In a field that is dominated mostly by men, here is a woman breaking all stereotypes and making a name for herself for all the right reasons. Meet Seema Rao, India’s ony female commando trainer.
Seema has been giving commando training to different armed forces in India for over 20 years without charging a single rupee for her services. She is an expert in close quarter battle and is a 7 Degree black belt in military martial arts. But her list of talents does not end there. Seema is a Combat Shooter, a scuba diver, an HMI medallist in rock climbing, a fire fighter and Mrs India World pageant finalist! If that wasn’t enough, she is also a certified doctor.
Seema was born in the house of freedom fighter Prof Ramakant Sinari who helped in the freedom of Goa from the Portuguese. She grew up listening to patriotic stories and wanted to serve the country when she grew up. Her dream was realised when she met her future husband Major Deepak Rao who introduced her to martial arts and she got hooked ever since.
After getting married, the couple continued to further their knowledge about martial arts, weapons training and shooting etc, along with continuing with their medical studies to become certified doctors. Seema also holds an MBA degree in crisis management.
Despite all these achievements, the couple wanted to find a way to serve their country and make a difference. So they decided to train the troops in India without charging anything for their services. There were mainly two reasons for this decision; One, to train the people who guarded the country and second, to keep engaging in martial arts.
The task, however was not so easy. They both faced financial hardships during the trainings, Seema had to at times travel to hostile locations or through harsh weather etc so much so that she even missed her own father’s funeral. Not only this, realising that her training is very hard and rigorous and it would be impossible to carry a pregnancy through successfully, Seema decided to adopt a girl child instead.
Dr Seema Rao is also one of the only 10 women in the world certified in Jeet Kune Do, a unique martial art form created by Bruce Lee in the 1960s.
Seema, along with her husband, has provided training to almost every elite unit of Indian Forces including NGS Black cats, MARCOS, GARUD, Para commandos, BSF, the Army Corps battle Schools etc.
Dr Seema Rao has spend more than 20 years as a full time guest trainer with the Indian troops.
Although Seema has repeatedly proven that she can take over the tasks successfully, she still at times faces difficulty in her profession as many men still refuse to train from a woman.
Dr Seema has received four Army Chief Citations
In 2009, Seema was invited by the Air Force Chief for the official IAF Para Jump course. It was here she earned her IAF Para Wings, yet another achievement to her credit.
