Among the most misunderstood of all subjects, top of the list must be the martial arts. As far as ignorance goes, apparently even practitioners of the arts are as guilty as the rest of us. Take the history, for instance. Nine out of ten karate students would most likely tell you that the roots of their sport are in either China or Japan. Wrong, says Patrick Makgabenyana. He traces the origins of the martial arts to the land of everything mystique ÔÇô India. It was from here that it spread to China, Japan, and Korea.
Makgabenyana is the author of two recently published handbooks ÔÇô The Beginnings Of Martial Arts in Botswana, and The Exponentiation Of Martial Arts ÔÇô which were released simultaneously last month, completing a project that has been in the works for five years.
He says his greatest motivation to write the handbooks was to set the record straight, “to show where and how it began”. In the interview, he does not pronounce it, but from the books, there is a sense that behind the urge to document history, there was something more personal: the affront he feels in the way the story of the martial arts in Botswana has been told to highlight the contributions of some individuals to the exclusion of many others, including himself.
“Many people contributed to the development of the martial arts in Botswana and they have to be acknowledged,” he says.
He holds that the story of how the martial arts came to Botswana cannot be told outside the context of the geopolitical situation of the 1960s in southern Africa. As the wars of liberation were being waged in Angola, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, Botswana was home to an influx of refugees from the neighbouring states. Amongst the exiles, mostly from South Africa and Zimbabwe, were martial arts practitioners of note who founded some of the early kung-fu and karate clubs. He mentions Vusimuzi Ndlovu from Zimbabwe, who is credited with founding Tsosamotse Shukokai Karate Club; James Thorne, from South Africa, the founder of Sailong Kung-fu School; as well as three other South Africans who taught at Lobatse’s Fukayama Kung-fu School, Charles Mthombeni, Clyffe Molefe, and Henry Maboe.
Of all the martial arts clubs this country has had, the one he mentions with special reverence is the famed Black Arrow Karate Dojo (BLAKADO), which was founded by students at the Gaborone campus of University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland (UBLS) in October 1969, and thus became the first Shukokai Karate school in Botswana. Some of the most distinguished names in various sections of the Botswana once bowed their heads at this dojo. Picked randomly, here are some of them: Thabo Fako, Louis Fisher, Frank Ramsden, Abram Kesupile, Tefo Mokaila, Lizo Ngcongco, Albert Scheffers, Monageng Mogalakwe, Bapasi Mphusu, Barudilwe Otimile, Keletso Rakhudu, Masego Mpotokwane, Lokwalo Mosienyane, and Dick Bayford.
I once asked a cousin who trained at the club why it is still deeply venerated, many years after its demise. His response was telling.
“It was,” my cousin said, “an institution much like the ancient Shaolin Temple.”
Many still maintain that to stand on BLAKADO’s training floor was to be on hallowed ground.
Apparently the club was so organised that it occasionally invited more experienced practitioners from South Africa, men such as Koos Chaka and Sakie Louw.
It would appear that there was a second channel through which the martial arts came into Botswana. This was Botswana nationals who had gone to work ÔÇô or lived with parents who worked ÔÇô in South Africa, and later returned home having attained high proficiency in the martial arts. Among these, Makgabenyana counts Fish Masilo, Daniel Moncho, and, of course, himself. Incidentally many of these returnees settled in Lobatse, where they established either karate or kung-fu clubs. For instance, Masilo (the father to the South African-based TV actress and business personality Connie Ferguson) opened the Lobatse Shotokan Karate Dojo, and Makgabenyana established Fukayama Kung-fu School in 1975.
He holds BLAKADO as the major force of propagation of the martial arts throughout the country because when the club’s members graduated from university, they were posted to various places around the country as young technocrats and teachers. In their new surroundings, they formed community clubs that were satellites of BLAKADO. The youthful teachers were responsible for introduction of karate at various secondary schools around the country, and to this day the sport remains a staple in the bouquet of extracurricular activities in all educational institutions.
Makgabenyana is something of an oddity. A lawyer in private practice, he holds an 8th Dan Black Belt in a branch of martial arts called Oikiru-Ryu Karate Jitsu Do, and last year was conferred a Doctorate of Martial Arts by the National College of Martial Arts International. While at law school, he was troubled by a mysterious illness that defied modern medical science. Apparently, it was a sign from the ancestors that he had been set aside to be a healer. He took a break from legal studies to learn traditional medicine, and only re-enrolled at the university after a three-year hiatus. He has been a healer since 1984, and he finds that all the three pursuits ÔÇô martial arts, law, and traditional healing ÔÇô sit well together.
“You have to have the mind for each,” he tells me one late afternoon at his legal practice.
He works from a modest office, in a modest part of town. Such modesty also manifests in the set of wheels parked in the driveway.
Makgabenyana first ambled into a dojo in 1967 on advice of an uncle. The family lived in Soweto where Makgabenyana went to a local primary school. Bullies ruled the streets and the school grounds. He heeded the counsel to learn self-defence hoping that it would provide a route out of the daily agony. His plan was to learn a few blinding kicks and punches, and get back to sort out the township tyrants.
“I got exposed to the real meaning of the martial arts, and I learnt that this thing is not about fighting,” he says.
At the Kliptown Karate School, Koos Chaka held court, and Makgabenyana avers that he could not have asked for better grounding. He states that in the making of a martial artist, the type of teacher is very critical.
“If the teacher is myopic, the teaching will be myopic. If, on the other hand, the teacher is broadminded the teaching will reflect that,” he states.
An instructor since 1974, he decries the trivialisation of the martial arts through which students are only drilled for tournaments, with scant attention paid to the core principles and history of the arts.
“Many people think it is about tournaments and winning medals, but it is beyond tournaments,” he says. “When we started, we were taught not to view martial arts in the context of tournaments because this is more than a sport. It’s philosophy, culture, it’s a complete way of life where you learn values like integrity, patience, respect for the other person and the environment, and discipline. As you keep training, character is formed. If it’s a child, they develop confidence, and a confident child will never be a bully because that behaviour comes from lack of confidence.”
I ask how the martial arts built his character.
“Let me give you an example,” he says. “Ke itsapa go omana because I have transcended; I have gone beyond the ordinary.”
