KALARIPAYATTU- THE MOST MISUNDERSTOOD MARTIAL ARTS...

Before starting I would like to mention name of my Guruji.

Guru Murugan Pillai.

His academy name is Nithya Chaithanya Kalari. Only academy in Northern part of India.
His website is www.nckalari.com

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SOURCE/ ORIGIN OF KALARIPAYATTU

Lord Shiva: 

It is believed that Lord Shiva himself developed an art of warfare known as KALARIPAYATTU which was finally learnt by people in South India through his disciples.

Lord Nandi: 

As lord Nandi is very dear to Lord Shiva and is always with him, so first student of this art of warfare was lord Nandi.

Lord Karthikeya (Murugan) : When demon Tarkasura has spread evilness a lot, then to stop and kill him Lord Kartikeya (Murgugan), son of my dear lord Shiva took birth. Tarkasura has got a boon that he can be killed only by lord Shiva's own son. Now to kill Tarkasura, Lord Kartikeya learnt the art of warfare from Lord Shiva and Lord Nandi. Lord Karthikeya was sent to south India by Lord Shiva and Lord Ganesha was sent to Northern part of India for their further Karmas. That is why one can see Lord Karthikeya in form of Lord Murugan being worshipped a lot in south India and Lord Ganesha being worshipped a lot in North India like Maharashtra.

Sage Agastya: 

Sage Agastya too learnt the art of warfare from Lord Shiva and Lord Murugan and somehow travelled to southern part of India. In Kerala his style is being called as Thekkan Kalari and in Tamil Nadu it is being called as Silambam/ Chilambam. I will refrain from using which part of South India he travelled. Tamil Nadu people and Kerala people usually gets into heated discussion on this to prove which art is more better. As my Guruji knows both arts, so I came to know that both the arts are almost similar. Also point to note is Guru of Southern Kalari/ Thekkan Kalari and Silambam is Sage Agastya. So I don't know why both groups fights.
Sage Agastya also gave the knowledge of 108 Marmas to the world which is main part of the Kalaripayattu. One with knowledge of these Marmas can injure his opponent and can even heal someone. Kalaripayattu Guru's are very good Ayurvedic/ Siddha doctors.

Sage Parshurama: When Kshatriyas has gone wild due to hunger/ greed of power and has spread evilness a lot, then Sage Parshurama roles comes into play. One of the Kshatriya king even killed Sage Parshurama's father. Sage Parshuram's mother, on murder of her husband, mourned and beated her chest 21 times Seeing that mourning sage Parshurama decided to kill whole Kshatriya's clan 21 times singlehandedly so that evilness in the world can be controlled. It is believed that Sage Parshurama is immortal and is still alive in this Kaliyuga too and will appear to train art of warfare to Lord Kalki to end Kaliyuga.

Sage Parshurama style of martial arts is called as Vaddakan Kalari and is mainly based on ruthless weaponry system. This art flourished well in northern sides of Kerala. 

MY THOUGHTS AND EXPERIENCE OF KALARIPAYATTU:

After learning from so many years and still learning, I can say Kalaripayattu is itself a complete Martial arts in itself. Each and every aspect of Kalaripayattu is scientifically designed to progress.

Health aspects - Kalaripayattu moves are designed in such a way that practitioners gets overall body development. Kalaripayattu practitioners are extremely flexible and agile to do any move in day to day life. Practitioners muscles, tendons and ligaments are also very strong. Traditional weight lifting sets mostly matching with few modern methods are also done for overall strength development.

In a research, it is found that practitioners of Kalaripayattu has the best respiratory system development compared to other Martial arts including Yoga

                                                                                    Defensive and offensive- 
Kalaripayattu combat practice is not just about killing someone but it is defenso- offensive martial arts training. I have read many statement where Kalaripayattu is said to be too much deadly that it cannot be used normally/ defensively against anyone. But I consider this statement as false. Practitioners learns both the defensive portions and then the offensive portions of Martial arts. Point to note is amount of defense and amount of offense varies from situation to situation and varies against fighters/ street fighters.

Partner Training - I really appreciate the amount of partner training involved in this art. There is lot of partner training involved in each and every weapons and empty hand to get used to real blocks and strikes. One thing I found that practitioners of this great art can feel that practicing the predefined moves with partners at full speed and power is so much difficult then how difficult it will be to block the moves which we don't know or which is nor pre-decided. By regular practice every practitioners get used to bear heavy strikes and block them and counter them.

Combat mistake- According to me, only mistake many (not all) Kalaripayattu practitioners, if not all, do that they think by practicing only predefined moves they can really fight with anyone. And this is the biggest mistake they do. Practitioners must spar in controlled environment, with each other to get the real reflexes.
Another mistake they do including many other martial arts style practitioners is they get used to counter/ block specific type of strikes. They keep on thinking that opponent will strike in specific way only in which they practice. As per me each and every Martial artist must research and exchange ideas with each other and even spar (in a healthy way) with each other so that practitioners can develop their real art.

Kalaripayattu vs any other Martial arts: Many people especially in Martial arts world say that Kalaripayattu is not effective against other Martial arts like MMA, Muay Thai etc. I want to say one statement against this.

