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Intro to Kalaripayattu
Feb. 24th, 2021 12:29 amSo, this came up recently in the SCA India (unofficial) Facebook group - and in the discussion, I realized how very few of the resources on this topic actually fit my experience doing it, and also that googling for "history Kalari" is likely to be even worse. Modern practitioners do a good job of describing the form but the history references are all over the map. The history of this form is something "everyone knows" - but very, very few can give you a reason how/why they know it.
And that started this post.
Kalaripayattu - what is it?
At its heart - it's a martial art. But it's also a form of healing and form of body movement and training. It comes from Kerala, India, and it's a form of unarmored combat comprising hand to hand and a series of weapons. It's also a healing system - Kalaripayattu practitioners use a massage technique delivered with the feet ("thrimmu") - it can either be relaxing, improve fitness and flexibility, or heal maladies including injuries and other health conditions. Another element of the art is that practicioners at the most senior levels become versed in the system of "marma" - there's a serious degree of crossover with Ayervedic medicine, but there are also differences. One big one is that practicioners use marma both to heal and to hurt - as hitting these points of the body in the right way can be crippling and extremely painful.
Literally - "kalari" refers to the space in which the art is practiced. It's normally a pit dug into the earth, with a roof on poles above it. The pit is not a full story deep - so you get the cooling of the earth coupled with the heat escape & airflow of the open air above it, with a roof to keep it from becoming a swimming pool. The pit would then be floored with packed mud and cow dung - which hardens very nicely into a cement like surface (but not at knee-breakingly hard).
"Kalari" is also short hand for Kalaripayattu, so you'll see me use that way a lot in this article.
"Payattu" means "bodily movement" or "method" or "art" - in fact, practicing sequences of body movements is called mei payattu (mei = body). So you could roughly translate this to the exercises done in the space. Not a bad description.
How Old is It?
I really wish I could give you a reference I trusted. Here's what I've got...
The legend is that it was taught to humanity by a god - usually attributed to Parashurama. Or else it was honed and originally taught by an Vedic sage named Agastya. When you think Vedic - think ancient. Pre dawn of Christian era and the bedrock that kicks off most of the origins of what we can document about India.
There's plenty of sites that also point to it being in the Sangam literature (300 BC - 300 AD is one estimate) - when I actually find what literary reference that is and what it says, I'll let you all know. I don't doubt that some form of fighting is documented. But I've found that in research, there can be a whole lot of extrapolation, with everyone quoting everyone, and no reference to the source material.
I do believe I can find (TBD reference) suitably old and SCA era relevant texts to knightly warriors in the region that is now Kerala - who were in fealty to a king, subsidized by the state, and available to kings as champions. There's plenty of reason to believe that 1 on 1 duels were part of the context, and that these men acted as champions for the rulers. They also participated in wars. And it's pretty clear that this was a highly specialized skill that took a whole lot of training. So far, none of that is out of line with modern Kalari practice - but there's not a lot to go on there in terms of actual practices.
It's often cited as the oldest martial art in the world - and that's got potential. This stuff is really hard to say with certainty, but we do have plenty of evidence that there was plenty of trade between India and the Far East. We also know that India had the means in terms of a fertile country, plenty of habitable climates, and other very useful materials for building, healing, eating and innovating - that it got very advanced as a country, very early. And when the Chinese came to visit, they came to learn. Certainly Buddhism came to China this way, and it's not unreasonable to believe Kalari practice did too. Did it predate other forms in the area that is now China? I have no clue, and I don't know enough to assert it. Also - it's pretty likely that doing violence upon each other is something that humans have been doing and getting better at in many times and places, so there's no absolute here. Is it really old? Probably. Oldest ever... really... for sure... - not sure we'll ever know. Documenting movement systems is incredibly hard. Finding documentation of them is even harder.
There are some references to the thought that it was actually named Kalaripayattu in 1362AD - but I sure wish this site gave actual references. That's nicely specific, but totally unsupported by sources. There are medieval literary sources for the use of the term as a place in which training is done - one in particular is in Medieval Indian Literature, An Anthology by K. Ayyappa Paniker. This is a 4 volume set that can be purchased on Exotic India, in all 4 volumes, or one can dig up the Malayali volume for likely a cheaper price. In there is a literary source from mid to late period that references the word "Kalari" as the space in which the fighters who are in the poem train. It's clearly an important space, and the training they do is clearly highly dangerous (based on the plot of the story), but there's no specifics on the movement form.
