The hardest thing the coaches of Oscar and Karah Bulaqui had to do to set the siblings on the path to wrestling stardom was likely convincing Oscar to choose the sport over another favourite activity.
They had some help, however, from a powerful ally: genetics. Oscar came to St. Thomas Aquinas for Grade 8 nearly five years ago and though he was already showing great promise as a wrestler, he also loved to play basketball and had dreams of suiting up for the school teams. The problem for wrestling coaches Andrew Jessiman, Joe Galat and Ian McDonald was that the two sports went head-to-head during the winter sports season, meaning doing both was not likely going to be possible.
When it came time to make a choice, the coaches made their case simply by getting Oscar to check out the height of his parents. Mom and Pop, who came to Canada from the Philippines more than 20 years ago, are pretty short. Really short, actually. The writing was on the wall for Oscar.
“He played both sports for a while but once Grade 10 rolled around he kind of had to decide which one he wanted to (choose),” says Jessiman. “Given the genetics in his family we kind of figured that basketball might not be the right choice. He wasn’t going to get any taller. He picked wrestling, and I’m pretty confident he made the right choice.”
Jessiman’s confidence is buoyed by the hardware Oscar has racked up since then, including two B.C. high school provincial championships, two national age-group championships and a 10th-place showing at the 2013 World FILA Cadet Championships. His latest triumph came last weekend in Edmonton where the 18-year-old Grade 12 student won the 51-kilogram class at the Junior Canadian Championships, beating wrestlers up to two years older than him.
The successes racked up by Oscar made it an easier choice for younger sister Karah, a 16-year-old Grade 10 student, to stick with the sport.
Karah, meanwhile, also admits that the height thing — she’s still four-foot-nine — also helped her choose wrestling over other sports.
“It wasn’t a hard decision picking between wrestling and basketball. I was way shorter than my brothers and all the other girls were hitting their growth spurts so I didn’t want to stick with that anymore.”
The move has paid off for Karah as well — she’s also got a national championship win under her belt and recently won the provincial high school title in the 40-kg class.
Now that they’ve both focused on wrestling, there’s not too much left to do because they’re so talented, Jessiman says with a laugh.
“It’s a little boring because they’re too good. They’re making me look a lot better than I am. They’re very natural and very talented.”
Jessiman says the potential for greatness was on display from the moment each of the siblings first stepped on the mat.
“Their kinetic awareness was incredible, their athleticism was incredible, the way they moved was very natural. You show them a move and they can do it almost instantaneously. Most kids it takes at least 100 or 200 repetitions before they even come close to getting it. . . . With kids like that you can kind of tell that they’re going to be dynamite.”
The siblings, in fact, do a lot of coaching of each other. They usually pair up with each other during drills.
“Some people find it hard to believe that we’re doing so well because we’re different sizes, she’s a girl and I’m a guy,” says Oscar, adding that their moves are pretty similar because they work on them together.
Karah says it’s worked out great for her. “I like it because most of the time I try to pay attention (during practices), I try to grasp what they say but I really don’t get it. So if I did the move with someone else it would be me and some other girl getting confused. When I train with Oscar he’s like, ‘No, you’re doing it wrong.’”
The result has been two wrestlers who are both very strong pound-for-pound but also incredibly skilled.
“They’re very slick,” says Jessiman. “Even though they’re both very strong, the moves that they’ll perform are usually ones that require more speed than strength. And they’re very, very technical. . . . It’s almost like a fine painting where it’s just absolute precision. It’s like watching geometry, how precise they are.”
Both have benefited from their partnership but they also have a very healthy amount of sibling rivalry too. During a recent interview with the North Shore News the pair sat across from each other and couldn’t help flinging a few barbs, Karah insisting that she scores points on Oscar every once in a while.
“Never!” Oscar fires back with a laugh. “She can’t even touch my feet.”
“Yeah I can!” says Karah. “When he’s being nice.”
Heading out the door, Karah takes one more shot.
“I’ll beat him in a match one day,” she says.
“That’s not going to happen,” comes the very quick reply.
One thing that is clear is that when they’re not grappling with each other, they’re causing a lot of problems for their other opponents. They’ll both be going for repeat wins at the national juvenile (for Oscar) and cadet (for Karah) championships taking place in Guelph, Ont., April 4-6.
Beyond that, both say they have their sights set on earning university scholarships and maybe one day wrestling for Canada at the Olympics. Coach Jessiman says that’s something that’s well within the realm of possibility for both of them. In fact, for a pair of athletes who are shorter than the norm, the possibilities seem to be going nowhere but up, he says. “The sky is the limit.”
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The North Shore's Capilano Wrestling Club is sending 12 athletes to the Cadet/Juvenile Canadian Championships. Joining Karah and Oscar Bulaqui on the team will be James Sutherland and Kai Sackville-Hii from STA; Adrienne Iu, Parsa Habibi and Joseph Huh from Sentinel; Brandy Perry and Jeremy Sinclair from Carson Graham; Kimberly Elek from West Vancouver and Alysha Monk from Elphinstone.
