Men in blue to go full tilt in hit parade

Twenty of the best martial artists from across the province will swop their blue uniforms for combat gear as they prepare for the South African Police Services Full Contact Karate national tournament next month.

The martial artists, who have been chosen from across the Eastern Cape, will go up against the best the country has to offer as they look to secure their spot in the national side.

Speaking about the event, Constable Lonwabo Ndzima, who is also the Sensei at Joza Karate Club in Grahamstown, said the competition will feature teams of police officers competing against one another in four martial arts disciplines including judo, kick-boxing in addition to full- and semi-contact karate.

Hosted in Langebaan in the Western Cape, the competition will be held from October 612.

The first part of the competition will see provincial police teams compete against each other for the chance to obtain national colours in each of the disciplines contested.

Once this phase of the competition has ended, four SAPS teams will compete against a quartet of Western Province teams in each discipline.

“From each division, the top two competitors will be selected to the police team from each discipline, and they will then take on WP provincial teams,” said Ndzima.

He added that the national teams from each discipline will then travel abroad to compete at various competitions.

Ndzima said the 20-member Eastern Cape team will consist of 16 men and four women completing in the four disciplines.

“SAPS Martial Arts EC has been doing very well in recent years at the national championships.

“At last year’s national championships, we took 25 athletes to Limpopo and managed to bring home 50 medals, which meant we were number one in the country,” he said.

Asked about the team’s readiness, he said they were primed to take on allcomers as they had been putting in a lot of work and will continue to do so leading up to the competition.

“We have been training hard and I think we can do much better than we have in previous years. 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.

Ndzima said the SAPS martial arts programme was established in 1991 and, despite a slow start, it has shown a lot of growth since those early years.

“In those years, not everyone was involved in the sport, but everyone is aware of it now. For instance, in the Eastern Cape, we are still growing in numbers, and anyone is welcome, regardless of their age, gender, race and even people with disabilities,” he said.

The SAPS EC martial arts contingent also conducted some training workshops in various centres around the Bay including Walmer Township, Kwazakhele and Cleary Park.

“We have also chosen three young children from two dojos in Kwazakhele who we will mentor and groom them in the sport,” he said.

We have been training hard and I think we can do much better than we have in previous years