Participants at the karate seminar at Youth Hostel in Patna on Friday. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Patna, June 24: For once, karate trainers from Bihar stepped into the shoes of trainees today.

All Bihar Seishinkai Shito-Ryu Karate-Do Association of Bihar — affiliated to the All-India Karate-Do Federation and Sports Karate-Do Association of Bihar — organised a state-level seminar today at Youth Hostel that dealt with imparting training to the state karate trainers about the role of a referee and their judgement according to the National Championship of Karate norms.

Inaugurating the seminar, the labour resources minister, Janardan Singh Sigriwal, said: “The state and regional-level karate trainers and students have assembled today and seeing them together is a proud moment for all of us. I hope the players and their trainers put their soul into the game and win laurels for their state and the country.”

He added: “I also congratulate the organisers of this meet for arranging such a programme in Bihar. Such seminars are needed to boost the culture of sports in Bihar.”

Sigriwal said: “Karate is a unique game because it builds up stamina and courage in a player. The best part of the game is that every part of the body is being used.”

Shihan Premji Sen, the South Asia chief of Asian Karate-Do Federation, was the chief guest at the occasion.

Sen said: “I came to Bihar in 1996. I love the culture and people here and I also feel myself privileged to be a part of this seminar.”

Sen was here to discuss the role of referees to the state-level karate trainers and also to conduct blackbelt test of the karate students of Bihar.

He suggested that the officials of the karate bodies and the students should take the game seriously and not use the game to mint money.

“I am not happy with the present scenario where many people are making karate a tool to churn out money. Some of the people don’t even have the proper knowledge of this game but are training students. It’s a matter of concern and we need to look into this issue,” Sen said.

Around 100 karate trainers, referee trainers and students from Bihar took part in the seminar under the guidance of Gautam Kumar, one of the chief instructors of All Bihar Seishinkai Shito-Ryu Karate-Do Association and Nisha Pal, also a chief instructor of the karate cell of Seishinkai.