The Sunday Mail
Grace Chirumanzu
I WAS just starting out in journalism in 2007 when I met Sensei Samson Muripo, a karateka whose humility is in stark contrast to his larger-than-life actions on the fighting mat. Two years later, having covered several karate stories and spoken to him numerous times, I vowed to take up the sport only if Sensei Muripo won the World Championship title in Japan.
As I look back now, I realise that I made the same mistake that those who engage him out of the dojo normally make – they look at him and conclude that he is a weakling.
When I made the pledge I never imagined that Sensei Muripo would be a world champion, he didn’t have the look of a world-beating karateka.
However, against all odds the Chimanimani-born fighter became the first African to claim the title and I was forced to honour my promise.
In July 2008 I bowed OSU and have never regretted it. Sensei Muripo has groomed me into the national women’s champion!
Kyokushin karate is a charming sport. It is addictive when training with a world champion like Sensei Muripo.
When I started out I told myself that it was just for fitness; I never saw myself representing Zimbabwe and winning medals.
But with Sensei Muripo as the mentor one cannot help but be ambitious. There is something about the man. He has made me and several other fighters push to levels we never knew existed.
Saiko Sensei Samson is a man who will smile while watching a student writhing in pain before unleashing his famous line: “No one has ever died from karate training.”
Even the usual negotiation skills that normally get me off the hook with other instructors fail dismally with Muripo.
I have tried telling him “Sensei, I am about to vomit”, and his reply he is another well-known line of his: “Hazvina basa (It doesn’t matter).”
Every student of Sense Muripo comes to a point where they realise that indeed they will not die from training. They accept that spilling your guts in a session is not the end of the world.
Because he takes us to a level we never believed possible, we trust that all the drills are the ones that make a world champion.
Once you step into the dojo, it is Sensei Muripo’s world.
He is never an autocrat but the discipline in every karateka and the respect he commands within karate circles leave one bowing OSU!
I have not been crowned a world champion like my teacher as yet, but in me Muripo has groomed a champion in life.
I am much stronger physically and mentally.
A big OSU to Saiko Sensei Samson Muripo, our teacher, brother, father and our very own world champion.
Grace Chirumanzu is a freelance journalist and the reigning national women’s Kyokushin champion. She wrote this article for The Sunday Mail Sport