Kerala (or at least parts of it) manages to stay out of Mughal domination until after the end of the SCA period - we end our period with this region in the Nayak empire - which is the last Hindu ruled foothold. It runs up to the 18th century, by which point the British domination is also a force.
British domination did a number on pretty much all Indian arts - and Kalari is no exception. It was outlawed. I haven't pulled up primary sources on that one, but it ought to be relatively easy to trace. How much did Kalari then look like what we have now? No clue.
As India was getting its independance, Kalari was revived. It's likely that some folks had maintained the practice in secret. I have never found specific lineages on that, but this is plausible. I seem to vaguely remember a man who also researched sacred texts on the subject and worked to revive it from there. But I've never found a reference to him or those texts outside of a vague video from years and years ago. There are some very rare texts that are fragile and under lock and key, and also so esoteric that they aren't readily searchable - so I'm willing to believe.
Here's some references that are about as close to credible as I can get:
Teaching and Core Skills
This is a really rigorous form. It takes stamina, core strength, flexibility and control. Normally practitioners are not overly muscled, it's a lot of lean muscle, as the exercises push for both flexibility and power through control. There's no magic to this - it's hard work. The massage program really helps - as the massage for enhancing athleticism (Katcha Thrimmu) works to both lengthen muscles and work out knots and irregularities in the muscle tissue, as well as activating the marma points (and the nerves and the bloodflow around these points) and invigorating the recipient's basic bodily functions.
The first part of education is exercises done in groups. It starts with a series of animal poses and kicks. The two together help build balance, body awareness, strength/stamina, and some understanding about how to move about. These techniques do have a defensive purpose, but they are also building blocks that the more advanced student can leverage later. The first big accomplishments on this are working through a series of mei payattus - choreographed combinations - that simulate one side of a fight, but in a way that is a sampler of movements, a useful flow, and a stamina builder. There's a series of these, numbered, and fairly universal. If you are familiar with other martial arts and thinking "sounds like a kata" - you are not wrong.
The system builds from there through hand to hand combat - grabs, some punches, hand blocks, and also hand fighting combinations.
As students get more comfortable working with each other in a combat situation, they'll move into stick fighting - both short and long stick. Then edged weapons. The weapons have somewhat of an escalating level of complexity, so the student progresses, leveraging techniques as they go from one weapon to another. The most lethal looking and one of the last weapons is the urumi - a flexible sword of sharpened steal. The length can vary as can the number of steel tongues. Just watching someone working solo with one of these can take your breath away. Google for impressive videos of combat with these.
More stuff on weapons:
https://kadathanadankalari.in/kalaripayattu-weapons/
http://www.kalari.in/kalaripayattu/levels-weapons/
https://www.keralatourism.org/kalaripayattu/picture-gallery/sharp-weapons/23
Notice some schools have a very clear and formalized system but there's not exactly 1 specific order here.
When you think about progress on this - think years. The traditional way would be to start as a kid of 7-9, and work daily on it. Then by your teenage years you may be getting into weapons, and a capable practitioner 10-15 years later. If you are an adult doing this part time in the US, without the benefit of hours a day to train, and without the formative body adjusting properties of a kid... think more like 20+ years.
There's no set belt system. Or if there is - it's a modern marketing concept developed to help with expectations of modern students. Generally you can tell expertise through how a practitioner performs the form and how much they know about weapons.
Massage
Mileage will definitely vary - but 1-5 years into study, a student is likely to be invited to participate in the massage aspect. At least for us, this is an annual event, and it's a rather special time. The massage is performed with the recipient lying on the floor and the masseuse (generally the guru or an appointed delegate) performing the massage with the feet. That can sound a bit terrifying, but the majority of the strokes are done with one foot on the person, and the other foot on the floor, with the benefit of a rope at shoulder/head height of the provider for a bit of balance. The provider is expected to control the weight, pressure and angle of the strokes - and the additional leverage provided by working with the feet means that the giver has more options for how much weight to apply to any given stroke. So it is a very vigorous process, but controlled.
