Karate legends meet in Scotland after two decades

It has been 26 years since Dave Millar (77) of Uvongo saw his friend Tommy Morris (83), the first person to achieve a black belt for karate in Scotland in 1965.

Dave and his wife Hannelie, together with their friends Robin Petterson and partner Carol Neilson of Margate met with Tommy while visiting Scotland recently.

Tommy and Dave have both achieved their 8th Dan in karate.

After achieving his black belt, Tommy went on to become a well-known and eminent professional coach, his current rank of 8th Dan was given by the World Karate Federation.

For 25 years, he ran a full-time karate club and health club in Glasgow with a number of satellite dojos throughout Scotland. Since 1965 he has trained over 100,000 people in his system. His name appeared in the Guinness Book of Records.

In 1991, Tommy was invited to SA by the then head of Shukokai Karate, Sakkie Lowe, which is how Dave first met Tommy.

They soon grew mutual respect for each other and Dave invited Tommy to stay at his dojo in Margate, and Tommy spent about a week training with Dave and his students. Tommy subsequently graded Dave to 4th Dan. Thereafter, Dave was invited to Tommy’s dojo in Scotland three times, to attend his summer camp.

Dave also refereed at the world championships in Scotland, alongside Tommy.

In 1996, they met for the last time in SA, when Tommy was the chief referee at the world championships that took place at the Sun City Super Dome that year. This was also when Dave was one of only two South Africans who were graded to World Karate Federation (WKF) referees.

Dave has more than 57 years in the karate field:

In 1965, Shihan Dave started his karate career with Kempo-Karate in Johannesburg.

Five years later, when his family moved to Natal, he wanted to share his knowledge of karate with others and started the first-ever karate school on the South Coast.

In 1974, Dave visited Japan where he trained and lived with Master Gogen Yamaguchi (then 10th Dan). Two years later he was graded to Shodan.

Back in South Africa and training under Sensei Ray Ryan, he continued his pursuit of the art and became involved in refereeing.

About 10 years later, he qualified as a national referee and judge. He had reached Sandan by then.

One of the highlights of his career was when he started training under Sensei Tommy Morris in 1991, who graded him to Yondan.

Sensei Tommy Morris trained directly under Sensei Tani of Kobe, Japan.

For five consecutive years starting 1992, Dave was invited to Scotland to take part in the annual KOI (Kobe Osaka International) gasshuku and world championships.

By the turn of the century he had qualified as a judge at the first WKF World Championships in South Africa, held at Sun City, and was conducting referees courses across South Africa.

By then he had refereed at several zone six tournaments, the Kobe Osaka World Championships in Scotland where 12 countries participated and was appointed chief referee of South Africa, representing his country at a two-part series, Tri Nations Tournament in Auckland and Wellington, New Zealand.

In 2000 while still competing and taking gold as the SA Shukokai Masters Champion, he qualified as UFAK (All Africa) Kata Judge and A-class referee.

He retired from competing after visiting India in 2005, again taking gold in the Masters division at the Ryushin-kan All India Championships.

Shihan Dave has served on both national and provincial karate association committees since then.

In 2007, he was graded to 7th Dan by Soke Takeshi Masuyama in Japan.

On December 1, 2018, he was graded to 8th Dan by the head of Chu Jin South Africa, Elias Jacobs Hanshi, in Cape Town.

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