Coach Kamini Yadav's Picture With Her Wrestling Student Has Gone Viral

When one talks about wrestling, the first picture that forms in our minds is of a ripped, average height man with bulging biceps. It is through years of nurturing and believing that the sport belongs to the man that we deduce this picture. However, it's time to change and reimagine the idea of what a wrestler or for that matter a coach looks like-they can be of any gender.

Topping the problematic idea that sports which require aggression are masculine in nature, is the fact that in India we hardly have any women wrestling coaches for men's wrestling. Recently, a picture of a former Commonwealth winner Kamini Yadav giving blessings to her student has gone viral.

The picture shared by Jonathan Selvaraj, who is a journalist at Sportstar, shared the picture of Yadav blessing a man during the Asian U17 championship. The person, half bent seeking blessing from his coach is Ningappa of Karnataka. Yadav is his coach. He captioned the post, "women coaches in men's wrestling are rare in India."

Suggested Reading: Are Unitards Enough To Fight ‘Sexualisation’ Of Women In Sports?

Kamini Yadav: Women Wrestler And Coach

The picture was uploaded by the people on Twitter, who not only appreciated it but also hoped for a day when we can go beyond gender and other classification.

One user wrote, "I remember Andy Murray brought Emily Mauresmo for a little white to coach him. Good coaches are good coaches, irrespective of gender. Good to see and hoping for success for both of them."

Yadav had started wrestling in the year 1999. From a village near Delhi, Yadav had to pave her way in the sport regardless of people's protests against her taking up wrestling. She wore the Indian jersey for 24 international events. She is the two time champion of 48 kilograms category but in 2017 at the National Senior Wrestling Championship, she entered 72 kilograms.

Reportedly, she has a daughter who also accompanied her to watch the games and cheer her up. The daughter is in class eight now.

In 2007, Kamini married railway wrestler Anil Kumar. In 2014, she became a coach at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) and is reportedly grooming 30 women wrestlers for the championships.