Here's a Throwback Thursday post for you, continuing our adventures last year in Kerala. Woohoo!
After dinner with Kareem's family, we went to the local kalari to see a demonstration of the traditional South Indian martial art kalaripayyatu (and here and here). This was one of Johnny's three must-sees for Kerala. Indians claim that kalaripayyatu is the most ancient of the martial arts and the basis for the more famous forms out of China, Japan and Korea. This could be true. Buddhism spread to the rest of Asia from India, and it's not unlikely that other bits of culture went along with it.
Since there's not much call for bands of Malayali warriors to be roaming about these days, the art is now practiced as a combination of physical and spiritual fitness and dance.
The kalari is a simple rectangular building with a dirt floor and lots of religious icons and weapons hanging on the walls. (A word about the poor lighting in these photos. I didn't use a flash for fear of blinding the combatants, so the photos aren't spectacular.)
In one corner there's a little shrine, at which all of the combatants pray before beginning their demonstrations.
We were the only people at this demonstration, so the kalari's guru encouraged the kids to run around a bit ... as if they needed encouragement. Samuel immediately started asking for a sword. Lucky for me, the guru wasn't quite that encouraging.
Here are some of the combatants praying before the demonstration begins ...
First we were shown how a single combatant prepares himself. A lot of the movement is based on animal strengths, so there are postures for the serpent, lion, elephant, tiger, etc. The movement was so quick that it was hard for me to catch it on camera, not to mention the little problem that I was sitting in amazement with my jaw dropping to the floor and kept forgetting about taking pictures.
After the individual movements, we saw combat with various weaponry: axes, poles, clubs, daggers, swords and shields, spears, and this crazy long and bendy sword that was almost like a whip. They also fought without weapons and occasionally with one armed and one unarmed combatant.
If you squint a little, you can see in these pictures that the fighting is very acrobatic, full of flips and spins and incredibly high jumps ...
We were sitting in plastic chairs about six feet away from all of this! Evie slid off her chair and inched further and further back as things got more intense. She ended up behind my chair, peeking over my shoulder to see the action ...
I was a little worried we were going to see actual bloodshed, but these guys know what they're doing and everyone emerged from combat unscathed.
The very last demonstration was fire spinning ...
After all of the demonstrations, the guru asked if the kids would like to try some moves. Evie by this time was practically under my chair, so she declined, but Samuel sat right up and said: "Can I do the fire?" I'm happy to report that the guru would allow no weapons, but one of the combatants led Johnny and Samuel through some basic moves. I love Samuel's face in this photo!
An awesome end to a rather full day in Cochin!
After dinner with Kareem's family, we went to the local kalari to see a demonstration of the traditional South Indian martial art kalaripayyatu (and here and here). This was one of Johnny's three must-sees for Kerala. Indians claim that kalaripayyatu is the most ancient of the martial arts and the basis for the more famous forms out of China, Japan and Korea. This could be true. Buddhism spread to the rest of Asia from India, and it's not unlikely that other bits of culture went along with it.
Since there's not much call for bands of Malayali warriors to be roaming about these days, the art is now practiced as a combination of physical and spiritual fitness and dance.
The kalari is a simple rectangular building with a dirt floor and lots of religious icons and weapons hanging on the walls. (A word about the poor lighting in these photos. I didn't use a flash for fear of blinding the combatants, so the photos aren't spectacular.)
In one corner there's a little shrine, at which all of the combatants pray before beginning their demonstrations.
We were the only people at this demonstration, so the kalari's guru encouraged the kids to run around a bit ... as if they needed encouragement. Samuel immediately started asking for a sword. Lucky for me, the guru wasn't quite that encouraging.
Here are some of the combatants praying before the demonstration begins ...
First we were shown how a single combatant prepares himself. A lot of the movement is based on animal strengths, so there are postures for the serpent, lion, elephant, tiger, etc. The movement was so quick that it was hard for me to catch it on camera, not to mention the little problem that I was sitting in amazement with my jaw dropping to the floor and kept forgetting about taking pictures.
After the individual movements, we saw combat with various weaponry: axes, poles, clubs, daggers, swords and shields, spears, and this crazy long and bendy sword that was almost like a whip. They also fought without weapons and occasionally with one armed and one unarmed combatant.
If you squint a little, you can see in these pictures that the fighting is very acrobatic, full of flips and spins and incredibly high jumps ...
We were sitting in plastic chairs about six feet away from all of this! Evie slid off her chair and inched further and further back as things got more intense. She ended up behind my chair, peeking over my shoulder to see the action ...
I was a little worried we were going to see actual bloodshed, but these guys know what they're doing and everyone emerged from combat unscathed.
The very last demonstration was fire spinning ...
After all of the demonstrations, the guru asked if the kids would like to try some moves. Evie by this time was practically under my chair, so she declined, but Samuel sat right up and said: "Can I do the fire?" I'm happy to report that the guru would allow no weapons, but one of the combatants led Johnny and Samuel through some basic moves. I love Samuel's face in this photo!
An awesome end to a rather full day in Cochin!
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