post news network, Bhubaneswar, May 20: Students including tiny tots of the city descended on the state judo hall on the premises of the Bhanja Kala Mandap to take part in the summer judo camp organised by the Orissa State Judo Association (OSJA), in the city, Wednesday.
The month-long judo camp aims at training the participants in the basics of judo, along with self-defence techniques. Around 90 students took part in the first day of the judo camp.
“Summer vacation is going on and students are now free from their study at least for one month; considering this, we preferred to provide free judo and self-defence techniques to the participants so that they learn to protect themselves from untoward incidents,” said Gitanjali Panda, general secretary of OSJA.
Panda took charge as general secretary in 2013. She is an enlisted referee in the International Judo Federation and the Judo Federation of India. After taking her oath as GS, she has devoted herself in popularising the sport
in Orissa.
Discussing about the camp, she said that she paid more interest to holding the camp because of the great response she got from the school and college students last year. Around 4000 students took part in the camp held last year.
Speaking about the coaches she said, “My former students, Manisha Patnaik, Nirupama Sethy, Sradhanjali Panda and Amar Kumar Nayak, will take charge of this camp. They are national-level judo players, with some getting black belts during the national-level competition. Nirupama is now giving self-defence training to the Orissa Police personnel. These people are highly trained; so there will be no problem if I am not able to attend the camp every day. The participants will be given training for two hours in the morning and for two hours in the evening.”
Students in the age group of 5 to 25 years are taking part in the judo camp. While sharing his experience in the camp with the Orissa Post, nine-year-old Rohit Das said, “This is the first time I am attending a judo camp. I feel it’s difficult to quickly adapt to it, but I am sure that it will be easier after a few more classes. I have a personal interest in judo and so I convinced my parents to allow me to take part in the camp”.
Moreover, two of the students, Biswajit Mohanty and Rajesh Kumar Sahu, are going to take part in the nation-level judo competition. “Rajesh and Biswajit are two good students; however, they get afraid when they think of taking part in a national-level tournament. Now I am trying to throw the fear out of them as they get ready to take part in the competition,” added Panda.
