Zimpapers Logo

Innocent Kurira, Sports Reporter
ZIMBABWE National Karate Federation (ZNKF) president Sensei Joe Rugwete has conveyed his condolence message to the Dutiro family following the passing away of Sensei Kingston Dutiro.

Sensei Dutiro collapsed and died in the early hours of Saturday morning at his farm in Mazoe.

He was 58.

Sensei Dutiro 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 Dutiro became an instructor and was elected vice-president of the Zimbabwe Karate Union in the mid 1990s.

Sensei Dutiro 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 Dutiro’s first Instructor. He later joined Shukokai Karate where Sensei Willie Blumears was one of his Instructors together with Sensei’s Des Bottes.

He returned to Shukokai Karate where he trained under the great Senseis Chrispen Musonza and Kays Mushunje together with other 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.

“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 Dutiro founded Urakashi Karate Practice as the first local karate style,” said Rugwete.

“Sensei Dutiro was to be known as Murakashi Kingston Dutiro, a tittle for a Grandmaster in Urakashi. Urakashi Karate has now produced members of the national team and administrators at national executive level,” he said.

The late Kingston Dutiro was also a writer and his books are centered on the land reform programme.
Sensei Dutiro is survived by a wife and five children. – @innocentskizoe