For the body of students, this is generally done as a group - there's a fair amount of logistics involved and it's a special time. Folks are generally encouraged to take time off to relax, and recipients eat a cleansing diet for a week or more before the sessions start through to a week or more after. The shortest program can be 3 sessions over 3 days, but programs are more normally 1 week or more. For really serious practitioners or very hurt people, a month is not unheard of.
For others - people receiving relaxation or healing massage - the appointments may be more ad hoc.
There's a serious degree of overlap here with other Ayurvedic healing practices, including:
There's an element of closeness and trust in this experience that is difficult to explain. Part of it is taking a lot of time and effort to do something special. Part of is is that when I say "vigorous", I also mean "probably painful" - any hurt, any weakness can be a source of inflammation and irritation that is then provoked by the massage. The goal here is to beak down weakness and literally rub them out. And the use of hot poultices with oil can add to both the healing and the pain. That takes a lot of trust on both sides. The student has to trust that the provider is giving pain for the benefit of healing - and the provider has to trust that student has the right mindset and is able to respond to the instructions and take the guidance. Providing this massage can be exhausting and also increase any pains and weaknesses the provider may have - so it takes a lot of affection to administer it.
Usage & Other Aspects of Training
These days a whole lot of what you'll see is demonstrations of choreographed fights. For the most part, that's what's shown in theaters, festivals and other public venues. So - if you're thinking it looks rehearsed - it very well may be. There's a substantial tradition of this, and it's certainly how the art survives and is promoted today.
Students do learn improvisation and sparring, but a huge part of the starting point is movements and heavy drilling. Because many of these movements can hurt the practitioner if if not done correctly, there's plenty to get right before you add the chaotic element of sparring. The beginning of combat training takes the form of choreographed combos performed with a partner. But schools will build towards ad hoc movements. With that said - there are other forms out there that will get to the improvisational sparring side of training significantly sooner.
There is a reason and rational to every part of the movement, but the teacher may not be explanatory about what that is. A common feature of Indian movement education is to focus on doing the form correctly and the teacher giving the student enough verbal correction for them to build the correct movement into their body - without necessarily explaining *why* the correct movement is correct. That can be challenging for a non-Indian student, as elements of modern American schooling (for example) can do the mental model first, and the drilling later (if ever). There is a viable rationale here - reasoning out how exactly an attack or defense will work will take more time than having an instinctive reaction. There's also a variability on teaching style. My teacher is very much willing to explain the "why" but he may be a bit of a renegade.
As with other arts in India - this is a commitment - both a semi-religious one, and a type of fealty. There's a bond of trust here, and an important aspect of the education is the bond between teacher and student. You'll certainly be spending enough time together that you'll be family! But also there's an assumption that you will care for each other like family - this isn't a transactional relationship. The teacher is crafting something here using the student as the material - working out how best to get the student's body performing the art to the best of its abilities - as such the act of teaching is custom and a demonstration of giving and caring. The whole teacher/student relationship in Indian movement arts deserves its own article, but I had to give a nod to it here.
Clothing
Originally, in it's day - this was an unarmored art from a really hot and humid place. As such, more than a very light amount of clothing was a disadvantage. The common garment would be a wrapped or sewn lower body garment that looks like a dhoti or long shorts, and a tightly wrapped long rectangle that works as both a belt and some protection and core support.
The postures and movements all aim toward keeping an unarmored combatant safe - with a focus on protecting the middle/lower abdomen and head.
Feet for training are always bare. It's hard for me to see how shoes would be a reliable part of the combat situation, as full access to feet for balance, grip and pivot is essential. In modern times, there are some martial art types shoes that may be worn when dealing with surfaces that are dangerous to bare feet.
Favorite Videos
Every time I look there are more and more, so here's a few of my favorites, with notes:
- Urumi Demo - My teacher - Anil Natyaveda - he is both a dancer and a martial artist, and in this case, he's combining both. He's also working out choreography for a show (Snake and Ladders). The second half of this is also a reasonable sample of class with him. He's teaching a few somewhat experienced students.
