Martial arts are considered one of the most difficult kinds of sport. This is a diverse hand-to-hand combat in order to cause maximum possible damage or bodily injury to the opponent.

If previously martial arts were considered strictly male kind of sport, now girls training Muai Thai, Kung Fu, or MMA are no surprise. They have found their niche in martial arts, reach high results and become popular in the world.

A young second-year student of the Police Academy came out of the store and went home in a narrow unlit alley between two central streets. It was her usual daily route. Nothing new.

The girl was walking in the right direction saving her hands from cold in rabbit fur mittens. Suddenly a dark figure appeared from around the corner, which was several times bigger and higher than she was. A middle-aged man, sober, in decent clothes, pulled the girl to the car standing at the distance. It was seven p.m. and the student hoped someone would come out and help her. The darkness deepened but no people appeared around.

She needed to act promptly, so she took off her mittens, rallied her forces and hit the stranger in his face. One second later he fell down. It was a typical knockout.

The man could not even imagine that it was Natalia Tsoi, the future boxing champion of Kazakhstan and the defending champion of Kazakhstan and Russia in taekwondo.

"I have never knocked out anyone before, but at the moment God and my combat skills saved my life," Natalia said.

However, the girl developed pride from her force and precision later on. At that moment, she had a strong fear and rushed home. And she has never told this story to anyone for several years of living alone in the campus.

Sometime later, Natalia has become one of the first female master of sport in boxing, the first champion of Kazakhstan in boxing, major of police, candidate of juridical sciences, PhD, international category judge of the International Boxing Association (IBA), and mother to two girls.

She was the first female referee from Asia at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro (2016).

Natalia started to do sports in childhood and she chose the most aesthetic one – ballroom dancing. Combat sport was not popular among girls back then. However, she always dreamed of learning martial arts.

In her high school, the girl started to attend taekwondo classes just for fun, and she was surprised to do good there.

"Whenever there's the will and right motivation, you can do great; you just have to listen to yourself," Natalia said.

Later on, she switched to kickboxing, but she did not even thing about boxing.

"Boxing was the most masculine kind of sports for me. I have never thought about it. Moreover, there were no female boxers in Kazakhstan then and it seemed like something out of reach."

At the same time, women's boxing was not supported by the state and was not funded, either. The girl did not want to depend on her parents, and upon graduation from the Police Academy, she started to work in the interior affairs bodies. She left sport. But for one year only. When she got back, she wanted to try herself in boxing. It was not in vain, as Natalia became the member of the first women's boxing team and in 2006 she became the first champion of Kazakhstan.

Natalia used to think mistakenly that boxing was a rude sport without any fantasy and mental workload. Now she knows she was wrong.

The active referee said that sport developed rationalism, composure in critical situations, confidence and strength of character in her. However, she remains a smiling, cheerful, easy person who has destroyed the 'boxing is not for women' stereotype. Besides, there is another point in addition to her love for boxing.

"There are so many bad men around that you need to be able to protect yourself and your children in modern society. I am not speaking about aggression and attacks on others, but about self-defence."

Despite the fact that women's boxing is gathering pace in Kazakhstan, there are few female boxers yet. According to Natalia, girls are not willing to take this path: some do not know how affordable it is, others fear blows or public opinion.

Natalia was lucky with the people around her: the society has never discriminated against her when she started boxing.

"I remember that everyone was wondering at first, and then they admired me. Someone might have criticised me, but they never said it straight out. They were afraid," Natalia said laughing.

Her parents did not mind. Her father instilled a love for martial arts by teaching her to hit. And her technique turned out to be right. And mother worried all the time, yet she said, "If it's your path, you will reach the right place." And it happened so.

"I feel myself in the right place, and I am so happy!" Natalia Tsoi said.

Natalia did not plan to be a referee, but after her first invitation to be the referee in her hometown of Karaganda she fell in love with it.

"I have never felt any negative feelings from boxers. Vice versa, the woman is more fair, and does her job in the ring very responsibly," said international female referee.

Natalia has long judged tournaments across Kazakhstan, and then she was invited from time to time to international competitions. At one of them, the referee was awarded "the best referee", which is a serious qualification. Afterwards, she was invited to judge the Youth Olympic Games and Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

There were only four women among 35 referees from all over the world.

