Twenty of the best martial arts exponents from across the Eastern Cape will swap their blue uniforms for karate suits as they prepare for the SA Police Service national Full Contact Karate tournament next month.
The martial artists, chosen from across the province, will go up against the best the country has to offer as they look to secure their spot in the national side.
Constable Lonwabo Ndzima, sensei of the Joza Karate Club in Makhanda (Grahamstown), said the competition would feature teams of police officials competing against one another in four martial arts disciplines, including judo, kick-boxing and fulland semi-contact karate.
Held at Langebaan in the Western Cape, the competition will run from October 6-12.
In the first part of the competition, provincial police teams will compete against each other for an opportunity to earn national colours in each of the disciplines contested.
Once this phase has been concluded, four SAPS teams will then compete against a quartet of Western Province teams in each discipline.
“From each division, the top two competitors from each discipline will be selected for the police team, and they will then take on WP provincial teams,” Ndzima said.
The national teams for each discipline are then set to travel abroad to compete in various international competitions.
Ndzima said the 20-member EC team would comprise 16 men and four women competing in the four disciplines.
“SAPS Martial Arts Eastern Cape has been doing very well in recent years at the national championships,” he said.
“At last year’s national championships, we took 25 athletes to Limpopo and managed to bring home 50 medals, which meant we were No 1 in the country.”
Asked about the team’s readiness, he said they were primed to take on all comers, as they had been putting in a lot of work and would continue to do so leading up to the interprovincial competition.
“We have been training hard and I think we can do much better than we have done in previous years,” Ndzima said.
“We were fortunate enough to have training sessions with some of the best martial artists from around the province, in addition to doing our own preparations in between.” He said the SAPS martial arts programme was established in 1991 and, despite a slow start, it had shown a lot of growth since then.
“In those years, not everyone was involved in the sport, but everyone is aware of it now.” Ndzima said.
“For instance, in the Eastern Cape we are still growing in numbers, and anyone is welcome, regardless of their age, gender or race – even people with disabilities [can take part].”
The SAPS Eastern Cape martial arts contingent has also conducted a number of training workshops in different parts of the Bay, including Walmer township, Kwazakhele and Cleary Park.
“We have also chosen three young children from two dojos in Kwazakhele, whom we will mentor and groom in the sport,” Ndzima said.