Mangaluru : Martial expert and chairperson of the Chitah Jeet Kune Do (JKD) Global Sports Federation Chitah Yajnesh Shetty was honoured in the US for his contribution to human welfare in martial arts.

Shetty, who spoke to reporters on Friday, said that Sifu Cosmo Zimik, president of ‘Empty Hand Combat International,’ had invited the world-famous grandmaster to America to honour him at Nampa, the largest city of Canyon County, Idaho in the US.

Shetty was honoured by former Mayor Tom Dale. Earlier, he was inducted into the ‘United States Martial Arts Hall of Fame 2014’ and ‘Sri Lankan Traditional Indigenous Martial Arts Association’ (STIMA) and became the first Indian to have received the honour at ‘Stima Award Of Honourable Mission 2014.’

Shetty is also the first Indian martial artist to conduct a seminar in the US. The seminar was attended by a large number of martial artists. After the seminar, the organisers expressed their appreciation by issuing Chitah JKD certificate, which is an honour to conduct seminars for top ranking instructors and masters, he said, and added that he has been invited again in June 2016, to conduct a seminar on martial arts.

Shetty said that he has been teaching martial arts to schoolchildren, women and senior citizens since ages. He has even initiated special self-defence techniques as to when and how it can be deployed when people are attacked.

Chitah Yajnesh Shetty has trained more than 7,50,000 women across India, under the ‘Nirbhay women empowerment training programme.’

Shetty has imparted training in martial arts to Bollywood stars like Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgn, Hrithik Roshan, Sanjay Dutt.