The Sunday Mail
SENSEI Kingston Dutiro (58) passed away at his farm in Mazowe on March 6, 2021.
He was a decorated karateka who served Zimbabwe Karate for over three decades as an athlete, instructor, and administrator.
Sensei Kingston was born on April 10, 1962. In the mid 1980s, Sensei Simon Mapanda, who had established the Highfield Kuro-Obi-Kai majoring in judo, became Sensei Kingston’s first instructor. Sensei Kingston was to join Shukokai Karate where Sensei Willie Blumears was one of his Instructors together with Sensei Des Bottes.
Sensei Blumears later introduced Sensei Kingston to Sensei Graham Thwaites of Shotokan Karate, after which Sensei Kingston trained Shotokan Karate for two years where he rubbed shoulders with Zimbabwean karate legends such as Eugene Moody, George Taylor, Brendon McGrath, and Professor Collen Masimirembwa, among others.
He would later return to Shukokai Karate where he trained under the great Sensei’s Chrispen Musonza and Kays Mushunje, along with more Zimbabwean Karate legends James Pswarayi, Pius Matambanadzo, Milton Kahari, Wellington Chirisa, David Matipano, Kudzai Chidzambwa, Dominic Meza, Herbert Muregerera, Brett Madden, and Jonathan Robinson, among others.
As an athlete, Sensei Kingston was a member of the Mashonaland Karate Squad and the Zimbabwe National Team from the late 1980s to 1993.
Upon retiring from active competition, Sensei Kingston was an instructor and was elected the vice-president of the Zimbabwe Karate Union in the mid to late 1990’s.
Sensei Kingston held high the belief that whatever encounters one has in life, they are faced upon the soils of one’s nationality.
From this, Sensei Kingston founded Urakashi Karate Practice as the first local karate style.
The shona word, Urakashi, stems from an act of thoroughly vanquishing an assailant (kurakasha).
Sensei Kingston was to be known as Murakashi Kingston Dutiro, a title for a Grandmaster in Urakashi.
Urakashi Karate has now produced members of the national team and administrators at national executive level.
Outside of karate, Murakashi Dutiro’s first job was with a municipality but he resigned from that job after working only for one month, citing corruption by superiors, colleagues, and subordinates. Murakashi Dutiro, as brutally honest a man as they come, then joined the Zimbabwe Republic Police where he had a number of bruising battles with superiors for resisting orders that were out of line with regulations.
Murakashi Dutiro left the police force after serving for six years and went into entrepreneurship before actively participating in the Fast Track Land Reform Exercise and venturing into full-time farming.
Murakashi Dutiro had a stint in national politics, which saw him contesting as a Member of Parliament.
Murakashi Kingston Dutiro is survived by his wife and five children.
He shall be greatly missed. MHDSRIEP!
Sensei Joe Rugwete, Urakashi Karate Instructor and Zimbabwe National Karate Federation president.
