Team Saskatchewan combats in karate masters

Team Saskatchewan was amongst the provincial teams from across Canada travelling to Winnipeg for the 30th Annual International Shotokan Karate Federation (ISKF) Canadian National Championships from Oct. 8-10.

There was a good representation of Aboriginal and Métis athletes on Team Sask. and a few walked away with medals. On the first day of competition, Saskatchewan’s mixed youth team came away with the gold medal in Team Kata, Kata being a series of formed movements.

Team Kata was a group of three competitors doing these formed movements in synchronicity. On that gold-medal team was 11-year-old second degree brown belt Braydon Caron, a member of the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation.
Caron is originally from Pelican Narrows, but lives in St. Louis, Saskatchewan with his family. He has been involved in karate training for five years, after he began his karate training in Prince Albert.

“He’s come a long way since the very first time we took him in,” said his mother Gloria. “When he was six years old, he cried because he was so shy, and he didn’t like being the only child at the time. We told him he didn’t have to come back but he wanted to, and he started getting used to it,” she added.

“Sensai Marcel Lussier really encourages people to enter competitions,” said Caron’s father Mark.

“Under Sensai Del Phillips, he did more training and learning,… so Braydon’s able to train for and come to these competitions,” he said.

Although a team may seem like a second family to some athletes, to others, it can quite literally be a family affair. Second-degree black belt Mark Smytaniuk, a Métis man from Hagan, Saskatchewan came away with the gold medal in Senior Men’s Kumatae (sparring). His daughter Michelle, a third degree black belt, competed in the teen girls’ kata for Saskatchewan. Both are in the team for individual competitions and are members of the St. Louis Métis chapter.

“My dad knows the instructor, and thought I might like it, so he took me to a class,” said Michelle about her start in karate. “It was about six and a half to seven years ago, it’s been a while!”

“When you see her in there doing her competition, you’re doing her Kata with her in your mind,” said Mark.

“After she was done, it was all pride! Both kids competed at the world championships in Toronto two years ago, Michelle did really well at it, she just missed the medals in Kumatae,” he added.

Not only do the father and daughter compete, but so does mother Carla and brother Randy.

Sensai Marcel Lussier is also the Provincial Sensai for Saskatchewan. Of Métis ancestry, Sensai Marcel was very proud of Caron’s first trip to the national tournament.

“He’s doing really good, coming from a little town of 450 people, coming to compete against the rest of Canada. He’s already made it to the top four (in sparring) so he can only get better,” Lussier said.

Lussier himself, had his start in karate in Prince Albert, when the training used to take place in the now-torn-down Elks Hall in the city’s downtown. Now, he runs his own dojo training facility in St. Louis.

“I was one of the original students there, and… was the last one left from that organization, so they made me chief (Shotokan Karate) instructor for all of Saskatchewan. I’ve been doing that for eleven years now,” said Lussier.

Photo Captions:

Top: Braydon Caron (far right) in team Saskatchewan’s youth kata competiton, where he and his teammates won the gold medal.

Lower: Michelle and Mark Smytaniuk, a father-daughter team, were also teammates with Team Saskatchewan at the National ISKF championships.