Empowering through self-defense

With crimes against women at an all-time high in the country, it’s high time that all women, irrespective their age, learn how to defend themselves in the midst of an attack. While there are various places in the city, where one can take up self-defense classes, here’s a group of three individuals — Sifu Shiv, Nilesh and Suresh Nair, who started Swarakshan Trust in May 2014, with a goal to empower women and other sections of the society by providing them with effective self-defense skills derived from Wing Chun Kung Fu. Another objective is to guide them on how and where to raise their voice by improving their general legal awareness. Currently, the trio are conducting a 12-session detailed self-defense course, India’s first such specialised training for women cabbies, for Priyadarshini Taxi Service, at a highly subsidised fee. Read on to know more...

Swarakshan Trust

Sifu Shiv, Nilesh and Suresh are passionate martial artists in their 30s and 40s, living and working in the city. Suresh runs his own business, providing specialised medical and clinical content to various clients for their educational and commercial needs. They are the three lifetime  trustees of Swarakshan Trust, legally certified as a non-profit organisation by the Charity Commissioner’s Office in Mumbai. Their martial arts institute, India Wing Chun Academy (IWCA, indiawingchun.com) with its headquarters in Borivali in Mumbai and one branch in Delhi, operates under the umbrella of Swarakshan Trust. While Sifu Shiv is the head instructor, Nilesh and Suresh are deepening their Wing Chun skills by assisting him. So far, it’s just the three of them in the trust, and they’re currently developing the next generation of trainers.

Wing Chun Kung Fu

Sifu Shiv, Nilesh and Suresh’s interest in the martial arts began by getting inspired from Bruce Lee’s hit movie, Enter The Dragon. Over the years, they have practiced Taekwondo, Karate, as well as Baguazhang, Taiji and Judo. “However, we all ended up practising Wing Chun because we feel that it is the most conceptually advanced and at the same time, the simplest and most effective martial art around today,” says Suresh.

The trio met while practising Wing Chun at India Wing Chun Academy. “We realised that we shared similar ideologies with regards to creating a safe environment for women and other needy classes of Indian society using the unique art of Wing Chun Kung Fu. The rising incidence of violence against women almost every week challenged us to come up with an effective solution. So we decided to form a small group to empower women and anyone else who needed it,” recounts Suresh, who has been with IWCA for five years and is the associate instructor for the Delhi branch since 2010. The three of them travel to Hong Kong every year to upgrade their skill sets from Grandmaster Leung Ting, one of the last remaining direct disciples of Great Grand Master Ip Man.

Challenges faced

Convincing people that they need to know how to protect themselves is our biggest challenge, informs Suresh, explaining, “Many feel that assaults happen only to others, rarely to themselves or their loved ones — or they simply deny that a problem exists. The ingrained Indian habit of neglecting one’s health and fitness in today’s busy life is another barrier which we have to overcome.”

Financing for Swarakshan Trust

“Our own resource crunch is a hurdle to our expansion. With more helping hands, we can expand this program to all members of society who need these skills as our mission progresses,” cites Suresh. They regularly conduct women’s self-defense sessions for MNCs as well as other NGOs. Their corporate seminars are paid workshops that serve as their funding source, which allows them to provide free or subsidised interactive training sessions to other NGOs which empower women.

Their work so far

So far they have conducted self-defense workshops for Tata Docomo, Aegis BPO, Reliance Energy Management Institute, Reliance Securities, and Johnson Controls. They have also conducted self-defense workshops for NGOs that empower women, such as YWCA Mumbai and Stree Shakti Kendra, and have conducted an educational seminar at JNU in Delhi.

IWCA has been working with YWCA since 2015 and has conducted multiple self-defense seminars at their locations. A representative of Priyadarshini Taxi Service invited the IWCA to conduct similar program for their women cab drivers. Their initial two-hour workshop was greatly appreciated by the women drivers, thanks to which IWCA was invited to create a 12-session detailed self-defense course.

Sifu Shiv, Nilesh and Suresh hope to reach out to like-minded NGOs and corporates, by increasing awareness of the critical need for self-defense to truly empower the lives of women.

What is Wung Chun?

It is a Chinese art derived from Shaolin Kung Fu with the specific aim of countering strength with relaxed skill, so-called ‘body structure’ and strategy. It was the first martial art practiced by Bruce Lee in Hong Kong before he set off to the US to embark on his movie career and forms the core of his self-styled martial art ‘Jeet Kune Do’, the way of the fist.

Why should you learn it?

Because of its intrinsic properties, Wing Chun is ideal for self-defense especially in a crowded metropolitan setting. It can be fairly easily taught to women without the need to enhance their strength or ‘building up’ their body in any way. It is brutally effective and can be lethal in the right hands. It takes two to three years of regular practice to truly master the basics, but a diligent student can easily learn to defend himself or herself against a typical street attack within a matter of months, with the right instructions.