Family Legacy: Daypuck Karate

Meet Pete Daypuck, the owner and the head instructor at Daypuck Karate! Located right at 1010 Dundas, this family owned dojo has been teaching traditional karate for nearly 30 years. “We're teaching karate as it was taught in Japan hundreds of years ago,” Daypuck says. “We are directly affiliated with the Japan Karate Association headquarter dojo in Tokyo. All our black belt exams are certified through Japan.” Daypuck Karate was founded in 2000, but the family business has been going strong through location and name changes since 1989.

Daypuck Karate began as the East London Shotokan Karate Dojo, founded by Pete’s father, Reg Daypuck, along with his uncle in 1989 at the Huron Marketplace. They quickly moved to the East London Optimist Community Centre and trained there until 1999. Daypuck took over the dojo from his father in 2000 after the community centre was put up for sale, changed the name to Daypuck Karate, and moved to a location on First Street. After six years there, they moved to Saskatoon Street, where they stayed until 2024 until that building was sold. “We were looking and this space came up.” Daypuck says. “With all the work that's being done here in the old East Village, the area really looks up and coming, and we thought we could make a good go of it.

Prior to taking over the dojo, Daypuck was actually the only member of his family who wasn’t involved in Karate. “My whole family was in karate, I was fully involved in hockey,” Daypuck says. “I wanted to get into the dojo and start lifting weights to put on a little bit of size for hockey, and then just being in the dojo every day, seeing my family doing karate, they convinced me to just give it a shot.” Daypuck won his first competition, and from that moment, was hooked. He had a 15 year competition career throughout the United States, Canada, and even as far as Tokyo and Australia!

At Daypuck Karate, they practice traditional Japanese karate, but change things up slightly to make it more appealing to younger generations. This includes point sparring with more safety gear, and belt stripes, giving kids more short term goals rather than the longer wait times between belt colours. Daypuck says that these changes, along with others, make it so that kids are eager to learn. “Just teaching them the art and seeing how some will struggle to learn, but if they keep at it, they get it, others have natural ability but maybe lack work ethic. Those two different types of children, it's fun teaching them and just watching them succeed, and just seeing how their confidence grows.” 

So what’s next for Daypuck Karate? Right now, they’re just getting reopened again, but they have a full schedule of classes for current students and are looking forward to bringing in new students! In the past, they had a full competition team along with a good group of adult students, but after COVID-19 and the loss of their Saskatoon Street location, they’re at a reset point. “My goal is to just grow back to where we were before and even bigger and brighter, get that competition team back up, have a full range of busy classes and just help as many people as we can,” as Daypuck puts it. If you’re interested in what Daypuck Karate is doing, they’ll be hosting an open house on April 18th from 10am - 4:30 pm!

📍 1010 Dundas Street

☎️ (226) 268-9028

🌐 https://www.daypuckkarate.com/