School of grit: He battled cancer at 13, repeated Sec 2 and now helps others through boxing

SINGAPORE – A tattoo of barbed wire encircles Mr Kumaraesaperumal Nadu’s left bicep, but it is the word “grateful” running down his upper arm that catches the eye.

Friends of the founder of King of Strength boxing gym in Sembawang Road, which celebrated its 10th anniversary in July, know that the 31-year-old, better known as Kumar Perumal, has much to be thankful for.

At the end of Secondary 1 at Northland Secondary School in 2006, Mr Kumar’s stay-at-home mother noticed two small lumps on each side of her son’s neck, about the size of a quail’s egg.

A trip to the general practitioner yielded antibiotics for what the doctor said was probably an inflammation, but when they did not work, she asked for a referral to a specialist.

About two weeks into Secondary 2, Mr Kumar’s world turned upside down when he was diagnosed with stage three nasopharyngeal, or nose, cancer. About 300 such cases are diagnosed a year in Singapore, and it is more prevalent among males aged 30 to 60, especially among the Chinese.

At the time, his only association with cancer was watching dramatic scenes in Tamil movies in which the stricken hero died. Even as he consoled his mother who “broke down”, he grappled with the fear that “maybe I don’t have much time left”. His father is a lorry driver and he has a brother who is three years younger.

Over the next eight months, he underwent six sessions of chemotherapy and 33 sessions of radiotherapy. His hair fell out and his immune system weakened, so going to school or being out in public was not an option.

“There were many times I wanted to give up,” he says of the gruelling treatments.

The once-overweight teen, who had never passed a National Physical Fitness Award (Napfa) test in North View Primary School, dropped from 60kg to 48kg.

Having missed so much of Secondary 2, he was told he would have to repeat the year unless he passed the year-end examination.

He was desperate to stay with his friends, who would be graduating to wearing long pants the next year, so he slogged for the last couple of months and received an overall grade of 47 marks out of 100. But it was not good enough to pass.

His teachers were impressed by his achievement and potential, but Mr Kumar felt deflated.

“I felt I had given it my all and was not appreciated, and I had missed out on a lot in the past year. So, studies were not a priority when I went back,” he says.

“After school, I’d hang out with friends and go for a good lunch. I didn’t study, didn’t do my homework. The next day, I would get a scolding from the teacher, but I was like, who cares?”

His parents, who used to send him for tuition classes when he was in primary school – he scored 199 for his PSLE and entered the Express stream – changed their focus from academic achievement to supporting his mental health.

Mr Kumar, who loved to play-fight as a child, got excited when a schoolmate introduced him to the now-defunct Farrer Park Boxing Gym. He started learning boxing there twice a week with coach T. Balasundram under its U2Can programme even though it was quite a distance from his four-room flat in Yishun.

“The whole world looked upon me as a sick child,” he says, recounting his frustration as a teenager who had had his taekwondo lessons in Secondary 1 cut short by cancer. “I was so happy to be at the boxing gym because I was back to being a normal kid. That was a very safe space for me.”

He was not allowed to spar in the ring at first, but the coaches there did not baby him either, he says.

It was there that he learnt about mental resilience – because radiotherapy affected his salivary glands and made his mouth dry, he carried a water bottle at all times to hydrate, panicking when his classmates took it away as a joke. The coaches gradually weaned him off his habit and he realised that it was a question of mind over matter.

Over the next three years, his fitness improved so much that he was among the top in his class for Napfa tests and could do pull-ups which his classmates could not.

Mr Kumar, who dreamed of being in the police force, thought that he could cruise his way through the O levels to get a diploma in sport and exercise science from Republic Polytechnic, which then required cut-off points in the mid-20s.

But reality sunk in when he scored in the 40s for his preliminary examinations. He hunkered down to study at home from 7am every day the next few months, managed to halve his aggregate and get into the course.

After graduating from the poly in 2014, he looked forward to enlisting for national service (NS), but was crushed to find out that he was exempt because of cancer.

Feeling lost after his male friends went into NS, he tried out jobs as a coordinator for sporting events and a personal trainer, but nothing stuck. His mother’s friend, who became his mentor, guided him as Mr Kumar started small-scale fitness business King of Strength that year – teaching boxing in a neighbourhood amphitheatre in Yishun with about five students, charging $100 for five lessons.

After a few months, he upgraded to a 600 sq ft space in an industrial building in the same estate, which cost him about $1,500 to $2,000 in monthly rent, but also meant that he could attract more female clients as there was a toilet to change in.

He took on a side hustle as a gym instructor to fund and sustain his business but left the job in late 2015, confident in King of Strength’s potential to reach financial stability and sustain itself.  

Two years later, when he had 35 regulars, he found his current space along a row of shophouses after the Urban Redevelopment Authority told him to vacate the industrial building. The rent then was almost double, but with it came the potential to grow his client base.

Today, King of Strength has some 90 to 100 members, ranging from six-year-olds to those in their late 50s. Fees start at $159 a month for children below age 12 and $249 a month for adults. The gym has six staff, including two coaches besides Mr Kumar.

His wife, aged 31, helps him with operations and they have a one-year-old daughter.

Unlike some boxing gyms where the focus is on winning matches and training champions, Mr Kumar’s mission is clear: “The primary goal of this place is to be a safe space for everybody. They shouldn’t feel left out or think they cannot do boxing.”

Mr Kumar, whose love of the Rocky Balboa boxing movies is evident in the many posters lining the gym walls, says he has seen remarkable transformations in some of his clients as they learnt discipline, built strength and discovered hidden reservoirs of mental fortitude.

For instance, a teenage boy initially refused to talk to anyone, but now chats with his coach for a good 20 minutes. A man who had lymphoma took up lessons, had a relapse and rejoined. Another man’s wife called up to say thank you after her husband joined the gym and stopped drinking.

To mark its 10th anniversary this year, King of Strength is offering a year’s free membership to cancer survivors. Four people have redeemed the offer to date, but Mr Kumar hopes to reach out to more.

“I want to be the coach who can talk to another Kumar one day,” he says, referring to his first boxing coach who changed his outlook on life post-cancer.

Mr Kumar is also an ambassador for the 2024 edition of Run For Hope, an annual event spearheaded by Four Seasons Hotel Singapore and in collaboration with the National Cancer Centre Singapore to support ground-breaking cancer research initiatives in Singapore. It will be held on Nov 17.

Looking back on his life, he recognises that had he not repeated Secondary 2, he may not have found his passion. And if not for cancer, he would not have realised how much he already had.

“That episode taught me that you’ve to be super-duper grateful for what you have. I just wanted to go back to school, eat good food, play with my brother and be with my parents.

“So, this tattoo is to remind me that if I ever ask myself, ‘Why me? Why can’t I have this?’, to always be grateful because you never know how much you have right now.”