Hyderabad: Anusha (name changed), after learning of the recent rape and murder of a city-based veterinarian on November 27, decided to join a self-defence course. Over the past week, many people, mostly women, have shown interest in taking up martial arts training for self-defence. And trainers have woken up to the opportunity.
Many trainers have started free ‘awareness camps’ for women so that they may get a direct hands-on feel of what such training might entail.
Sk Mujahid, who has a martial arts training academy in Chandanagar, for instance, has started a 10-day self-defence camp for women in the mornings. “Since the Disha incident, I have received a lot of calls from women. They were curious to know if what I can teach them would be helpful. I realised then that I should open a free camp for them so that they can explore self-defence techniques and learn about what it takes a undergo a full-fledged program,” he said.
But what can one learn in just 10 days? Mr Mujahid said, “We can’t teach them everything during this awareness camp. We show them a few techniques that they can perform to immobilise an attacker. These are simple techniques, but very effective.”
He said that many women had doubts about the efficacy of self-defence training when there were more than one or two attackers. “In such cases, we tell people the importance of being alert. We ask them to not be scared. Even before that, we tell them how to sense dangerous situations, so that they may avoid them,” he said. Mr Mujahid said that in the past few days, many multinational companies have also approached him for sessions for their employees.
Ms Surichi, a Krav Maga instructor in Jubilee Hills, said she too had received enquiries from curious women in the last 10 days. Krav Maga is a military self-defence and fighting system developed by the Israeli military.
“When such an incident happens, people usually want to take precautionary measures and feel safe. Most of the calls we are getting are made by the women, not by parents or family members,” she said.
But the truth is that such a sudden spurt interest in learning self-defence technique would also wane pretty quick.
“Usually, we have noticed that people are very interested and curious immediately after an incident such as this. After around a month, they lose interest.” Mr Ajay, who runs a martial arts academy in Ramgopalpet, said that he too had received a few calls from people these past few days.
There is a lot of interest among the public about self-defence. I haven’t seen a lot of upsurge in this interest, but I did get calls from a few concerned parents,” he said.
