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For that extra kick
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Ashwin Mohan trained in martial arts to deal with school bullies and went on to train nearly 8,000 women in self-defence techniques
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Photo : Bhagya Prakash K.
Eye catching Ashwin Mohan: ‘Martial arts are elegant: they are rhythm; they are joy’
At only 30, Ashwin Mohan has been practising martial arts for close to two decades now. His dive into the art at the age of 12 is a story that seems straight out of the movies.
As a child, Ashwin was bullied all the time. In a show of tough love, his father told him to solve his own problems. “So I joined karate classes, and even won a prize in a state championship,” he explains. Excited at his new found skill, he confronted his bullies. “I tried one of my karate punches. They just grabbed me by the arm and threw me across the floor.”
Not discouraged, Ashwin returned to the drawing board. With the help of a gurkha friend in the neighbourhood, he learnt less showy but more practical fighting techniques and stood up to his bullies again. This time, they blinked. “My self confidence soared that day. As a boy your self esteem depends a lot on your physical strength, and that day I felt I could do anything.”
Elegant art
After the heady falling had passed, however, Ashwin realised: “Martial arts are elegant: they are movement; they are rhythm; they are joy,” he says. Over the next 18 years, Ashwin has trained in different martial arts, including judo, jujitsu, taekwando and kickboxing. About pursuing so many different arts, when conventional wisdom says to pick one and stick with it. Ashwin explains: “Most martial arts nowadays work like cults where you do a lot because of faith in your teacher. I am not interested in faith. I want techniques that work.”
It is this emphasis on practical techniques that Ashwin also passes on to his students through the Independent Shoot Fighting Association, which focuses on shoot fighting rather than show fighting techniques. One of Ashwin’s big achievements has been training nearly 8,000 women in self-defence techniques in a programme called Give It To Them (GITT). GITT, he explains, is based on some of the simple techniques that he himself used to confront his childhood bullies embellished with the many styles that he has learnt over the years.
Almost all Ashwin’s martial arts training has happened right here in Bangalore. “I have been looking hard for instructors, and a surprising number of great instructors have been coming here over the years,” he says. Ashwin’s kickboxing training, which is the primary martial art he trains students in, comes from a famous Iranian kickboxer called Amir Mosadegh. “He came here to learn English, and trained and certified my coach Shiva Subramaniam, who trained me in turn,” says Ashwin. He then rattles off a dozen or more names of trainers in judo, jujitsu and even Tibetan kung fu that can be found in Bangalore and Mumbai pointing out that the martial arts have really opened up in India in the last few years.
Besides training students at centres in Malleswaram, Richmond Town and Koramangala, Ashwin also uses his martial arts training for corporate programmes, where he says he passes on the life lessons. “Martial arts help you get in touch with what you are doing in life, help clarify your intentions and your purpose,” he says.
In tandem with his continuing martial arts training, Ashwin is now also training himself in parkour, a movement art that aims to move from point to point overcoming obstacles with the highest possible efficiency. “My interest in parkour began when I was reading ‘The Naked Ape’ by Desmond Morris. I realised that aggression and the hunting instinct are part of us, and people are losing a lot by not expressing that part of themselves. Every day now, I do half an hour of parkour, and that lets me deal with everything in life without biology colouring my perceptions and actions.”
For Ashwin, parkour has been a natural progression from martial arts despite there being no parkour trainers in India because many of the sport’s standard moves are extensions of manoeuvres learnt in judo and jujitsu, he explains. Indeed, he says, parkour is a sport that all humans are pre-conditioned for, provided “you don’t let your mind interfere with you biology and try to do something that you really can’t.” Although Ashwin was holding training session in parkour at the Alliance Francaise de Bangalore, they were cancelled due to problems with the venue. He now informally trains individuals interested in the sport whenever and wherever possible.
Ashwin can be contacted on shoot.fighter@hotmail.com or at shootfighter.wordpress.com.
This column features those who choose to veer off the beaten track
RAKESH MEHAR
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