'My place is not in the hospital, but in the fighting cage': Kashmir's MMA fighter Fiza

"If I had a son, he would be world champion."

When Nazir Ahmed, a resident of Srinagar, the capital of Jammu and Kashmir, and a former player, was telling his wish to his friend 25 years ago, his daughter Fiza was listening to his conversation.

At that time Fiza was playing nearby and she was only four years old.

Fiza says, "I had decided at that very moment that I would become an athlete and I started training from the very next year."

She said, "By the time I reached school and college, I had already participated in national games and won medals."

Nazir Ahmed did not expect that his daughter would choose an aggressive sport like martial arts, which even boys fear.

"My parents were happy that I had a promising future in sports, but they must have been worried that I was in a dangerous sport where there was always a risk of injury," says Fiza.

Fiza has won medals for India in international competitions. She is the only female Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighter from Jammu and Kashmir, who has achieved success several times in international competitions.

She has returned to Srinagar due to an injury she suffered during a competition in Thailand.

Fiza says, "Injuries are a part of the game. My parents don't even watch my fights, they only see pictures of my victory celebrations."

Fiza says that she has been associated with martial arts since the age of five.

He told, "I started with Thangta, which is a Judo-Karate style sport. But in 2019 I felt that I really needed a global platform, then I started the journey of making my own identity in Mixed Martial Arts, in which I got great success."

Fiza has represented India in different international competitions in the last two years. Overall, he has won more than 40 medals so far at national and international level.

For many years Fiza tried to convince her parents to start her career.

She was also busy preparing for the examinations required to become a doctor, but one day she suddenly left this path.

Fiza says, "I was convinced that my place was not in the hospital, but in the fighting cage. It was easy to convince myself because it was my dream to become an MMA fighter, but my parents were obviously very scared of this aggressive sport and were nervous seeing my passion. But then gradually everything fell into place."

Fiza has been in Thailand for the last four years because the quality of MMA coaching in India is not world class.

She says, "I had to go to Thailand. Training is given regularly in the academy there. If we talk about Kashmir, there is neither infrastructure nor people know much about mixed martial arts. All the techniques of boxing, kickboxing and judo are used in this sport and quality coaching is very important for it."