When we’re training, we’re free’: Instructor fights to save Indigenous martial art – CBC
It’s ‘intimidating’ to be one of the last people qualified to teach Okichitaw, George Lepine says
Nov 01, 2018
George Lepine looks on as his students learn how to flip an attacker coming at them with a weapon.
The class looks similar to karate or tae kwon do, right down to the black martial arts outfits the students wear, but the self-defence practice Lepine is teaching them is from North America, not Asia.
It’s called Okichitaw, an Indigenous martial art passed down the generations by the Cree.
Lepine, 56, is trying to ensure it survives.
“It has to go on in the future,” says Lepine, who learned the techniques from his uncles when he was growing up as a Plains Cree in Southern Manitoba.
Read More: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/indigenous-martial-arts-1.4886563
