Lobatse karate academy churns out champions
Tumelo Mouwane | Friday April 7, 2017 17:53
Sensei Motsamai was born in Lobatse 30 years ago. He holds a black belt rank and started karate when he was only three years after his brother, former 1996 karate world champion, Obakeng Motsamai gave him inspiration to join.
At the peak of his career, he won several national and regional medals, particularly from the Zone VI Championships. The mentor was formally accredited by the International Karate Federation as a worldwide coach and a referee in 2013.
Motsamai conducts training on a daily basis in a classroom at Letsopa Community Junior Secondary School in Lobatse to mentor junior karatekas. His club, Walker Karate Academy has 60 karatekas under the age of 20.
Despite lack of resources or basic equipment, he has churned out several junior national karate sensations like Kgole Bareeleng who scooped gold in the individual kumite and a silver medal at All Japan Karate Association (JKA) Africa Cup in South Africa in October 2015. Bareeleng, fighting under 9-10 years category holds a total of 25 medals. The 2016 Botswana National Sport Commission’s 2016 Sports Woman of the Year, Lame Hetanang is one of several Walkers Karate Academy graduates. Motsamai reveals that he has been a karateka since he was three-years-old. He says he felt it was an honour to mentor upcoming athletes especially on voluntary basis and he wants to have an impact on the sport.
“I started karate in 1990 and I was instructed by my brother who is a former world kata champion. I was only three years by then. I started the karate academy because as an experienced athlete, I wanted to have impact on the sport because I have the capability. I could not stand allowing my talent to age with me, so I felt it will be an honour to mentor the children especially on a voluntary basis,” he explains.
He says his biggest dream is to make his way up in international coaching and refereeing arena and at the same time he wants to see his students showing that they are learning from him.
“In the future, I want to take my country’s flag higher in international karate administration especially coaching and refereeing. My biggest dream is also to see students showing that indeed they are training with me. I want to see world champions coming right from my club,” he says.
The mentor further points out that despite karate being one of the best performing sport codes locally, they still have serious financial challenges especially clubs far from the capital city.
“Karate is an expensive sport. We need finances to move from one point to the other let alone to train better. In that regard, our biggest challenge is finances. We don’t have basic equipment like training mats. It is worse for us who are in areas away from the city, but we are not ready to be demotivated by that. We will continue to take karate to higher levels,” he says.