Karate training packs a punch in State

The number of karate enthusiasts is on the rise in the State. A measure of this was visible at the Assisi Vidya Nikentan Public School, Chembumukku, where more than 200 karate masters and an equal number of trainees assembled on Sunday for a referee clinic and karate Dan grading session.

Popular trainer Anil Kumar says young boys and girls are taking to karate in large numbers and many schools have made training in karate a must for their students.

Nived N. Kumar is a karate enthusiast. Now in Class 3, he took to the sport at an early age and does not find karate training rigorous. It is now part and parcel of his daily life.

It was the cult Bruce Lee movie

Enter the Dragon that drew Abraham George, a senior paediatrician in the city, to karate in the late 1970s. Though his medical studies took him away from it for a while, he has come back to it with great enthusiasm and now karate runs in his family with his children too getting black belts.

Mr. Kumar says more girls are taking to karate with schools coming forward to train them in self-defence. Nobody exemplifies a young woman’s enthusiasm for karate than A.S. Suma, who is now a much sought-after trainer.

Aleena is a Class 12 student from Perumbavoor, who was at Sunday’s session along with her friends. She says she initially took to the sport as a hobby and it has turned into something she really enjoys now.

Sunday’s programme was hosted by Hind Shito-Ryu Karate-Do International, Government Youth Hostel branch, Kakkakad.