Sabari Karthik is an Indian karate player and has represented India at several tournaments. He is making every one of us feel immensely proud of him. Most of all, he is fulfilling his father’s dream and making him happy and proud.
One must know self-defense irrespective of their gender. It feels so good to know that he is helping other children discover happiness and fun in sports and understand the importance of playing a sport. We the people at Mad4India wish him all the best for everything he wants to do in the future and hope for his success.
Sabari Karthik – A Little About the Champion
Sabari Karthik was born on 30th March 1990 and hails from the town of Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, India. His father, Gunasekaran, was a public servant – a head constable. His father passed away when Sabari Karthik was only 11 years of age. Sabari still recalls the day when his father gave him a life lesson before his first karate class and that is something Sabari Karthik abides by to date.
As said by Sabari in an interview, his father had told him it is crucial to channel energy constructively and his father was a firm believer of the power of discipline. Sabari considers his father’s beautiful and wise words his life’s biggest blessing, and those words still ring in his ears before he decides.
The Initial Days of Struggle
After his dad passed away, the responsibility to run and sustain his family came down on him suddenly. At 15, he started teaching karate to the children at Zen Martial Arts and PSG Sarvajana School in Coimbatore. His days were full-packed with attending school in the morning and teaching the children karate in the evening.
He and his mother tried and lived their lives with the little income Sabari earned and the pension his mother got, around 4500/-. But all of this together also wasn’t enough for Sabari to fulfill his dream of becoming a karate champion.
But Sabari’s dedication, passion, confidence, and love for karate made him fight all the battles and helped him be where he is today. He had put his heart and soul into this and achieved everything he had dreamt of one day. He is nothing less than an inspiration to each one of us.
He started getting his coaching from Sensei N Karthikeyan. Soon after, he had taken part in a few national and international competitions and won them, too. The moment he stepped on the tatami he was ready to take the world by storm.
His struggles and hard work started paying off when he got selected for a state championship in 2006 but he wasn’t happy after the news. He recalls that though their financial condition was improving, paying for the tournament wasn’t possible and would worsen their financial condition instead.
Being the thoughtful person he is, he sold off his bicycle and paid the required amount. He had also taken a loan of 30,000/- from his father’s pension for one of his matches. He got funding for his trip to the Philippines for a match. While playing, he also made sure that he completed his studies and got an MBA degree.
Battling All the Difficulties and Making it Through
Sabari Karthik has once again proved with his success story that there’s light at the end of the tunnel and one must not give up on their dreams or lose hope. His first international gold medal was in the International Junior Karate Championship, which was held in Singapore in 2009. In the Malaysian Open tournament, he bagged a silver medal.
At the 1st South Asian Karate Championships, he won the silver and the bronze medal. Sabari Karthik has also founded a company named PHASE (Physical Health and Sports Education) which collaborates with educational institutions to inculcate essential skills such as stress management, teamwork, leadership, and effective communication. It is a one-year program such as fitness assessment, appointing trained coaches.
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