Earning a world title for his skills in karate isn't enough for Nathan Skoufis.
The 23-year-old from Guelph wants to do it again. And again. And again.
Despite a training facility full of trophies and belts and plaques, the University of Guelph student remains humble about his success.
"Doing it, I feel like doing it again. You can always achieve more," he said of taking on the best in the world.
"A lot of people think of losing as a horrible thing that it's going to be the end, but I have things outside of competing, and either you're going to win or you're going to learn from that situation."
Earlier this month, Skoufis went to Chicago where he was awarded his world championship in his division, 18-plus men's welter fighting. Welterweight is a weight class with a range of 72.5 kg to 76.6 kg.
Nathan Skoufis holds up his world championship belt from the North American Sport Karate Association.
He also won a belt and ring for the North American Sport Karate Association (NASKA) championship. To win a NASKA championship, points awarded from competitions throughout the year are added together and the person with the highest number of points wins.
Skoufis won at NASKA-sanctioned 6-star tournaments — the highest ranking a tournament can receive — in Chicago, Philadelphia, Quebec City, Boston, Washington and Minneapolis last year.
A spokesperson for NASKA said winning the world championship title is "no easy feat" and it means no other fighter won as many championships or as often as Skoufis did last year.
Skoufis also won a world championship from the National Blackbelt League and now has more than 10 world titles under his belt — so to speak.
Nathan Skoufis leads a class of "knee-high ninjas" at his facility in Guelph. (Kate Bueckert/CBC)
'I wanted to quit'
Skoufis has come a long way in just 18 years. He started karate when he was six and admitted he was not a keen student.
"I wanted to quit many, many times," he said. "When you're young, you don't really see the benefits that martial arts has."
He said his instructors didn't motivate him to do well and it wasn't until his first tournament that he realized just how much he could love karate.
"The first time I sparred, so when we put gear on and I was against someone I was training with, I wasn't very good at it, but I liked it," he said.
"It was realistic and I felt that the stuff I was learning, I could actually use."
Nathan Skoufis warms up at his facility, Guelph Family Martial Arts. He plans to travel to the U.S., Ireland and perhaps Greece this year to compete in tournaments. (Kate Bueckert/CBC)
Inspired to teach
Now, he has a fifth degree black belt and a sponsor, which helps him train and travel to more competitions.
He has met and worked with UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) fighter Georges St-Pierre and former UFC fighter Rory MacDonald.
Skoufis also owns his own facility — Guelph Family Martial Arts — where he trains and helps inspire children up to adults.
Karate, he said, has a positive impact "on the entire person."
"Martial arts has taught me that you want to stick with it through whatever trials, tribulations you have — you're going to persevere and get to the other side of it," he said.
Nathan Skoufis with his mom, Sophie Skoufis. (Kate Bueckert/CBC)
The level he has reached and his motivation to help others was not what his mom, Sophie Skoufis, envisioned when she put her children into a karate class.
A champion herself — Sophie Skoufis is a fifth degree black belt and was named a NASKA 2016 world champion for women middle — she said she wanted her children to gain some confidence, maybe learn some self defence.
"You want them to be able to stand on their own two feet when they're adults," she said.
"Never in a million years did I think it would explode into something that it did."
Goal of gold
This year, he plans to travel to competitions in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York City, Quebec City, Ireland and is trying to see if he can work a trip to Greece into his schedule. It's not easy when he's also a student at the University of Guelph, where he studies business and nutrition and child psychology.
With karate becoming an Olympic sport in the Summer Games in Tokyo in 2020, that's a new goal Skoufis has set for himself.
That might surprise some people, he said, that a kid from Guelph could do martial arts at the Olympics.
"Just showing people that whatever city you live in … that goal is still possible," he said. "It would be definitely a goal for me, not only to compete, but bring a gold medal to the community."
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