26 Mar 2017

Chobe Karate Club’s patience, hard work and determination has finally paid off as they broke their record at Botswana Karate Association (BOKA) Junior National Championship held recently in Gaborone.The club’s coach, Sensei Otsile Motsamai told BOPA that it has been a long journey for his club to achieve their target since he started the club, and that it  shows that his club was growing bigger and getting better by the day.
“Scoring the first position was not a joke because we had to train very hard so that we meet our target and when we did, the feeling is awesome,” said Sensei Motsamai.
His karatekas brought home 24 medals out of the 29 medals targeted, being eight golds, six silvers, and 10 bronzes from the 31 participants that they took to the tournament.
“This is really motivating me and the parents of my students as the good results clearly show their talents, said Sensei Motsamai.
He further said he has 65 active children under his club and he also does training for adults from 24 years and above.
“My students are also in the national team and as stated above, the gold medal winners are all from the national team and they are between eight to 15 years, said Sensei Motsamai.
The club, which started in Chobe District in 2001, is now based in Francistown since 2014 as Sensei Motsamai, an employee of the Department of Roads was transferred to the country’s second city and launched it in 2016.
He noted that they have attended various competitions locally and internationally with the help from the Department of Education and Botswana Integrated Sports Association (BISA).
“I was funded by the Youth Development Fund to buy training equipment and the other equipment was donated by Re Ba Bona Fa and Hyprop Company donated some t-shirts and caps” said Sensei Motsamai.
He emphasised that he was playing a role in children’s lives as some of them were from the streets and some school drop outs and this instills discipline into their lives.
“Even though parents have a hard time to admit that these clubs work.
I urge them to encourage their children to take sport seriously as it also is part of excising,” said Sensei Motsamai.
One of his students from Donga Junior Secondary School and one of the gold medalists, Melrose Phuti said even though competition was tough, she managed to do her best as she had trained hard. ENDS