THE BRAVERY OF BEING OUT OF RANGE

In March 2024, a karate colleague shared with me a Facebook exchange between Malcolm Dorfman and Keith Geyer that, according to the time stamp, occurred on February 16, 2024. I reproduce it here (unedited) to illuminate Dorfman’s bone-deep cowardice.

This decaying ass continuously dwells on the past, desperately clinging to his imagined magnificence before tottering into extinction. He posted a flashback, with a photo of his performing a kick at a camera, to two separate tournaments in Los Angeles in 1975, bleating about his being a victim of karate politics:

“I’m calling this my kick of frustration. In 1975 Stan Schmidt Sensei withdrew his 4 top members of the Springbok team, Ken Wittstock, Eddie Dorey, Rob Ferriere and me from the team in order to compete in the first IAKF World Championship in Los Angeles (karate politics). This was going to be a championship of great magnitude and despite our withdrawal from the Springbok team, we were all so excited. We trained so hard and the JKA world had expectations that South Africa could cause a major upset by defeating the ‘invincible’ Japan team comprising inter alia, Tanaka Sensei, Yahara Sensei, Oishi Sensei.

But sadly more politics. The day before the championships, at the IAKF World Conference, due to threats of extreme violence by the Black Panther organization of the USA if the SA team competed, the head of the IAKF, Hidetaka Nishiyama Sensei confirmed the decision by the delegates of the Conference that the SA team would not compete. Our frustration, sadness and anger is obvious. But the film company commissioned to film the event still decided to bring SA into the film of the championship and asked me to do the opening scene of the film.

So this is me in front of the stadium in Los Angeles opening the film with this kick towards the camera. Hence I call this my ‘kick of frustration.’ I sat at that championship frustrated as hell watching karateka who I had beaten previously win round after round. But today, almost 50 years later, just part of my karate history.”

Keith Geyer was also a member of the South African contingent and challenged Dorfman’s version of events in a comment to the post, which my colleague retrieved before Dorfman characteristically deleted it, probably because it did not fit his narcissistic narrative:

“A couple of inaccuracies in your post Malcolm. First inaccuracy: Stan Sensei gave you the CHOICE to rather represent South Africa at the first IAKF championship, he never withdrew anyone, just like he offered it to my brother Derrick and myself. We chose to compete in the trials to select the Springbok team to compete at the WUKO world championship in Long Beach, California.

The three of you [Wittstock, Ferriere, Dorfman] took part in the first round of the Springbok trials at the Orange Grove dojo. Eddie Dorey never took part or did he intend doing so. That is your second inaccuracy. Stan Sensei never withdrew him or anyone else.

Kinahcam filmed the footage for Winston Tobacco Company, who used to make the Gunston [a brand of South African cigarettes] commercials and they graciously gave the footage to Stan Sensei and the late Des Fisher who then produced the short movie The Winning Blow, which can be viewed on my YouTube channel, which included your kick.”

Dorfman responded, again characteristically, by first attempting to correct Geyer’s comment and then smearing him:

“Amazing Keith that you know more about me than I know about myself. You and your brother may have been offered a choice by Stan Sensei as you never had Springbok colours and he wanted to give you two that chance. I personally was told emphatically by Stan Sensei to withdraw from the Springbok trials. In fact there was an almost full page article in the Sunday Times about me and the other three Springboks walking out of the trials. Stan Sensei wanted the current Springboks to accompany him to the IAKF World Championship so that South Africa would have the strongest team possible.

Despite our team being prohibited from participating in the championship the day before, the Gunston advert was still produced with my kick opening the advert. That you found it important to mention that the producers afterwards ‘graciously’ gave it to Stan Sensei for him to use as he wished is absolutely irrelevant to the reason for me to withdrawing from the Springbok trials and being a member of the team to compete in the IAKF Championship. I guess still part of your garbled know all thoughts.

The point of my post was merely to express my frustration when I saw the kick at not being able to compete at the IAKF World Championship because of politics. Your silly response stems from your many decades obsession about what I do and say. Good thing I only weigh 72 kg because it must be awful to carry me as a burden on your back for so long.”

I do not know who is correct—I was not involved in karate back then—and we are unable to ask Stan Schmidt for his version (he died in 2019). The odds favour Keith because Dorfman is an inveterate prevaricator and exaggerator—we don’t know whether the film company actually “asked” him to do the film’s opening scene or he hounded them for the spotlight.

However, my reproducing this exchange is not about a long-forgotten Dorfman blip but rather about his symptomatic cowardice. His hatred for the Geyers and his need to quash their existence never abated even after Keith’s immigration to Australia in 2000. He feared the formidable brothers in the dojo because he could not physically handle them or get his way around them. It is our collective regret in the pre-1990 SAJKA that this lightweight, coasting tournament boy never ventured into our Wednesday morning “hooligan” class where, bereft of his rank—a psychotic obsession we would have ignored—he would have received a thoroughly violent beating, especially from the Geyers, who would have injured and humiliated him.

The irony in Dorfman’s vilifying Keith in his Facebook comment is that it was always the other way around. The Geyers represented everything he was not and could never be. He despised them for their nationwide popularity, physical and star power, good looks, unmatched fighting brilliance, disdain for his “seniority,” and magnetically irresistible influence in and out of the dojo. He carried the Geyer burden, even after he left the SAJKA in 1993. An antediluvian karate pussy craving his daily Facebook ego fix, he reminds me of the great Roger Waters’s commentary on all cowards: he would never dare say to Keith in person what he wrote on Facebook because he has the bravery of being 10,000 km out of range.

 

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