THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: At a time when self defense classes are being encouraged at many Government schools in the city, a former student of a UP school here is training students at his Alma mater.
Classes in Karate have been going on at the Sree Sarada Devi Sisuvihar UPS for the past one year. The classes has been the result of an initiative taken by a former student of the school who is also a Karate coach.The self defense training is the initiative of Pradeep G Kurup, a Karate coach at SMA School of Karate in the city.
Around 22 students from the school currently learn Karate from Pradeep, who has been a Karate instructor for the past 1o years.
While the classes are conducted every Wednesday, he does not charge hefty sums, with students given the liberty to pay fees affordable for them. The classes are being conducted for both LP and UP students from class I, with students receiving the yellow belt recently. While separate classes were conducted earlier for LP and UP school students, now the children are being trained together.
Though Pradeep feels that people from the lower income group are not as willing to send their wards for self-defense training classes, this initiative holds more purpose for the Karate instructor.
“ Rather than self-defence training, I like to focus on improving the physical strength of the students, which has gone down comparatively to the earlier generation,” said Pradeep.Bindhu, another faculty of the school said that the Karate training for students has been started to instil a sense of confidence in them.