THUNDER BAY — The Martial Arts and Health Expo focuses on three battles – body, mind and spirit.
Held on Saturday and Sunday, the expo saw over 100 people in attendance at the Lakehead University Avila Centre, from age 4 up to 70.
Susan Baldassi, coordinator of the expo, said it is the biggest event of its kind in Canada.
“We started in 2014 and now it's become an annual event. We're really pleased to be able to offer this as a one stop event. We have our banquet, black belt testing and all of our seminars here and we're happy to host people from across North America today as participants, presenters and spectators,” Baldassi said.
Three different sessions ran each hour, with participants having the ability to choose between over 25 seminars. Topics included martial arts, health, wellness and more.
Baldassi said the expo was previously held every second year, but after hosting the event online in 2020, the interest for the expo grew.
“When we were able to gather again in person, everyone was just so excited to build our community back up together, to have those connections and we really saw how important it was to our wellbeing and to our physical health to be together, to have this opportunity to train and really transform ourselves, give us a goal to look forward to.”
It was the consensus of the martial arts community to hold the expo every year, she said.
Baldassi said every year this is what the martial arts community looks forward to and prepares for.
“They look forward just as much to the sessions as they do to sitting around the fire pit with their friends or new friends that that arrive here. It’s really heartwarming to see the connections that have built up over the years.”
Brent Horton, who holds an eighth-degree black belt in karate, came from Winnipeg to learn, visit old friends, and run a class.
Horton, who is referred to as Shihan, which means teacher of teachers, is holding a class about nonconsensual violence.
“The idea of my class is understanding how to use karate in a real self defense situation,” he said.
Horton said there is a variety of classes to learn different things.
“There are traditional karate classes. There are classes on health and wellness, meditations, yoga. We have boxing instructors out this year, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, so we try to give . . . a wide range of opportunities to learn different arts.”
Traditionally, karate talks about three battles, the mind, the spirit, and the body, Horton said.
“In traditional karate in Japan and Okinawa, they don't just do the physical, they do meditation, they do stretching.
“We're not just our bodies, we are also a heart and a mind. We're always trying to bring all three of those into focus, right into alignment with each other, and that's how you get a healthy person is if you have all three of the mind, the spirit and the body all working together.”
Kiera Purdon has attended every Martial Arts and Health Expo held in Thunder Bay starting in 2014.
“I get to see everybody from friends I've had from far away, we have people from America, from Manitoba, from down south. I get to learn from new instructors on top of karate, I get to experience every part of being a martial artist,” she said.
Purdon said having different speakers from all over each year keeps people coming back.
“As a martial artists we want to be a well-rounded individual and have a bunch of different skills that we can lean on and discover new paths we want to pursue as a martial artist.”
The expo continues on Sunday and anyone is welcome regardless of experience. For more information visit the Martial Arts and Health Expo Facebook page, or reach out to Susan at [email protected].
