THE WORLD CHAMPION

I

was late on the day I was set to interview Nathan Skoufis. It was my own fault, and I was expecting Nathan to be frustrated or to have left by the time I finally met with him. I had it stuck in my mind that as a 21-time world champion martial artist, the owner of his own business, and full-time student, he might feel like I was wasting his time. But when I arrived at The Ontarion office, there he was, patiently chatting with our photographer. Nathan greeted me with a smile, holding my gaze and never breaking eye contact.

Nathan Skoufis, 25, recently competed at the 30th Anniversary National Black Belt League (NBL) Super Grands World Championships in New York State, where he won Adult Black Belt Middleweight World Title, the Adult Black Belt Team Sparring World Title, and the Overall World Grand Champion title. He is the owner of Guelph Family Martial Arts (GFMA) and has been a competitive martial artist for years, in which time he has earned title after title after title…

“I actually didn’t like martial arts at all when I started,” Nathan told me during our interview.

Nathan began his martial arts career at the age of six, after bugging his mom and instructor to let him start a year early. But after a few months, he nearly gave up. “Like most kids and adults, you do something and then once that novelty wears off,” he explained. “You see that you actually have to do work to get high kicks and it just doesn’t come… I didn’t really want to be involved with it.”

Nathan carries an air of confidence about him at all times. There is discipline, likely learned through his years of experience in martial arts, and a certain reservation to everything he says. He had a small smile on his face as he recounted the early days of his experience with martial arts. “I used to tell my mom every class, I don’t want to come here, I don’t want to do karate, my friends aren’t doing karate, my friends are staying home and playing Mario Kart.”

Despite this, his mother kept him on track.

“She joined martial arts to keep me involved,” Nathan said. “I remember thinking, I can’t let my mom get a black belt and I stop at a yellow belt, it’s embarrassing.”

His mother did end up getting her black belt, and her inspiration didn’t stop there.

“She told me, ‘When something gets difficult you can’t just give up at it,’ and that’s something that’s stuck with me my whole life. Especially now, going to university and running my own business.”

On top of being an active competitor and operating and instructing at GFMA, Nathan is also a fourth-year business student at the University of Guelph. He mentioned that he is also taking classes in child psychology in order to better work with the kids he trains at GFMA, some of whom are as young as three and a half. “We call them knee-high ninjas. And there’s like a hundred of them that do it.”

Nathan’s mother wasn’t his only inspiration. His brother, five years his elder, is also a martial artist, a fifth-degree black belt in karate, as well as a third-degree black belt in taekwondo.

“I was kind of molding myself after him. As a martial artist, he’s my brother, I kind of wanted to be like him,” Nathan said. His brother no longer competes as a martial artist, but still trains to stay in shape. “I think once you’re a martial artist, it’s kind of a lifestyle that you carry with you.”

Nathan very much reflects that. He doesn’t drink or do drugs (not even in high school, he added), eats a very healthy diet, and trains year-round. This, on top of the work he does at GFMA and going to school.

Nathan’s career as a world champion and business owner has led him to some very interesting places as well, like having the opportunity to meet some people that you could only dream of.

“I studied the people in my sport that paved the way, and did things that I wanted to do, like winning world titles in NBL.” Nathan perked up with the excitement of a teenager meeting his idol as he said this. “There’s people you look up to and go Wow!” People like Georges St. Pierre, who Nathan got to train with when St. Pierre was starting his comeback to the UFC. “That was a big thing for me.”

Nathan didn’t explicitly say who his idols were when we spoke, however, their impact was no less felt.

“For me, a lot of the guys I looked up to, especially in my style, open martial arts… I’d watch videos or I’d think of things I could use against them, even when I was twelve years old,” Nathan said. “When I got into the adult division I was fighting them, and I beat a lot of them. So I think fighting the idols — and this is a quote that’s overused a lot, but I think it’s relevant — I think you train hard enough so the people you idolize become competition.”

Nathan’s career stats are indisputable. At 25 years old, he’s accomplished and continues to accomplish feats that many people couldn’t even dream of. There is a learned wisdom in his words, and a very stoic determination behind his eyes.
“I’ve trained for so many years to get to this point,” he says, when talking about what keeps him coming back to competitions year after year. His drive is clear and his passion is obvious, but underlying these is something else.

“I think it’s trying to do as much as I can in anything, whether it’s competing: Can I get 50 world titles? Can I get in the Hall of Fame? What level can I push myself to? What level of excellence can you reach? For myself.” He adds, as if to dissuade the hint of pride or vanity that, though clearly restrained, shines through when he speaks of his future. “I’m only really competing with myself.”

Nathan is currently working towards qualifying for the 2020 Canadian Olympic Team, as Karate is becoming an Olympic sport in the Summer Games in Tokyo. He was reserved when he talked about this, but made it clear that while winning may not be everything to him, he’s going for gold.

Photos by Alex Vialette

A version of this article appeared in print in The Ontarion issue 188.2 on February 13, 2020.

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