A. Antony Redlin, hailing from a fisherman family of Tuticorin, who excelled in the 8th National Pencak Silat Championship in Nagercoil recently, expressed his wish to promote this traditional martial sport among people, especially students.
The 18-year-old college student has embarked on a mission to build more recognition to this martial sport for conducting a State-level championship event at regular intervals.
Players from Tuticorin, who competed in this three-day national-level Pencak Silat championship, contributed much to the success of the Tamil Nadu team which won the overall championship.
Around 350 students comprising 18 teams from various States participated.
A jubilant Mr. Redlin told The Hindu here on Sunday that he had got selected to perform his skills in the qualifying round in Malaysia in September to get himself qualified for the Asian games.
Mr. Redlin, who excelled in senior category and one of the medal winners in the national-level championship event, thanked his coach R. Muthu Sankar Kumar.
Hailing from a poor economic background, the medal winner said he had no money even to pay fee for the coach.
“These martial art skills helped me get a seat at an engineering college in Vallanadu”, said Mr. Redlin, who is doing his second year mechanical engineering.
The coach said he had been coaching 80 students free of charge in the mornings. He said ‘Pencak’ was the performance aspects of the martial art, while ‘Silat’ is the essence of the fighting and self-defence.
