Sensei Marva John-Logan: Master of the art of giving

Sensei Marva John-Logan and her students, from left, Shadaya Logan, Selena Guevara and Shantel Licorish at the Ryu Dan dojo in Enterprise. PHOTOS BY AYANNA KINSALE -
Sensei Marva John-Logan and her students, from left, Shadaya Logan, Selena Guevara and Shantel Licorish at the Ryu Dan dojo in Enterprise. PHOTOS BY AYANNA KINSALE -

From a very young age, Sensei Marva John-Logan was taught to value helping others.

That lesson has guided her journey to becoming a sensei and fuelled her passion for social work in her beloved Enterprise community for the past 30 years.

Within the last decade alone, the 53-year-old mother of two, grandmother, wife, community activist and businesswoman has advocated for the social development of thousands of people, including Venezuelan migrants and domestic violence survivors. She does so through a dojo-NGO she co-founded and whose executive director she is: the Ryu Dan Empowerment Foundation.

In 2019, John-Logan, through her foundation, helped manage the 16-month Community Resilience Initiative, which targeted 15,000 Trinidadians and about 5,000 Venezuelan refugees in TT. The initiative, which was funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Democracy International and the US Embassy, helped communities sustainably deal with the influx of Venezuelans, and combat crime.

“One of the objectives of the initiative was to eliminate xenophobia. We wanted the cultural exchange to take place and we wanted the Venezuelans and locals to develop appreciation for each other's struggles, journey and successes,” she said.

Last year, when TT was in the first throes of the pandemic, the foundation distributed 725 hampers to people in need throughout the country.

To future women leaders John-Logan had this message, “Don’t ever dim your light...shine brightly so that you can pave a way for other women to follow.”

And pave a way she has.

Last year, John-Logan made history when she became the first Muslim woman and the first woman from TT to be inducted into the US Martial Arts Hall of Fame.

Its website says the Hall of Fame only honours men and women who have advanced the “traditions and teachings” of martial arts.

John-Logan acknowledged the honour as a major milestone for Muslim women and said it was “awesome seeing more hijabi women practising martial arts.” However, she said her most rewarding honour is using martial arts as a platform to empower people’s lives.

She believes it was the imprisonment of her brother that inspired her passion for the social work she does today through her foundation. (She also has a degree in the subject.)

“My brother, at a young age fell prey to the wrong side of the law and he ended up in prison. When he came out, he was a junkie. The experience almost mash up our family.”

John-Logan's brother ended up returning to prison charged with murder. It was at that point she and her family made a vow to help other families so they would not end up in a similar situation.

“We decided as long as we had life, we would try to provide all that is necessary for young people and their families so they don’t go through what my family and I did.”

Journey to sensei

Reflecting on how she became a sensei, John-Logan told WMN she was always passionate about sports. She's a former netballer. Her journey into the martial arts world started in 1998, when she accepted Islam.

“I wanted to continue my sporting life. But I wanted to be in a sport that would allow me to be covered.”

Sensei Marva John-Logan defends herself against an "attacker" at the Ryu Dan dojo in Enterprise. -

She enrolled at the Shihan Thorne Martial Arts Academy and moved up the ranks. Within two years, John-Logan was a third-dan black belt specialising in don jitsuru, a style of martial arts developed by Trinidadian martial artist Don Jacobs. A year later, she became a sensei specialising in a number of styles, including ju jitsu, rudo ryu ju jitsu, shotokan karate and gracie ju jitsu.

Her last international tournament was in 2011, where she placed second in sparring and first place in both the traditional and open kata categories at the triple-A level – one of the highest competition levels – at the US Open World Martial Arts Championships in Orlando, Florida.

Evolution of Ryu Dan

John-Logan said there was a void in Enterprise when her sensei and mentor, the Rev Shihan Carlyle Thorne, died in 2012.

To carry on his legacy of using martial arts to change lives, in 2012 John-Logan and a fellow sensei at Thorne’s academy created the Ryu Dan Dojo & Youth Empowerment Centre, which specialises in rudo ryu jiu jitsu martial arts. The dojo, which started with only eight students, has since taught thousands of students throughout the country.

