MARTIAL ARTS: PINNING SOCIETY TO THE MAT
Five seconds into the fight, Anita Karim — who had stepped on to the octagonal mat for the very first time after only one year of training — confidently landed her left hand on her opponent’s face, throwing the experienced Nyrene Crowley off balance. The far more experienced Kiwi fighter was taken by surprise. She spent the entire first round defending herself against Anita’s powerful strikes. It was in the final seconds of the initial round that Crowley came back to her senses and threw Anita on the floor. The inexperienced Anita found it a bit tough to fight on the floor. Her opponent exploited this, and got her in a rear choke in the second round. Anita lost the fight … but had made it abundantly clear that she was here to stay.
The first ever female mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter of Pakistan, who started practising taekwondo at an early age in Hunza with her brothers, is not disheartened by the defeat. She is determined to learn from her mistakes and get back to the ring stronger to walk off as the winner one day. “It was all about experience, they were not differently trained,” says Anita. “The jabs, the crosses and the kicks are all the same, it is just about implementing them. I have to focus a bit more on these things,” she says.
MMA is still a growing sport in Pakistan and not so popular among the female population of the country. Anita did not have a female companion to train with or to compete against, so she trained with her brother and other male practitioners of martial arts under the supervision of the well-known trainer, Ehtisham Karim. When she arrived in Islamabad from Hunza, she was given a choice between higher studies or a professional MMA career. She picked the latter, despite knowing the challenges.
Anita Karim is Pakistan’s first and only international female practitioner of mixed martial arts. Her rise has been as much about her determination to take on a male-oriented society as her dedication to hard work and training
“Before getting her into MMA, we trained for a few days so that she could understand how it feels when you are punched in the face,” says Ehtisham, who is himself an established MMA fighter of the country.
Training with her male counterparts has not been easy for Anita. She never misses her training and is one of the most hardworking individuals at Ehtisham’s gym. “I wanted to beat the stereotypical thinking that girls are not strong enough,” she says. “I wanted to prove that girls can do anything, that they are not delicate or too sensitive, and it is only a perception that they are weaker. It is actually what society has fed us,” she says.
Despite being the only girl training at the gym, Anita does not get any leverage. In fact, while fighting against men in practice matches she gives them a pretty tough time. “We don’t worry about things such as hitting her lightly during training. If we are soft on her now, she will get thrashed in her fights. No one likes to be beaten, but when Anita punches me during training, instead of getting angry I am glad. I tell her that it is how you connect blows,” Ehtisham says.