongside him as an instructor is Sweet’s grandson Bass, and Williams’s daughter and first degree black blet Jazzlyn-Star Williams as a junior instructor.
“Eric happened to drive by our house every day when Robert was training, and we started talking. We’ve known each other about two-and-a-half years, but I was busy with a lot of other things,” Sweet said, who was also involved in military and private contracting overseas in Northern Africa and Central AMerica. “Eventually, we got together, started talking, and, being too old for the law enforcement stuff anymore, I wanted to find a way for my grandson to pursue the martial arts further.”
The academy offers a multitude of family and individual classes: Family Martial Arts, Youth Martial Arts, Competitive Martial Arts, Adult, Striker (MMA), and Cardio (Fitness) Kickboxing, and Adult Taekwondo. It has about 28 students, at present.
Discover more details of Red Dragon Martial Arts’ programs here.
“We do children’s martial arts, we do competitive stuff, and a lot with weapons training,” said Sweet, a nine-year U.S. Army Infantry and Navy veteran and former Caln Township Police Officer in Chester County. “We are in the middle of bringing an instructor on the karate side that does Shotokan.”
Steve Sweet 
Steve Sweet However, using his military and law enforcement skills and background, Sweet has some plans on the horizon.
“Soon, we will be offering courses in travel and vacation safety, hostile environment survival – for when you get caught in a riot situation or caught in civil unrest wherever you travel – and home safety defense,” Sweet said, who once served as federal school security law enforcement chief for both Navy bases in Philadelphia. “That’s my forte. I have always been in martial arts and I always pursued what worked best for me in the law enforcement world.”
Speaking just like a military man, Sweet said the move from Colmar to Madison Street in Lansdale was a “calculated risk.”
“It’s a risk anywhere you go, and there’s always some risk when you close one chapter and go on to the next one,” Sweet said. “We feel we have a lot to offer that will benefit the community.”
He said the Madison Street location is “so condensed, so many children live in the area.”
“The ones that don’t live here,” he said, “walk through here all the time with their friends. We felt the location was perfect. There are so many people in the apartments, and we are offering so many areas to look it, the potential to bring in the customers and meet their needs is there.”
Red Dragon Martial Arts The academy is also offering an after-school program where staff members pick up students from school, bring them to Red Dragon, where they have a snack and work on homework before heading into a martial arts lesson.
Williams, he said, has helped many students who were struggling in school with challenges, bullying or anger issues. Sweet said Williams has met with parents and counselors to discuss the child’s issues and figure out how Red Dragon can help the child.
Sweet said a situation like that has occurred twice, and both times resulted in a successful change in attitude and focus on the students. Red Dragon has a anti-bullying stance and promotion with all its students.
“We teach situational awareness and how to deal with things when they come into real life. We teach survival skills to deal with it. We give them a path to not have to fight,” Sweet said. “We teach them to defend themselves. You can only say, ‘Stop, please stop, don’t, leave me alone’ so many times and we find a way to deal with that.”
Luckily, the attraction of the Madison Street storefront has attracted some curious potential martial artists.
“It’s starting to catch on. Kids and adults are walking by, and we don’t have all our signage up yet, so it becomes a curiosity thing,” Sweet said. “We signed four or five students last month.”
Red Dragon is currently offering free trial classes.
Call them at 267-218-5599, email them at [email protected], or visit them at www.reddragontkdma.com. Its hours of operation are Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., with flexible weekends for private sessions. Classes run between 5:15 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., and there are daytime kickboxing classes.