If Kalaripayatu practitioner is skilled enough that he can just touch you, then you are in danger. If you are skilled enough not letting Kalaripayattu practitioner touch you then you can save yourself. And I think second one is almost next to impossible.

Marma's Knowledge- Marma's (pressure points of body) knowledge can be extremely important to any Martial artist especially in old age. When you will grow old and your power and speed of body will reduce then this knowledge of Marma will be useful in taking down your opponents. Martial arts which involve only punching, kicking etc will not work too much as each one of them will require speed and power to some extent. Marma's knowledge is also extremely important for any Martial artist to learn as one must know how to heal their students/ opponents/ Enemies.

Real Combat style of Kalaripayattu:
Youtube is filled with application of Kalaripayattu which is not very close to this combat style. I can understand either they do not know how to show this stuff or they are not skilled enough in representing the techniques. May be someday I will be able to do so.

Now actual combat style is like below

Mainly open hand strikes from different different angles + Few Punches + Practical Kicks + Slips + Long Blocks + Short blocks + 64 types of throws in grappling + counter of the throws + 18 types of locks and their variations + Unlocking the locks + Elbow Attacks + Knee Attacks + Marma hitting. Think about practitioner who instantly grapple with you and pinches one of your Marma in closed range. After getting pinched your hands or legs do not move or you cry out in pain. Even the juijutsu knowledge is not going to help as one with Marma knowledge do not need any gap to pinch/ poke your Marmas. Grapplers may be understanding what Iam saying.



I CAN SAY THAT KALARIPAYATTU IS COMPLETE MARTIAL ARTS IN ITSELF FOR ALL AGE GROUPS WHICH MAKES IT ONE OF THE BEST AMONG ALL THE MARTIAL ARTS IN WORLD.

Below are the reasons for choosing Kalaripayattu.

1. Extreme Flexibility
2. Strength and Endurance
3. Perfect fitness and healthy Body.
3. Weapons Training
4. Weapons vs Empty Hand
5. Weapon vs Weapon fight
6. Bare Hand Combat
7. Complete pressure points knowledge.
8. Spiritual portions of Martial arts
9. Medicine knowledge
10. Knowldege of Prana/ Chi/ Internal Martial arts.
11. Knowledge of Self

STAGES OF KALARIPAYATTU

For knowing stages/ course of Kalaripayattu, please go to link http://nckalari.com or can ask me personally.

To know more on this art, please refer the article https://indianyug.com/kalaripayattu-the-ignored-original-marial-arts-from-india/ 

Namaste

Pranaam

Ranjit Mishra
Martial Warriors Academy
www.martialart-warriors.in
Email- ranjitmishramartialarts@gmail.com

KALARIPAYATTU VS GYMNASTICS FOR STUDENTS

I would like to cover this very important topic as I keep on receiving no. of calls from students/ parents for Gymnastics classes and at last after knowing details of Kalaripayattu they end up opting for Kalaripayattu classes. This is just because people know name of Gymnastics more than that of Kalaripayattu.

Having learned Gymnastics from no. of teachers and Kalaripayattu from Guru Murugan, I can easily explain difference between two.

Fist of all I would like to use one statement that Gymnastics too is one part of Kalaripayattu and apart from Gymnastics Kalaripayattu has many things to offer.

People has below reasons to choose Gymnastics.

1) Stunts like Flips, Handsprings, Rolls etc which looks very cool. Now these are also used in Dance.

2) It offers very good flexibility to students.

3) It gives very good strength to students.

4) It gives very good control on body.

5) It gives very high level of Fitness.

Now I will explain why people should opt Kalaripayattu instead of Gymnastics.

1) Stunts- All the flips, Handsprings, Rolls etc are already their in Kalaripayattu. At higher stages these moves are done with weapons in hands. Beside this there are so many complex moves including complex kicks in Kalaripayattu which when learnt leads to overall development of Body. Students of Kalaripayattu can easily learn most of the Dance moves in their Dance classes too. Even the high professional Dancers learns Kalaripayattu for improving their perfomances.

2)  Flexibility - Though Gymnastics gives very good amount of flexibility to it's practitioners but it cannot match the flexibility offered by Kalaripayattu. Kalaripayattu offers endurance Flexibility instead of just simple flexibility. I mean to say Kalaripayattu practitioners can perform many moves especially of legs for much longer time. Actually most of the moves are combination of Strength, Flexibility and repetitions of both to increase Muscle endurance.

3) Strength- Though this is most neglected part by few students of Kalaripayattu but Kalaripayattu offers extreme level of strength to the body. Strength of lower portion of body of good Kalaripayattu practioners are unmatchable. Upper portion of body has also very good level of strength but not just for stunts but for combat purpose also. Strength required to move weapons is not offered in Gymnastics. Last but not least Weight lifting too is age old tradition of Kalaripayattu practitioners, though very few students lift weights.

Beside other strength training exercise, try to hold the stances shown in pic. below even for 5 minutes and you will know what kind of strength Kalaripayattu practioners have.

4) Control- As I have already said Kalaripayattu practioners practice a lot of complex moves including Gymnastics which gives them total control on body in every kind of situation.

