Taekwondo masters in North Korea

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From the teak forests of Nilambur in Malappuram, two persons will travel to the capital of one of the most militarised states in the world, Pyongyang, in an attempt to learn and impart knowledge in Taekwon-do. A.M. Antony and M. Abdurahiman from Nilambur will be attending the 17th ITF Taekwon-do World Championships to be held in September in North Korea as match officials.

Both of them will be attending the championship with the four-member Indian team and another match official, Rajendran Balan from New Delhi.

Started the training in Taekwon-do in 1980, Abdurahiman is the Sixth Dan Black Belt holder and Antony has received fifth Dan black belt.

Abdurahiman is also the chief instructor of International Taekwon-do Federation of UAE.
While this is the first visit of Antony to North Korea, Abdurahiman has previously visited the country as match referee in the previous world championship.

“I have been the match referee for the previous World and Asian championships. To promote and train Taekwon-do I have visited Korea, China, Dubai and Russia,” said Abdurahiman. He has also won the best outstanding instructor award of ITF in 2009.

“In Pyongyang, we will be attending technical umpiring seminar and other seminars related to Taekwon-do. The championship will be a good opportunity for us to develop our martial art skills,” says Antony.

Explaining that Taekwon-do is increasingly accepted in India, Abdurahiman says that students in metro cities in the country are more focused in the martial art. “There are about 133 training schools for ITF in Delhi alone. Apart from North India, we have also a decent representation from Bangalore and Kerala,” he says.

Abdurahiman has been working in UAE as the chief instructor for the past 19 years. He has also trained the daughter and son of late Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto from Dubai for eight years in Taekwon-do. Both of them are the office bearers of national and state Taekwon-do associations.

¨During our training, it was very difficult to get any good instructors. However, the situation has changed a lot now. There are a lot of well-acclaimed instructors and facilities for the students. As a result, more people are getting attracted to the martial art,¨ says Abdurahiman.

Antony is a Phd holder from Calicut University and is running a training school in Taekwon-do in Nilambur. He has received PHD in health related physical fitness and is currently researching on the relationship between Taekwon-do and physical fitness.

“My training centre in Taekwon-do also gives classes on lifestyle disease management. More than a martial art Taekwon-do can be used to control the lifestyle diseases, which has become rampant nowadays,” Antony says.

He has visited UAE and Singapore to take part in seminars and competitions. He has also trained several international students, who have set up training centres in different countries.

The ITF championship will be from September 6 to 12.