Last year, owing to the increasing humanitarian work the centre was taking on, John-Logan decided it was time for the organisation to evolve into a foundation.

“Ryu Dan has morphed from just a karate school to an empowerment foundation.

“We created a sports plus model that came from our SACS (sports, art, culture and services) methodology. Under sports, the foundation offers martial arts, netball, and football; for art we do poetry and drama; for culture we teach different dances; and for services we do counselling, academic support and entrepreneurship programmes.”

The foundation often collaborates with the US Embassy.

“We do a prevention programme for the embassy throughout TT to keep young people from getting involved in drugs, gangs or becoming terrorists. In 2019, that programme landed me in Guyana, where I presented at the Caribbean Summit on Youth Violence Prevention.”

Sensei Marva Marva John-Logan does a routine with her student Selena Guevara. -

Last year she was awarded the Woman of Courage award by the embassy for her work with youth in the fight against crime.

John-Logan also travelled in 2018 to the UN Office of Crime and Drugs in Austria, where she presented on the foundation’s Creating Champions initiative, which uses sports as a tool to steer youths away from pursuing a life of crime. John-Logan said the UN agency adopted the Creating Champions model into its youth development policy.

'When you give, you feel like you are pleasing God'

One of nine children, she credits her parents with instilling the “art of giving” in her.

“We were very poor but always willing to give...When you give, you feel like you are pleasing God.”

She has fond memories of her childhood in Lendore Village in central Trinidad, in spite of the challenges, which included witnessing domestic violence by her cane-cutter father against her mother.

“At the age of 12, I remember my father and mother had a ridiculous fight and I remember standing up to my father,” she recalled.

The painful experience, she said, prompted her work helping women who are victims of domestic violence.

Last Thursday, John-Logan taught a self-defence class in Tobago for women who are mostly domestic violence survivors. She did so in collaboration with Women of Substance, a domestic violence non-profit that supports survivors.

“A lot of the women are still in relationships where there is domestic violence, so we teach mental as well as physical self-defence techniques.”

Work with Venezuelan migrants

Last year, the foundation, through the Community Resilience Initiative, held classes for Venezuelan migrant children. It continued to teach in the height of the pandemic by moving its classes online.

Valery, 14, migrated to TT from Venezuela with her mother and brother in 2018. She helped her mother, who worked as a translator at the foundation.

Sensei Marva John-Logan has dedicated most of her life to helping others, including Venezuelan migrants, at Ryu Dan Foundation in Enterprise. -

“I was helping with the English classes.. And I slowly became part of the group. I met so many boys and girls and shared many experiences with them...the impact was amazing and will stay with me for the rest of my life.”

Valery also helped the foundation add Spanish subtitles to instructional martial arts videos.

John-Logan said Valery is one of Ryu Dan’s success stories, but there are still too many heartbreaking stories from Venezuelan migrants journeying to TT for a better life.

“A Venezuelan family came to Ryu Dan for help after they lost two of their children on their trip to TT,” John-Logan lamented.

“If I get the opportunity to help every single Venezuelan or any vulnerable person throughout my country, I will do it in a heartbeat.

“We all bleed red.”

The foundation also extended its SEEW (Support Educate Empower Women) programme, which is run in Chaguanas and Mayaro, to include Venezuelan mothers so they could start their own seamstress business and earn an income.

John-Logan hopes to see the foundation grow to include branches in other Caribbean countries.

“Our vision for 2021 and beyond is to work with some of our partners in Grenada and Guyana. The Ryu Dan Empowerment Foundation sees itself as a gamechanger, and we want to reach a wider regional platform.”

John-Logan encouraged more people to serve their communities, but warned it may be very demanding.

“Sometimes your family takes a hit for it. I thank God for his mercy, since I have the support of my husband and children. It requires a lot of sacrifice. But it is also very rewarding when you see lives change for the better.

“If you ask me today if I would change my journey, I would tell you no. I am a lot wiser, I am a lot more open and I’m more engaging and stronger than I ever believed I would have been.”

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