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Ask any of Eliza Ma’s students and they’ll tell you she’s never happy, but 12 hours of recent open competition in Calgary resulting in 18 medals has her beaming.
Ma and her husband, Lucas, own and operate The Art of Taekwon-Do and Kung Fu Club and took 12 of their athletes to Calgary for a competition on March 25.
“I think we can do a bit better… I’m never happy, that’s what everyone says,” said Ma with a laugh. “But I’m very proud of them, and for many of them, it was their first tournament or their first tournament since COVID.”
Ma also explained the club’s youngest competitor last weekend was five and their oldest was 17.
“It was an open martial arts tournament, so there was Kickboxing, Muay Thai, Taekwon-Do, Kung Fu and weapons,” she said.
“A lot of tournaments here only do their own association … so, only Taekwon-Do or only Karate, but I think to know if you’re good or not, you want to compete in every martial out.”
Having her students return from competition with 18 medals is definitely something Ma is proud of, but she’s always pushing for more.
“Most of our athletes enter four to five divisions per competition because they do a hand form, a weapon, they fight, and they usually do some type of creative musical division to round out the whole thing,” she said.
Ma also noted Calgary was the first full-scale tournament since COVID, which drew roughly 350 martial artists.
In Calgary, The Art of Taekwon-Do and Kung Fu Club members to medal, and how many medals they won, were as follows: Zoenela Herath – 3, Naomi Brand – 1, Xander Ortanez – 1, Yeohaun Ortanez -2, Reigen Phillips -1, Spencer Phillips -2, Mary Antonette Senense – 1, Marti Henardino – 0, Sofiia Ozymchuk – 3, Owen Bondy – 1, Tristan Conroy – 2, William Woodland – 1.
“We had a fantastic time in Calgary and we’re now looking at future competitions,” said Ma.
“Two of my girls who compete are black belts, so my focus is now coming into coaching and judging as they come to the age where they can be there for the kids instead of us, then we can go in and judge.”
To prepare for Calgary, Ma explained athletes trained four days per week for two months prior to competition, “and the expectation is we bring home at least as many medals as people … that’s my rule,” she said. “So, I’m never happy, but technically, I’m happy … I usually prefer to double on medals with everyone.”
As far as the competition went, Ma said Calgary never disappoints.
“Calgary brings in everyone from Red Deer, B.C. and Edmonton,” said Ma.
“It was great seeing clubs who have been going to Calgary for years, as we have, and it was definitely a very tough competition; it’s always tough and you need to be very good in order to win.”
With a total of 18 medals coming back to the Border City, Ma noted that says something about the calibre of martial artists we have here.
“I think what makes us so different than other clubs is we’re very much a family environment,” she said.
“Our kids are quite close to us and come to us about their lives, and in turn, we know how to coach them because we know them very well … in doing that, they want to be here, they want to learn, and they want to succeed.
“They also constantly push each other to do better, and I think that’s one of the reasons we’ve done so well.”
Running the club with her husband for the past few years has also been eye-opening for Ma.
“In martial arts, there are not a lot of women, and I’m proud of that, but having Lucas here has been great because he’s brought more boys to the club … that element was missing until this year, and the majority of our students are now boys, it’s wonderful,” said Ma.
The club heads to Red Deer on May 27 for another competition.