By the way, Natalia was able to find only four international female referees across Kazakhstan. It turns out that there are few female boxers, and even fewer female referees.

It is harder for women to combine household duties and the work of the referee, which implies frequent travels and unstable income. However, there are women who can manage both very well despite those problems, and be a striking example for their female followers.

Now the 19-year-old Kyrgyzstani has quite a good experience of amateur competitions and professional combats both in Kyrgyzstan and abroad.

According to her, Farida was inspired for sport by her elder brother. He went into Muai Thai since childhood and spent all his free time in the gym. Farida was around him there.

"In fact, I have learned about sport from my brother," the girl said. "I have attended all combats and tried not to miss anything. Thus, I have developed love to trainings"

At the age of 14, she finally confessed to her parents that she wanted to start training and take part in competitions. But her parents did not take her desire seriously.

"They thought I would quit in a month or two," Farida said. "But I set my goals clearly and started to train hard from the very first days."

Given that Muai Thai tournaments are held twice a year, Farida goes into other kinds of sport, too. The girl has taken part in kickboxing, boxing, MMA, Wushu Sanda, Burmese boxing, Kung Fu competitions, etc.

But not all victories were easy. Sometimes, the body stopped working and obeying after heavy load. At such moments, it was hard both physically and morally, she said.

"There are hard work, trainings, hours spent in the gym behind my every fight. The thing no one sees. Only my trainer and I know the price of our victories. But if there's a will, there's a result, despite any difficulties. The main thing is not to give up after you lose, even if it's hard," Farida said.

According to Abdueva, Kyrgyzstan, unlike other countries, does not have many female athletes who go in for martial arts professionally. She said that there are many talented girls in the republic, yet many of them have no money to become professional fighters.

"Athletes always need to take vitamins for health support, take part in competitions to gain experience, to attend training camps in other countries. And all these require much money," Farida said. "However, unfortunately, the state supports Olympic sports only. Maybe, non-Olympic sports get something, too, but athletes themselves do not get this support."

According to Abdueva, it becomes apparent when you look at the level of training of other countries. Their women's teams are fully completed along with men's – they have trainers, sport doctors and all equipment necessary for competitions. Unfortunately, Kyrgyzstan does not have it all.

"I have a feeling that our country does not take women's martial arts seriously," Farida said. "But we also represent our country, we also raise our flag in foreign arenas. Therefore, I think that female representatives of martial arts deserve scholarships, good attitude and recognition just like other athletes."

For years, Shoira Zulkaynarova has been breaking gender stereotypes with her fists, stirring dreams of victory in girls' hearts despite pressure from society. She is Tajikistan's only female boxer who wears a hijab and has been representing the country in worldwide fights.

A 28-year-old Tajik woman has achieved international fame, proving that women can participate in sports that might be considered prohibited for them in traditional society.

Shoira Zulkaynarova is Tajikistan's eight-time boxing champion. In 2022, she won a bronze medal in the 60 kg weight category at the World Boxing Championship in Istanbul, Turkey.

Despite the fact that Shoira is facing many challenges on a daily basis, including constant pressure from society, negative comments on social media, failures or injustices at competitions, she neither loses faith in herself nor gives up on her dream.

Shoira says that at first she trained in hand-to-hand combat, but then she realized she was meant to be boxing instead. It was not an easy choice, though. In Tajikistan, the sport is considered taboo for women in terms of religion. So Shoira had to go through the criticism and prejudice of society.

Shoira notes with regret that there are insulting comments like "Give up boxing, you're cursed!" under the posts on her Instagram page, but she tries not to pay attention to them.

Shoira doesn't accept defeat, but rather constantly moves forward and prepares for competitions with dedication instead. In 2019, she took part in an international championship in Kyrgyzstan. She has defeated two of her opponents, but no one believed that she would be able to repeat her success with a third opponent in the ring.

"My coach at the time told me, 'You will lose', since my opponent was a very experienced boxer. I answered, 'No, my sports conscience won't let me give up, and I'll step into the ring even if I end up losing'. I went out there and I won," Shoira said.

According to her, there are cases in Tajik society where parents or brothers prevent their daughters from participating in sports, especially boxing. Besides, not everyone has the financial means for that.

