Moms, coaches and a former teacher cheer on Yellowknife karate athletes at the Canada Games

As Trang Pham dropped her son, Matthew Bui, off at the Yellowknife airport on his way to the Canada Winter Games in P.E.I., she felt a mixture of nervousness and excitement.

Watching the games online Monday, her heart thudded as 17-year-old Bui squared off in karate against youths from across the country.

"I see they try their best, and my heart keeps pounding, pounding, like, 'Go for it, boy! Let people know where we are, we're from a small town — we got this!'" Pham said Tuesday, a day after Bui's first bout.

Bui and Vincent Lumacad, also 17, made history this week as the first to compete in karate for Team NT at the Canada Games. P.E.I., which is hosting the games this week and next week, requested karate be added to the roster of sports teams that would compete in this year.

The young men have been with the Wado Karate Club in Yellowknife since the ages of seven and 10, respectively. 

"The competition so far has been really fun," Bui said Tuesday. He's met new friends and athletes from across Canada, and seen new techniques and styles.

But karate isn't just about technique. It's a way of life that Bui said teaches him discipline and how to work hard.

"It is important that in the future [if] I want to do something, I know I have the ability to pursue it and keep concentrating on it, and force myself to do it and finish it," Bui said.

That discipline and concentration has already come into play at the tournament, where Bui faced a rough start during Monday's kata, an event where athletes perform solo before a panel of judges. They're scored on technique, athleticism, speed and the spirit with which they move.

Judges initially disqualified Bui, thinking he had performed a different form of kata than he said he would.