Kids bag medals in silambam tournament

Coimbatore: T Shyni Rich, 9, a Class V student, might look small and feeble, but she has recently displayed her grit and talent in silambam and maduvu (a martial art using two deer horns as weapons) at the South Asian Silambam Championship held in Kanyakumari and bagged three gold medals and a bronze.

Like her, nine other children, whose ages range from eight to 19, participated in various categories in the tournament held from July 13 to 15, and bagged 31 medals in all – 19 gold, 9 silvers and 3 bronzes. Around 450 students from Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh had participated in the tournament.

All these children were trained by P Selvakumar, who runs Silambalaya Trust for Indian Traditional Martial Arts, a forum which gives free training to people in the art forms.

Most of the children who have won accolades say they got interested in the martial art form by seeing their elder siblings or friends do it. M Priscila Angel, 12, said she saw her friends practising silambam and wanted to do it. “I want to go to more levels and win many tournaments,” says Angel, who has been training in the art form for three years now. She has bagged a gold and two silvers at the tournament.

Along with these children, S Monish, 8, S Neha 10, T Sam Amos, 13, C V Pooja, 13, Sri Sharukesini, 13, V Bharath, 16, S Balaji, 19, and Saran Raj 21, have bagged several medals. Selvakumar said the children grasp the nuances of the art forms and perform well in tournaments. The length of the silambam (a pole) depends on the height of the person who wields it.

The general interest in Indian martial arts has gone up in the recent years, said Selvakumar, who started training in silambam in 1981 and became a trainer in 1995. “When I started Silmabalaya in 2012, we had six people. Now we have around 90 students. We have trained around 500 people so far,” he said. He trains people in silambam, stick fight, maduvu, sword fight, and surul vaal (a sword with a flexible blade).