'My brothers support me very well and they even recommended me to do sports in the first place. They used to take care of all my financial matters before, which means I participated in competitions in other countries at my own expense. It's been two years now since the government started supporting athletes, and I couldn't be happier about it,' Shoira added.

She says she never regretted her choice of profession because she made it knowing all the difficulties she would face.

She recounts how last December she competed in a worldwide boxing competition with an arm injury and won in the third-place match.

"When my father found out I got third place, he was very unhappy, because he hoped I would get the first one. Father scolded me a lot, asking me why I couldn't compete with my opponents and didn't use all my abilities. However, he didn't know that my arm was injured, because I didn't tell him about it before. When I told him, though, he took me to a doctor in Moscow who treated me. It was only a week ago that I could resume light training," Shoira said.

Shoira plans to participate in the Paris 2024 Olympic games and represent Tajikistan there.

Despite the negative attitude of society, she isn't giving up and continues her path in boxing on the world stage.

In the last several years, Uzbek female athletes have shown great results by winning many prize places at Asian, European and world championships.

At the Asian Youth Championship held in Tashkent in January 2023, female boxers of Uzbekistan won 10 medals: five gold, three silver and two bronze.

In the last two years, Uzbekistan female athletes have broken stereotypes and achieved unbelievable results in boxing at many other championships. One of them is 29-year-old Aziza Yakubova, who is in the weight class of under 55 kilograms. She is the first representative of Uzbekistan in boxing among women, who won medal in the world championship in Türkiye in May 2022.

The athlete was born in the city of Dzhizak, centre of Dzhizak region, located 201 kilometres southwest of Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan. The girl came into sport thanks to her uncle, boxer Gairat Karimov. It was him who once took six-year-old Aziza to the gym. Since that day, according to her, she was interested in boxing. She worked out and trained under her uncle's supervision, took part in city and regional competitions, took part in training camps in other towns of Uzbekistan.

She did not succeed immediately. For almost five years, from 2009 to 2014, she had to quit sports. Her mother and she moved to Russia, where they took every job to earn for a living and food. Aziza remembers how mother and she worked in hothouses and grew vegetables.

The 2016 Rio Olympics and participation of her fellow countrymen became a breaking point for the girl. At that time, Uzbek boxers won seven medals, including three gold medals. Khasanboi Dusmatov was the triumph of the games; he became the idol to young Aziza.

The future champion's determination led her to dramatic changes in her life. In 2019, she moved to Andizhan, located 352 kilometres east of Tashkent, and started to train under the supervision of Ziyatdinbek Toigonbaev, who was the trainer of Aziza's idol – Khasanboi Dusmatov, the Olympic champion.

It was difficult in a strange town – no job, no opportunity to rent a place to live. Her best friend's family invited her to live with them. Three months later, the trainer helped her to get a job in the Andizhan Boxing Federation.

Despite all the hardships on her way to success, the athlete has always been supported by her mother, Suriyakhon Karimova. She believed in her daughter while everyone else kept saying that boxing was not for women, and a dangerous sport.

However, the athlete still hears such comments today. After the eye injury at the world championship in Moscow, the first words of relatives she heard were that she should stop boxing and threatening her health. But boxing for Aziza was not just sports, but something she lives and breathes for.

"I want to reach all best results in amateur boxing and then become a professional boxer," Aziza said.

Despite the fact that it is more difficult for female athletes because of the popular opinion and male and female division of sports, she is positive that it is the last thing to focus on.

"The main thing is to set the goal and reach it despite circumstances and what other people say," Aziza said.

However, she noted that despite the traditional views in Central Asian states, there is much competition in boxing between men and women in Uzbekistan. Girls come into sports for a variety of reasons: some for self-defence, some to become champions.

Aziza tries to change the stereotypes that boxing is not for girls and dreams of leaving her mark in professional sport. Today she is the role model for many female boxers of Uzbekistan. Bronze medal of the world championship in Türkiye is the greatest victory for Aziza so far.

"I know there are families who do not allow their children to go in for boxing. But sport is about dedication and hard work. And I am sure that there is only the way to reach a compromise without destroying the child's dream," Aziza said.

However, she is an ordinary girl with her dreams and hobbies. For example, the girl's hobbies are singing and writing poetry, and she loves them as much as she loves sports. In future, she is dreaming of opening her boxing gym and train girls, future boxers of Uzbekistan.