MARTIAL ARTS: THE KICKSTARTER
"I doubt there is any sport which I have not tried my hand at,” says Rameesha Shahid, the first and only female kickboxing instructor in Pakistan. “But kickboxing kind of stuck with me.”
There are around 15 to 18 girls in workout gear in her morning class. “I have around 30 female students,” she says. “The rest take my evening class.” Rameesha teaches kickboxing in two shifts at the K7 Fitness & Kickboxing Academy in Karachi.
And when she is free from her classes, you will find her cycling with ‘Critical Mass’ or maybe horseriding. Check for her on the cricket field, too. “I just can’t remain still. I have to be doing something and it has to be some sort of physical activity,” she says. Sometimes she also sneaks into the children’s gym classes at K7 to pick up tips on gymnastics. Then you’ll find her doing headstands, handstands and cartwheels!
Rameesha Shahid is the first and only female kickboxing instructor in Pakistan. She is a real fighter
“Everyone’s been calling me ‘tomboy’ since I was little,” Rameesha smiles. “We used to live in a joint family near Hill Park in Karachi. My cousins and I had this pastime of uphill cycling or watching World’s Most Amazing Videos on AXN and trying to reenact them ourselves,” she says. “The older boys in the family always wanted me to bowl as they practised their batting, which helped me become good at cricket too. I was even selected for the women’s national team as a teenager when I went for trials but then when I heard that that would mean giving up my studies or wasting a year or two due to our busy schedule, I dropped the idea of playing professionally. Now I only play Ramazan Cricket with ‘KheloKricket’,” she adds.