Keep improvising, keep innovating: combat expert

Keep improvising and don’t be happy wherever you are. Keep innovating, said Seema Rao, India’s first and only women commando trainer.

Delivering a talk on ‘Leadership and Management Lessons from Armed Forces’, organised by CII-Yi Mysore Chapter in partnership with Namma Mysuru, by Seema Rao, who was accompanied by her husband Major Deepak Rao, she said, “While training more than 15,000 personnel of the Indian defence forces for the past 20 years, there was lot of obstacles but, I managed to overcome it.”

She was speaking during ‘Leadership and Management Lessons from Armed Forces’ by Dr Seema Rao and Major Deepak Rao, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry - Young Indian (CII-Yi), Mysuru chapter in partnership with Namma Mysuru Foundation and B N Bahadur Institute of Management Sciences here recently.

“Even when we were facing monetary issues, we did not charge money for the training. The training demanded travelling to some of the riskiest areas. Because of my work commitments, I had to miss my father’s funeral. My father was a freedom fighter and he used to tell how people fought for freedom. So, I also decided to do my mite for the country. When I was 16-years-old, I met Deepak who taught me martial arts,” she said.

“Despite all the risks that were involved in our jobs we adopted a girl child. Our journey started with unarmed combat and later armed combat, later shooting, counter terrorism and special operation. Keep improvising and don’t be happy wherever you are. I started by training police and later armed police, paramilitary force, and special force. Later, we decided to pen down our thoughts, and published books, which have been given to the Home and Defence ministries and also to the FBI,” said Seema.

She is a 7th degree black belt in military martial arts, a combat shooting instructor, a fire-fighter, a scuba diver, an HML medallist in rock climbing and Mrs Indian World Pageant finalist. She has also mastered Jeet Kune Do (martial art founded by Bruce Lee in 1967).

Also, recipient of World Peace award by World Peace Congress, US President Volunteer Service Award, three army chief citations and more than 1,000 felicitations from the Indian government.

DH News Service