Africa-Press – Tanzania. AFTER years of karate success in East and Central Africa, JKA/WF-Tanzania is now expanding its wings to upcountry regions.
Already JKA-WF- Tanzania has branches in several regions among others, Morogoro, Songea, Zanzibar, Lindi, Mwanza and Rukwa and several other clubs scattered in differents districts like Kilwa and Masasi.
According to 4th danned sensei Mikidadi Kilindo, alias ‘Ganchan’, Dodoma, the capital city is now on focus.
Nestory Fedeliko, who is one of JKA-WF-Tanzania top officials said that Kilindo will run a dojo at Dodoma’s city centre.
“He will soon go to Dodoma and return to make other arrangements before officially residing there,” said Fedeliko.
Ganchan, who is among 5th danned sensei Jerome Mhagama’s assistant trainers, told The Daily News that all the travel arrangements are in place to reinforce JKA Karate spirit in Dodoma.
“We have a training centre ‘dojo’ outside of Dodoma city centre, but it had for years not been strong enough to encourage more people to join the sport.”
“The Dar es Salaam’s headquarters have therefore assigned me to do the job in Dodoma to make things work out,” said Ganchan, who has for years been the reigning champion of Kata ( karate style) in East Africa.
Ganchan says that karate is like any other sporting events that fit for mental and healthy matters, apart from self defence.
“Karate does not promote hooliganism like other people wrongly think of that, it is one of the smartest sporting events and most importantly, good for mental, health, self defence and promotes self discipline, respect for others and not to disturb other people,” he said.
Japan Karate Association (JKA-WF)- World Federation- Tanzania has had a series of local tournaments last year, despite being hit by waves of Coronavirus.
Among highly profiled events was the so-called ‘Gashuku’ gathering in Songea whereby karate players from different regions took part for competitions at different ranks, seminars and grading.
Tanzania also hosted the same ‘Gashuku’ for East, Central and Southern African countries and was attended by several male and female karatekas from among other countries, Kenya, Uganda and South Africa.
Karate will for the first time be among competitive sporting events at next year’s Tokyo Olympic Games. The summer games were to be held mid last year, but were rescheduled to next year because of Coronavirus pandemic.
Sensei Jerome says that Tanzania is ready to send representatives to the games, but calls for well-wishers to give out their financial and moral support.
