Image via Kaviarasi Sanggar
How often can you say that you broke a national record doing what you’re passionate about? Kaviarasi Sanggar is one of the unsung heroes in the DIGIyin Saathanai Hero-kkal campaign who recently attempted The Malaysia Book of Records.
She is a certified coach for Silambam, a weapon-based Indian martial art that originated in South India. Since her early days practising this art form, she’s always had a strong desire to accomplish something bigger and after persevering for 14 years, she finally achieved it.
Image via Kaviarasi Sanggar
Kaviarasi has been learning Silambam since she was 13 years old. Over the years of her training, she has participated in multiple tournaments representing her school, district, state, and in the national and international stages too. More impressively, she managed to grab 70 gold medals out of all those competitions!
Image via Kaviarasi Sanggar
In 2009, she was selected as the best female athlete at the national Silambam tournament. She also received the Bintang Semangat Jerai Kedah (BSK) award from the Sultan of Kedah in 2012 for her outstanding performance in the SUKMA Games as well as international competitions.
After accumulating over a decade of training experience, she is now a certified Silambam instructor with Persatuan Silambam Korvai Malaysia.
Besides coaching Silambam trainees, she also works as a Physical Education teacher at SJK (T) Kampong Pandan, a job she loves because she can continue to stay active in sports and games. Following her passion in the martial art, Kaviarasi decided to start introducing free Silambam classes to the students at her school. However, since the pandemic landed, she had to turn to online classes instead to avoid face-to-face interaction.
She felt that it was important to help young school children maintain good physical and mental health as they’re forced to stay indoors most of the time, so she continued her initiative to teach these students Silambam at zero charge.
Image via Kaviarasi Sanggar
Sometime after giving virtual Silambam lessons, she thought of the idea to attempt a record for The Malaysia Book of Records. So on 15 August, Kaviarasi taught Silambam via Google Meet for 14 hours! The whole session lasted from 6am to 8pm with a group of 150 participants from all over Malaysia, Singapore and India.
Lo and behold, at 8.30pm, she was thrilled when she was informed that she had successfully achieved the record!
Despite the challenges and restrictions while attempting the national record, she felt very confident and motivated to execute it well because she was thankful for the cooperation of the coaches at the association and teachers at her school.
“I would like to thank principal Ramachandran A/L Letchumanan from SJK (T) Kampong Pandan for this opportunity and giving me the confidence,” Kaviarasi shared.
“I would also like to say ‘thank you’ to the President of Persatuan Silambam Korvai Malaysia Master Anbalahan a/l Kuppusamy for his support in conducting the training and encouraging the trainees to join me in this record attempt.”
Image via Kaviarasi Sanggar
With this certified record, she is now more confident and motivated to further excel in the area of Silambam, leading more young trainees to this art form.
This is part of the DIGIyin Saathanai Hero-kkal campaign as we constantly look to share stories of Malaysian ‘superheroes’ that live amongst us.
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