EDWARD MTSHALI SENSEI
Born 26/04/1948, Sensei Ed has 65 years old. He has been training karate for 47 years and has had to overcome many challenges in his life. His first instructor was Samuel Maimane who was a blue belt. They were training shotokan karate. The only reason he knew it was shotokan was that the book they were using was Sensei Nishiyama’s book and it said it was shotokan. Sensei Ed also has 15 years of judo training under his belt but has never done any gradings. It was very difficult in those days for black people to acquire knowledge and find Sensei’s to train and grade them.
In Sensei Edwards own words “Achievements are not given; you have to work hard to get them. So whatever I achieved I worked hard for them. It means to me there are no shortcuts in life; more specifically if you want quality”. His first grading for yellow belt was a valuable life lesson – he did not make it! “It was so painful to experience failing a grading but that motivated me and it was the first time and the last”.In 1975 he entered a full contact tournament in Durban which he had read about in the newspaper. He became the Kyokushinkai champ that day. Sensei Ed was awarded national colours five times – the first black person to achieve this - and the first time was against a British team in 1977. There were four teams (Indian, Coloured, Black and Springbok). From these teams a SA Invitational team was selected – Sensei Ed was the only black karate-ka to be selected. In 1978 he was part of the official Springbok team which competed against Germany and the USA (the team included Billy Blanks). It was at this time that he started training under Sensei Stan alongside the legendary Geyer brothers. In 1979 he was again in the SA team that travelled to the USA. At this competition he was awarded a special trophy for the most outstanding competitor.
At the Shotocup in Australia in 2006 Sensei Ed became the first black person to be graded to the level of 7th dan by an all Japanese panel from JKA/WF headquarters. He is the only black person in the whole of Africa to achieve this level in JKA. Sensei Ed now he’s in charge of the JKA/WF Southern African Region (26 countries).
Message from Sensei Edward: “Karate-ka must avail themselves of what they want so that they can be helped by their instructors. When you are unhappy ask your Sensei for help. What’s on the inside cannot be seen like karate technique so you need to share it to get help. This is also applicable to injuries. If you don’t have enough time to get to the dojo, you must spend time at home practising Heian katas. These are very important and prepare you for more advanced katas.”
A member of SA JKA’s Governing Body and a highly respected man and karate-ka. We salute you Sensei Edward and are proud to have you as part of our “JKA/WF Sub Sahara Region Family”.
