1991
A school hall in Class Two
I started martial arts at Charlotte Public School when I was in Class Two, around
1991. ITC used to come to the school to teach us, and one of the great masters who
taught us was Great Master Shahid Ali Siddiqui Sahib. Alongside him, Muhammad Yusuf,
Fahad Ali and Nadeem Shah all had a hand in introducing us to the sport.
I trained with Shahid Sir for several years after that, and later under other
instructors including Hakiman and Rashid Qureshi Sahib. Those early years are the
foundation everything else was built on.
The early years
Four days a week that nobody scheduled
My own journey began with kickboxing, though I took part in almost every sport that
was put in front of us — badminton included. I was training for the National Games
at the time, competing in whatever local competitions we could find, and slowly I
started training with the other athletes as much as against them.
The club ran three days a week. I would go, train, and come home. But there were
four more days in the week and I wanted all of them, so I found training partners
among my friends. We repeated techniques, sparred, and pushed each other along. That
is how martial arts stopped being something I did at the club and became something I
simply did.
Coaching
What Special Olympics taught me
Later I moved into coaching, and became involved with Special Olympics Pakistan,
working with athletes of different abilities. That work changed what I thought
coaching was. It is not simply teaching a technique or preparing someone for a
competition. Very often it is understanding a person's life — their family, their
circumstances, and what they are carrying when they walk in.
One athlete I coached, a young girl named Alina, has stayed with me. Her
circumstances were difficult, and for years she kept supporting and protecting her
family through them. Any one of those things could have stopped her. She did not
let them.
She kept training, and she kept going. Watching her, I understood that the
greatest victories in sport are not always the medals. Sometimes the real victory
is a person getting past the things that were built to hold them back.
Abdul Samad Khan
Working with athletes like her gave me a different view of the job. As a coach you
are not only developing an athlete. Some days you are helping build a person's
confidence, their courage, and their belief that they are capable.
Qualifications
From the mat to the staff room
I studied at Casper University, where I took international courses in Physical
Education and completed my qualifications. From there my work moved towards sports
management and physical education inside schools.
I served as Head of Sports at the PAF Chapter of The City School, and afterwards at
Happy Home and the Liberty Education System. Those years taught me how a sports
programme actually survives inside an institution — the budgets, the timetables, the
competitions, and the students who need someone to notice them.
Today
Beyond the academy
I am President of the Sindh Pickleball Association, working on the growth of the
sport across the province, and a founding member of the Pakistan Sports Education
Foundation.
Much of what we do now sits outside coaching altogether — seminars, training
sessions, camps, and support for institutions that need uniforms, qualified coaches
or a programme built from scratch.
The idea
Why martial arts and sport belong together
Sport has never been only about competition for me. It is education, discipline,
confidence, teamwork, and an opportunity handed to someone who might not otherwise
get one.
That is the thread running through all of it — the martial arts, the coaching, the
sports education, the management. The academy is the place where those come together:
not just training, but games, seminars, camps, athlete development, and real
partnerships with schools and sporting bodies.
The aim is an ecosystem, not a production line. It should turn
out better, more confident, more capable people. The athletes follow from that.
