KURNOOL: Chinna Lakshmaiah, a 29-year-old karate master from Kurnool city, imparts training to children hailing from poor families in the martial art free of cost as he thinks it is a way of serving the society. He strongly believes that karate helps enhance self-confidence of students, besides empowering them in self-defence.
A karate black belt holder, Lakshmaiah, who is popular as Chinna, has been imparting training in karate and self-defence to poor children free of cost for the past 12 years. More than 300 students who got martial arts training from Chinna, have obtained black belt in karate in last one decade.
Speaking to TNIE, Chinna, who completed BCom from Osmania College in Kurnool city, said he got black belt in karate while he was studying class 10 in Government Municipal High School at a camp.
“I participated in international level karate tournaments twice, and in national level events seven times. At district-level, I took part in over 100 tournaments,” he said.
Chinna runs a mobile service shop at Devanagar in the city to support his family, including his father, mother and sister. As he comes from a poor family background, he trains them in self-defence free of cost. However, he collects a nominal fee of Rs 250 per month from the children belonging to well-to-do families. Generally, karate coaching centres charge a fee of Rs 800 to Rs 1,000 per month.
Inspired by him, his friends Ramu, Janardhan and Venkatesh, who are also karate exponents, have started training students in martial arts at the karate coaching centre run by him at the municipal park in Gayatri Estate. Thus Chinna has been serving society by imparting self-discipline among students.