Martial Arts Canada celebrates 50th anniversary

Martial Arts Canada celebrated its 50th anniversary on June 7 with seminars and an open house in Straffordville. (Chris Abbott Photo)

Chris Abbott, Post Correspondent

Martial Arts Canada has a long, illustrious history in Elgin, Oxford and Norfolk Counties.

The club has graded 77 blackbelts, and has won 25 world championships. It was ranked No. 5 among the National Blackbelt League and Sport Karate International’s Top 25 in the world for Sport Karate Schools in 1999, and No. 21 in 2005.

Today, MAC locations include two in St. Thomas, one in Sparta, two in Aylmer, and one in Tillsonburg and La Salette.

On June 7th, Martial Arts Canada celebrated its 50th anniversary with an open house in Straffordville. Current and past members, along with community supporters, came together to share memories, reconnect with old friends, and celebrate decades of karate, self-defence and fitness at all levels.

Going back to 1983-84, Kyoshi Bruce Shaver (a leader of teachers) remembers taking over MAC from founder Jim Summers with visions of continued success… and expansion.

“It was my goal every year to do the best job I could,” said Shaver. “I had no idea where it was going to end up, I just wanted to teach the best I could.”

Over the years that goal turned into a passion, ‘almost an obsession,’ that would turn out world champions.

“Looking back, it’s incredible what we’ve done. While we were doing it, it seemed like ‘this is what we’re doing every day.’ Summer camps, grading, tournaments… they were good. Looking at the video now, it’s almost inconceivable.”

In its early days, MAC was into high-level kickboxing, a fledgling sport in North America in the mid-70s. Soon after they transitioned to karate and began competing internationally.

Renshi MaryLynn (Maerten) Okkerse, current president/club owner, won a world championship at her first Super Grands in 1996 and the club’s success at the NBL Super Grand World Championships took them to elite levels.

“We found that we could compete with the very best and that just inspired us – it made us hungrier to get those titles,” said Shaver. “It just fired us up.”

Okkerse went on to win four more first-place world titles.

In 1999, she was on the main stage competing in the Niagara Falls Super Grand finals, which kicked off with a spectacular flashing green laser light-show.

“They did a nice job – they ran the preliminaries in the ballrooms, then all the firsts and seconds battled on stage in night shows.”

Not fazed by spotlights, Okkerse said there might have been brief moments of anxiety/anticipation before sparring in front of large audiences that quickly went away.

“Once you start fighting, you’re just fighting. You’re not worried about who’s out there, who’s watching. It was really cool, but we were all competitors - all show people - so you kind of live for it.”

“We are competing in a different sanction now but we’re still competing at that level,” Shaver noted. “We’ve got two going to the worlds this year.”

“We just passed the torch to the next ones,” Okkerse laughed.

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Shaver remembers the transition from competitor to teacher, soon after switching from kickboxing to the karate circuit.

“I said to myself, I can keep going my route and make myself a world champion in karate, or I can have my club do really well, and have tens… I don’t know how many… hundreds of world champions if I really put my energy into it,” said Shaver.

That conscious decision not to worry about his own success, but instead focusing on the club’s success changed MAC’s course.

“It was the right decision to make,” he said.

Now a teacher of teachers, Okkerse made a similar decision when she stopped (or slowed down) competing when she was going into post-secondary school, focusing on her education, then raising a family.

“I never stopped training and coaching,” said Okkerse. “I just wasn’t going to tournaments every weekend. I was training other people to coach when I have to have my attention elsewhere - we have a huge talent base.

“I wouldn’t say I’m slowing down, karate has been a constant in my life. But it changes into what you need it to be. So now I teach out of my own shop in my backyard, once a week, and I teach our blackbelts. We’re learning, and sharing what we learn with great people.”

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Some venues have changed, but the Martial Arts Canada family continues to grow.

Okkerse remembers past instructors saying many MAC students ‘don’t leave.’ Some stick around for decades and decades.

“It really is like a family,” she said. “Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters – a lot of similar names.”

MAC has stressed keeping it affordable and accessible, training in public facilities like school gymnasiums and community centres.

“We standardize our prices across all of our locations.”

Slowing down in the summer, programs will be back in full come September.

“The nice thing about martial arts is that you don’t have to compete,” Okkerse noted. “That is the glamorous part, the flashy part, but martial arts is for everybody, and regardless of age, you can still progress and improve in your own art.”

“I’ve run into a lot of students that I’ve had over the years and the impression you leave, even if they’ve only been here a year or two, it stays with them,” said Shaver.

Today, his daughter Whitney Shaver runs MAC’s Tillsonburg location.