CHENNAI: The Chennai Corporation’s bid to underline its efforts taken to ensure women’s safety, traced a few more steps in the right direction. With the introduction of Krav Maga course, it aims to equip Corporation School girls with the knowledge of necessary self defence technique.
Speaking to City Express, S Sreeram, coordinator and instructor of the Chennai chapter of International Krav Maga Federation (IKMF), says that the Israeli martial art form stands out from the rest because it is non-esoteric.
“Traditional martial art forms like Karate, Kung fu and Kalari demand that the practitioners be physically fit, dedicate a significant period of time and maintain immense discipline so that it can be perfected,” he says.
Sreeram insists that people with average fitness can take up Krav Maga sessions and learn to protect themselves from attackers with even the simplest of objects that they can carry with them.
“Basically, it is a counter attacking self-defence mechanism, where rapid moves are aimed at the attacker to either disarm or incapacitate him or her,” he says.
Sreeram, who quit a well-paying job in the IT sector to become a full-time Krav Maga instructor, also trains the Tamil Nadu Commando Forces in this technique.
“I have trained nearly 150 commandos and 400 prison warders across jails in Tamil Nadu and a few of them have become trainers,” he adds.
IKMF will have one instructor at the Corporation Higher Secondary School in Thiruvanmiyur, where they have been allotted three one-hour sessions everyday to teach girl students from classes eight to 12.
“We started by showing them simple eye-poke choke release techniques and hand hold and hair hold release methods,” he says. He says at the end of the eight-month programme, IKMF will provide the students with a text, compiled in Tamil language, with detailed description of every basic move along with pictures and illustrations.
“We plan to release the book on November 25, which is also the International Day for Elimination of Violence against Women. The aim is also to train physical education teachers of Corporation schools so that our work is continued by them. We will conduct gender sensitisation classes for boys on respecting women and why they should not see them as mere sex objects,” he adds.