Karate For All

Martial-arts teacher Brendan Breen adapts his classes to better serve students living with disabilities.

- Chelsea Laskowski

OWEN REID never gave much thought to karate. For one, the 35-year-old has cerebral palsy and needs a wheelchair to get around his home at Deer Park Villa, a care facility for people living with disabilities, in the town of Ituna, Sask.

But his indifference to martial arts vanished in January of 2018, when he was asked to join a new initiative: a local named Brendan Breen was offering karate classes. During that first weekly class at Deer Park Villa, surrounded by a handful of other students, Reid was skeptical. Still, he quickly found himself drawn in by Breen’s enthusiasm. “He got me motivated to try it,” Reid said. Over time, the kata routine—a series of movements, like punches, lunges and jumps, against an imaginary opponent—was adapted so Reid could complete it from one spot using mainly his arms.