At the front of a gymnasium, dressed in a well-ironed uniform, my father begins the day’s martial arts seminar with a question: “What is the best form of self-defence?”
In Scarborough, in eastern Toronto, my family held Filipino martial arts classes from April 1999 to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Every Saturday, like a household chore, we assembled our gym, our slice of Philippine life, into being. Setting it up in church halls and community centres during down years, we hauled our large stack of gym mats into the minivan, wedging a bucket of rattan sticks and sparring gear in between. In better financial situations, when we had a lockable office space, all we took was our freshly laundered and starched uniforms: white gi (long-sleeve uniform top), red pants, and belt. For over twenty years, our gym was an extra wing of our home, reaching out from the front door to an archipelago of martial artists across the city.
