Marc Unger isn’t shy about mixing his religious beliefs with his three-decade-long love of martial arts.
Every lesson in the Baptist minister’s Exeter karate studio starts and ends with a prayer.
“First and foremost I teach karate — but what my students begin to realize is that it’s about much more than that,” Unger said. “I talk to them about drugs, alcohol and abstinence. It may not be politically correct. But, then, I’ve never been very politically correct.”
He’s also never been one to follow the crowd.
The New York-born Unger was raised in a Russian, secular Jewish household and had music on his mind when he graduated from high school.
“I didn’t see college in my profile,” he said.
Instead, there was the job as a lifeguard at Coney Island and paying gigs as a drummer with local blues and jazz bands.
The karate classes started about 10 years out of high school, an outgrowth of his tough upbringing near the projects in the Bronx. He wasn’t much of a fighter in his youth but the physicality of the sport attracted him.
“There were definitely times when I would’ve wanted to use it,” he said.
It didn’t start out well. After a few rough years and a lot of lost sparring matches, Unger was frustrated. He wasn’t getting the attention he needed to progress and the instructors never seemed to have the right answers.
Then one day in 1978, the referee in his latest, losing bout had some advice for him — although it was a little tough to take.
“He told me ‘Man, you too nice’ and then he told me I didn’t know how to move,” he said.
Unger quickly realized that the referee, 10th-degree black belt Sam Price, was the instructor he should’ve been working with all of this time.
He dropped everything and started working with Price studying the Go Ju Ryu system of karate at Price’s Kansas studio. Over the years he started working as a business manager for the karate master and then moved on to teaching. He became the 10th person in 22 years to earn his black belt from Price.
Then, in 1982, Unger found himself at a crossroads, despondent over his life — and his relationships with women — with nowhere to turn.
“I realized that there were things that I’d done wrong and I found myself praying,” he said. “Then I just picked up my feet and started moving one step at a time.”
The journey would take him to Dallas Bible College and a new career in the ministry. Six years later, now a married father, he would make his way out to the Central
Valley.
It took several years for him to find the right church, and the right congregation, for his message. He worked at skilled jobs to make ends meet.
“I drove a cement mixer — I took whatever came my way,” he said.
Eventually he found his niche, starting a small Southern Baptist church in Exeter.
He also started his own studio in town in 1990, teaching the Go Ju Ryu system.
Since then the studio has become a staple in the small South Valley town, with a case full of trophies won by Unger’s students and his children, some of whom went on to become accomplished martial artists in their own right.
The ministry and the karate studio have always gone hand-in-hand.
“When we do our karate our faith comes through,” he said.
The family also turned to their faith in a time of tragedy. In 2004, Unger’s 19-year-old son Daniel, a karate instructor and a licensed minister himself, was killed in a mortar attack while serving with the National Guard in Iraq. He was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star and his story became the subject of the film “A Hero’s Love” by Family First Films. Unger dusted off his music production skills and wrote and produced a companion CD “I’ll be waiting for you in heaven” dedicated to his son.
Unger also turned his boundless energies into the military chaplaincy, and works as a Captain in the California State Military Reserve helping 1,200-1,400 ex GIs make the transition stateside to this day.
“They recruited me to be the chaplain for Daniel’s battalion,” he said. “It was quite an honor.”
Today, Unger is on the move again. When the congregation got too small to keep the doors of his Exeter church open, he started applying for other ministry jobs around the Valley. He was offered a job two hours to the north in Oakhurst — but he has no plans to give up his work at the karate studio.
His son David, a fifth-degree black belt and a master instructor, will help him make the transition. Unger is quick to point out the 25-year-old David has been in karate for 20 years.
The prayers at the beginning and end of each lesson will also stay.
“It’s a mirror of our faith,” he said. “We are still, very definitely, a Christian organization.”
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