Martial arts fever grips Mutare

All Styles Martial Arts Championships.
The one-day competition is pencilled for today and is expected to attract participants from boxing, karate, kickboxing, judo and taekwondo. The competition is targeting seniors, intermediate and juniors.

Manicaland Martial Arts Association secretary, Stewart Makuvise, said the competition is meant to bring all martial arts athletes together and create a platform where they will learn and share ideas.
“The event is being hosted by Manicaland but it will feature other provinces. We have people from Bulawayo, Harare and Masvingo coming for the championships.
“The idea is to unite all those in martial arts and get to share ideas. It’s also about educating each other that as martial arts people we mustn’t engage in criminal activities and drugs.

“We want to promote the sport and educate people that martial arts can be a profession,” said Makuvise.
Makuvise said they were expecting a better and bigger event this year after receiving overwhelming response last year when they launched the event.
“This event started last year and we decided to have this competition again because of the response we got in the previous competition.

“Last year Gweru’s shotokan style karate team won the event. We are expecting better competition this year,” said Makuvise.
Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe Kickboxing Association’s Tony Kamangira said they have engaged Finland’s, kickboxer, Jarkko Jussila, to assist local fighters and he will be working with the mother body starting next year.

Jussila, who was in the country for the Inter-Continental championships, conducted a coaching course for all stakeholders on Monday at Girls High School emphasising on the need for them to take the sport seriously.

The course also focussed on the skills and technical aspect of the sport.
Kamangira said they hope the course will help change the attitude of people towards the sport.

“We had about 15 people who attended the course. It was mainly for educating people about the philosophy of the sport and that they should not take it for granted but it’s a profession.

“We have also engaged Jussila as one of our coaches and he will be visiting us next year.
“We think this going to help develop our sport because he is someone who have got vast experience in the field,” said Kamangira.