Karate maestro celebrates half a century
HANSHI Sonny Pillay who currently serves as the president of Karate South Africa will be celebrating 50 years of involvement in the sport on Saturday. Playwright and author Ronnie Govender, is putting the final touches to Pillay’s biography which is due for release in September. This is an excerpt from the preface of the book titled, Reaching for the Mango.
“You wanna learn karate? You gotta have the guts. If not you’re wasting your time here!”
The red faced man barked at the novices who were a long way yet from mastering the very basics of karate.
“You gotta have the guts. Show me you have the guts otherwise pack your kit and get the hell out of here!”
Sonny Pillay’s smallish frame was dwarfed by his towering adversary, Jerry Skosana. Their coach clearly belonged to the old order but his school was the only one which had the authority to grade black karatekas, with reservation. The world had not yet woken up to racial segregation being practised with impunity by white national sporting organisations purporting to represent the country.
Sonny was tempted to pack his kit and “get the hell out of there.” It took all the courage he could muster to prove that he had what it took – he was determined to master the art of karate even if it killed him.
Sonny recalls, “Those days we had to take what we could get. At the time this was the only school through which blacks could achieve grading. I shall never forget my first coach. A burly man. He didn’t exactly love us and one of his ploys was to line up Africans against Indians in sparring. A technically sound, accomplished karateka, he had a streak of sadism, not to mention his undisguised racism Matching was not done on the basis of levels of experience or even of basic things like height and weight.
The latter factors counted heavily amongst novices which almost all of us were. The coach’s excuse was that the best way to learn was to fight, and not just ‘skintouch’ contestation. I suspected it had more to do with his attitude to people of colour than to any intention to equip us with karate skills. As can be imagined the smaller built and far lighter Indians were often no match for the generally bigger built Africans. When my turn came I was lined up against a particularly big man, Jerry Skosana. Skosana was an amiable man who in normal circumstances would not throw his weight around, but he was now acting under compulsion.
I was even slimmer and lighter than I am now. It was clear that it could be curtains for me. In my mind I steeled myself to focus on a single thought – I was not fighting against this big Zulu who could do justice to King Shaka’s matchless impis – in my mind I was fighting the coach. The fight was called. I stood my ground as a mass of taut muscles hurtled towards me. From the time I was a snot-nosed kid gambolling on the Roosfontein banana plantations, I think I had sub-consciously honed my sense of timing until it was almost instinctive. As Jerry bore down on me with awesome power and speed – in my mind’s eye I did not see him.
All I could see was the coach. I did not move an inch. At the very last minute, my balled fist shot out with pinpoint timing and accuracy. It caught him in the solar plexus. Jerry gasped and hit the floor as if paralysed, out cold for over three minutes – so much so that I was very concerned for his well being. The coach rubbed his eyes. The damned little coolie had done the impossible.
Jerry Skosana, who was a great sportsman, recovered and wherever and whenever he saw me, even in public and in broad daylight, he would lift up his hands and say, ‘Hau, Sonny, hau!’ He remained a close friend until he passed away.”