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Abubakr Petersen Sensei
Born in 1971 in Claremont, Cape Town.
Abubakr started karate in August 1985, age 14, at Surrey Estate Kyokushin dojo under Sensei Nazeem Flowers. He lived in Hanover Park at the time, notorious for its gangsterism, added to that the political and civil unrest of the time and it was quite a challenge just getting to the dojo for training sessions. He was arrested once in 1986 on his way to training and locked up for a week in Philippi police stations, and again in 1988, this time locked up for three days; exciting times!] Abubakr was too poor to afford a dogi so he trained in pyjama pants for the first six months!
He moved to Grassy Park in October 1988 as a first kyu brown belt and started training with Sensei Neville Paulsen. He also taught my first classes that same year. He was graded to black belt/shodan in December 1989 under Shihan Kenny Uitenbogaardt et al. He supplemented his training by joining Sifu Walleed Williams of Grassy Park for some Mantis fist kung fu training during 1990.
Abubakr moved to Durban in 1991 to study at the then University of Durban Westville. He joined the university karate club which was a mixture of full contact and non contact styles and trained with them sporadically. He won and placed favourably in a medley of tournaments over the next five years, including the underground bare knuckle fighting circuit in the greater Durban. (Illegal at the time). He lived in Leiden, Amsterdam for six months during 1995 on an academic exchange program, training with Henk Storm, a jiu jitsu and Muay Thai instructor. He completed his studies in February 1996 and moved back to Cape Town.
He was graded to Nidan under Shihan Len Barnes in 1997. Had a break in training between 1998 and 2002 due to work (spent five years travelling the country working for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission). He resumed his training in 2002, had an extended grading that lasted 6 months for his Sandan in 2003.
Since 2004 he has trained with and under various Kyokushin instructors, as well as NHB and UFC instructors. He also had a year long stint under Sifu Suleiman of Cape Town in Tai Chi. Since 2006 have been training under Kaicho Hoosain Narker, the International Director of Ashihara Karate, while still training under Shihan Neville Paulsen. His exploits in competition include participation in the World Martial Arts Bravery Games in Kayseri, Turkey where he captained the South African team, which finished third in the competition and he personally had a top six finish and received the award for the “Best Technical Fighter” of the tournament award; as well as participation in the World Kumite Championships in Thailand in 2008.
Extra-karate activities include racing, repairing and restoring motorcycles. Academically he has an Honours degree in Languages; a postgraduate diploma in Business Management Studies, a postgraduate diploma in Project Management and he completed his MBA in 2008.
In 2009, he participated in the Kyokushin Kan World Tournament held in Budapest, Hungary. In 2010, he attended the World Kumite Championships in Thailand as the coach of the South Africa team and again to the WKO World Cup held in Japan in 2012.
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