Retiree earns black belt at 72

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This article was published 05/12/2022 (1220 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Three years of bumps and bruises paid off for Cathy Foster this past Thursday, when she finally received her first-degree black belt from Kirin Martial Defense.

At the age of 72, Foster has become the oldest person in the club’s history to achieve this rank, with head instructor Glen Gross telling the Sun that the retired educator showed potential as soon as she started taking classes in the fall of 2019.

“From the beginning, she stood out as someone who was dedicated and had the qualities that are more important than you might think to actually be able to one day be a black belt,” Gross said Saturday.

“You have to have that tenacity, the spirit of never giving up and the drive, the passion, the excitement, the desire … and she’s someone who, once she puts her mind to a task, she’ll complete it no matter what.”

While Foster admits that she was never really an athletic person growing up, she always placed a very high value on physical health.

This later manifested in her over three-decade career as a nursing professor, during which she taught at post-secondary institutions such as the University of Manitoba and Brandon University.

After retiring in 2015, Foster sought out a variety of activities to keep her mind and body sharp, eventually taking up Tai Chi as a low-impact introduction to martial arts.

“It is a good form of exercise … but I just felt I wanted to challenge myself a little bit more,” she said Saturday.

Knowing about Kirin through working alongside Gross at BU, Foster initially signed up for six weeks of classes to test the waters, but quickly got hooked and decided to stick around for the long haul.

Foster was particularly taken with Gross’ curriculum, since it gave her the opportunity to learn a variety of martial arts techniques right from the beginning, including some Taekwondo, Krav Maga and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu moves.

“And every three months, you’re tested for a new belt, provided you’re progressing to [the instructor’s] satisfaction,” she said.

“And then, of course, the techniques get more and more technical and demanding physically as well as mentally.”

Unfortunately, Foster’s martial arts journey hit a snag in early 2020, when the emerging COVID-19 pandemic made in-person gatherings at the Kirin dojang impossible.

However, the retired educator continued to practise at home for a nine-month period, taking part in online group exercises alongside her fellow students.

Once Foster was able to get back into the dojang, she managed to pick up where she left off, and eventually got the right to fight for her black belt through a multi-tiered exam that took this past week.

These tests represent a culmination of everything Foster learned at Kirin over the last three years, since she was asked to demonstrate her mastery of various strikes and self-defence techniques.

This process even involved some board breaking and a weapons demonstration, with the latter category giving the 72-year-old a chance to show off her nunchuck skills.

The most challenging aspect of these final tests for Foster was the sparring section, since these one-on-one encounters always pushed her reflexes to the limit.

“It’s not something I excel at, mostly because I’m not very flexible and I’m not very fast,” she said. “If I had done it when I was 20, it might have been different, but that was probably the hardest part for me.”

Despite these shortcomings, Foster more than earned her black belt in Gross’ eyes, since the instructor always measures success based on how each of his students balance their own unique strengths and weaknesses.

“The symbolism of the first-degree black belt is you are able to defend yourself against somebody else your size and your sex,” he said. “The greatest opponent is always yourself.”

In the wake of Thursday’s ceremony, Foster told the Sun that she was tremendously proud of what she accomplished and equally thankful to Gross and her fellow students at Kirin for supporting her throughout this three-year journey.

While Foster isn’t sure about pursuing a second-degree black belt, she is still focused on staying active at Kirin and encourages other people her age to follow suit if they can.

Even though practising martial arts may not be an option for every senior citizen, Foster believes there are plenty of other activities and clubs in Brandon that can provide the same boost in confidence, physical health and mental clarity that she achieved through the dojang.

“I think the main thing is for people to find something that interests them and not to be afraid to try anything new,” she said.

“Because I was never any sort of athletic person in my whole life, so that was a big stretch for me to go and do something like this. But you don’t know until you try.”

» kdarbyson@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @KyleDarbyson