COLUMBUS — For the past few years, Lavelle Smith has been the pastor at First Christian Church in Columbus. For the past 60 years, he’s been a fighter.
Smith is using his lifelong passion, martial arts, as a community outreach initiative to help grow the church.
A United States Martial Arts Hall of Fame inductee, Smith helped develop a new form of martial arts, free form martial arts, roughly four decades ago.
Now, he and a number of local residents are headed to Foley, Alabama, this weekend, to participate for national championships at the US Grappling Championships hosted by the North American Grappling Association.
“Since it’s not that far away, we try to get there if we can,” Smith said. “We have several novice, several beginners, an intermediate, and then my oldest son is in expert class…At times, I start feeling tired and burned out, but when you start working with these kids and even adults, it rebuilds excitement for me.”
Eight students in total, including several of Smith’s children, are competing for what they hope to be a number of national championships.
Grappling, or, as it is called in competition, submission grappling, is a technique defined as a full-contact sport where fighters win by forcing their opponent to submit through takedowns and various kinds of holds.
This event will be contested in both Gi and No-Gi styles, referring to the traditional Japanese martial arts uniform of a cloth jacket and pants worn during practice and competition.
No-Gi events are contested without Gis under NAGA sanctioned rules, whereas Gi events are contested under Brazilian jiu-jitsu rules.
“Now, jiu-jitsu is now probably the fastest growing martial art and the most popular,” Smith said. “… Gi grappling is a little bit slower. No-Gi grappling is a lot faster.”
Smith’s martial-arts based community outreach program has brought in several dozen people, but there are plans to build a larger activities center to allow for more people to join in.
Like father, like daughter
Those who are traveling to Foley for this year’s event represent fighters from various skill levels looking to compete and have fun.
“I think a lot of us can do pretty well,” Ben Moran said. “I think we’re bringing some pretty good people that can compete.”
This weekend is a bit more special for Moran because his daughter, Emily, is also competing.
The father-daughter duo have been going to classes for more than two years, but Saturday marks their first major competition, something they’re both nervous and excited for.
“I’m just nervous because it’s my first time and I’ve heard there’s going to be so many people there,” Emily said. “I feel like I’m going to be tired afterwards…I’m excited, but I don’t know what to expect because I’ve never been there before.”
Moran said that while he is excited to compete for a title, he’s more excited about seeing his daughter compete.
“It’s really cool after these last two years that we’ve been practicing, to see everything that Emily has been doing and putting into practice,” Moran said. “… I’m going to try my best, but I’m more excited to watch her.”
This is the first time since Smith came to Columbus that he is bringing his students to the event, and he’s expecting some great performances out of those who are going to competing along the Gulf.
“We have a great track record in competition,” Smith said. “I try to encourage my students, raise their self-esteem, their confidence, and these kinds of events help do that. As a coach, I’m looking for us to do very well.”
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 30 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
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