5) Fitness- Fitness offered by Kalaripayattu is unmatchable by Gymnastics or any other Martial arts. Iam saying this by experience not just boasting. Kalaripayattu gives overall fitness to students which includes Physical Fitness, Internal Fitness, Mental Fitness and Spiritual Fitness.

6) Moving Meditation - Kalaripayattu has a lot of scientific predefined moves. Most of the predefined moves when performed for in a seuqence is actually a kind of moving meditation. Very high level of concentration is achieved by it's practitioners. Below is just one example. These moves are called Ashtavadivus sequence.

7) Self Defense - Self defense is such an important part in today's lifestyle that is never offered by Gymnastics. Very high level of Self Defense system is taught in Kalaripayattu. Bare hand combat are taught at much later stages and weapons are taught in initial stages of Kalaripayattu.

8) Weapons - Variety of Weapons is taught in Kalaripayattu. Practioners are taught weapons not just for combat purpose only but are taught for display/ performing purpose too. Students when performs infront of large audience, their fear, nervousness go away after sometime. So you can see Kalaripayattu works on overall personality development of students. Me too has performed on variety of platforms all over India. However academy in which iam learning has perfomred outside India too.

In one line I will say Kalaripayattu is such a deep science offered by Lord Shiva (and his disciples) to mankind which if utilized can lead to very very healthy life till old age. This is not offered in Gymnastics.

Pranaam

Namaste

Ranjit Mishra
Martial Warriors Academy
www.martialart-warriors.in
Email- ranjitmishramartialarts@gmail.com

The BISCUIT, Kalaripayattu Guru and the Dhyana lesson

One day in evening I went to meet my Kalaripayattu Guruji. He was sitting in his Ayurvedic Chemists shop in Mayur Vihar, Delhi. I sat too with him to chat on some issues. He ordered Tea for us and took out Biscuit from his shop. We started dipping Biscuit in a Tea to eat it. As I was taking Biscuit from a Packet in his hand, by mistake one Biscuit fell on the ground. Guruji said in a joking way, What are you doing, where is your Dhyana (Concentration)..!!!

I smiled and came back with my philosophy and said- I think Biscuit had gone to the ones who deserves it today. I was referring to one very famous statement in hindi - Daane Daane pe likha hai Khaane Waale ka Naam ( Name of deserving one is already written by God on every seed/ drop of food/water).

Guruji came back with an answer- But this should not happen from the hands of Martial artist.

I remained quiet and started thinking on it. After few days, I got the answer. The Martial artist should be so much perfect in his/her work that he/she should not make such mistakes. In other words, Martial artist must be aware of each and every second, must enjoy each and every present moment. If one does so, one will certainly not make such mistake.  

A very big lesson I have learnt. I am still trying to achieve it. However I still make mistakes but Iam trying my best and I have been successful at some level in this.

Namaste

Ranjit Mishra

Martial Warriors Academy

www.martialart-warriors.in

Email- ranjitmishramartialarts@gmail.com

MY KUNG FU STUDY AND CONCEPT OF ALERTNESS

My Kung fu study (for 5 years) was not like other people practice Kung Fu. It was totally different from what people normally study in Kung Fu course. In my study what i learnt is

                                   Practice- Research- Practice- Apply practically

I practiced no forms and whatever i was able to apply practically was part of my Kung Fu though few basics are similar to other people practice Kung Fu.

But the best of the best thing that I learned in my Kung Fu study is Alertness concept.

According to Master Santosh Singh, one needs to remain alert at all times and at all places and be ready to fight at any place. This was the basic of my Kung Fu study. Even the best fighter in the world can be defeated if he is not alert at all times. Because if you are good in fighting then weaker one often cheats in fight to defeat/ Kill you. There are numerous examples of such cases where weaker one backstab stronger ones because they do not want to fight them like man from front.This knowledge i am sharing with you is total summary of what i have learnt in Kung Fu.

But this kind of alertness do not comes just by knowing it. Habit has to be formed for this. How I developed this habit is very interesting to know and is bit filmy. But yes this is true. 

Whenever and wherever we met, in a class or outside class, he used to test me anytime by hitting me. In return i had to defend against that particular attack. We have done this in functions also.. :-) 

This habit took years to develop. Then second stage was He hits, I block and then I instantly hit and he blocks. This took another one year to develop inside me.

This practice helped me a lot as I am ready to defend myself anywhere and at any time. The better offensive concepts I know was from other Martial Arts I learnt/ learning afterwards but defensive concept was best in my Kung Fu study.

Another kind of practice we used to do with weapons and without weapons was He hits and I block. None of the attacks and none of the blocks was fixed. Below link is a just a small example of such kind of practice in initial stage.

This video shows me defending with Tonfa and he hitting with Long stick. Point to note is nothing is choreographed and this was my training in initial stages.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecX4xcjmE1s 

LESSON LEARNT- BE ALERT TO REMAIN ALIVE

Namaste

Amituofo

Ranjit Mishra
Martial Warriors Academy
www.martialart-warriors.in
Email- ranjitmishramartialarts@gmail.com