- Two guys are astounded at how hard this is - the tone of this is not my favorite, but it highlights a bunch of the more advanced stuff from a perspective of someone who fights in a different style, and it does the best it can to talk about the history and the breadth of the form. It's a little "bro" for my taste, and I wish the Indian teachers could say more... but there may be a serious language barrier here.M
- Sample mei payattu - this guy is a pretty good example of what a trained kalari person looks like - notice how lean and coiled he is. He's super flexible and almost springy - but not without strength. Some of his moves in this one are a bit flourish-y which makes it feel even less like combat, and there's variations on his style that are new to me - but I liked that he's doing it slow enough to appreciate, but I don't think this is slowed down in editing
- Sample short urumi fight - I may be partial because this has a lady in it. But also - it's got 2 of the jumps I really like in this type of fight, it shows the beginning of the fight, and it's held in one of the most traditional looking Kalari spaces I've seen and gives you a sense of what that might be like.
- Curved stick fight - one of the weapons that I think is under-loved. Small stick work takes a heck of a lot of moxy. It's terrifying.
- initial stick work - OK, this school always has rock music and I just love that. But also I don't see the basic drills on long stick very often. They also do 2 stick (new to me!)
- Long stick class - yeah, that's probably the most authentic, unedited, version of what training looks like (stay tuned, the same kids have a music video of kalari too!). This is the finished product, along with the words used in drilling.
As you can see if you let videos play through, there's a few big schools of Kalari making videos these days - CVN is probably the biggest, but I don't think I grabbed any of their videos. So you can get into a school's stream and then see a whole bunch of stuff from the same group.
I skipped a bunch of fairly pretty productions, as Kalari gets used a bunch these days in dance choreographies as well as fight choreography in scenic places - it's just really hard to get a sense of a form when people are trying to put their own creative imprint on it.
I also skipped a bunch of "somebody explains kalari to you while being astounded and doing it for a limited amount of time" - the one case I included at least had enough good points to make me happy. There's a few others out there - take it for what it's worth - I don't think you can be a valid representation of the form in a short time. My perspective on Kalari changes with every year I do it. I fear reading this in another 5 years!
About Me
Since I've put enough questions about validating historic information and enough judgements and subjective information out there, it seems only fair I give my credentials. I started Kalari in March 2007, studying with Anil Natyaveda through Navarasa Theater Company and Dance Academy and I've studied it continuously since, always with him or with others from that organization. At this point I'm the longest US student in the organization, although there are several others who are starting to get "old", give or take 5 years and many others with more expertise in India.
I've learned to do the basic movements, short & long stick, a small bit of edged weapons (knives), hand to hand, and to assist with massage. At this point, I've probably done ~10-13 sessions of Katcha Thrimmu or the process for sick people (raksha thrimmu), receiving it myself and/or administering to others while assisting my teacher. I've also assisted in teaching, and done some number of public demos. The majority of my study is in the Boston area, but as my teacher travels, I've also worked with him in LA, Albuquerque, and India, having made two trips that included visiting him and his family there.
I research on my own, as well, although I'm not an accredited historian, and sadly, I don't speak more Malayalam than the basic commands of Kalari (which are their own variant of the language in an older style), so I'm a bit hampered there. Because I also study historic Southern Indian art - I have some cross over into what I've seen images of from the static arts.
Along with Kalari, I started studying Bharata Natyam in 1999, having done dance all my life and with 10 years of experience in concert violin. I performed my Arangetram in 2016, and studied Carnatic vocal music for several years prior to that. I also teach and perform belly dance and Burlesque on a regular basis. I'm a year into Capoeira and will jump into a class on just about any movement.
I started my passion for India in the 90s as a kid, but started researching the culture seriously in 1999 after my first trip to India in '98 and while joining the SCA and eventually becoming a Laurel among other things. The SCA being the SCA, it encourages a generalized understanding of history - so you can go here to see my lifetime bibliography.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-e&q=NAH900Medieval+Indian+Literature+-+An+Anthology+%28Set+of+4+Volumes%29
Previously mentioned books that refer to Kalari. This is a big purchase for a small reference. The set is really lovely, with a lot of good references across a variety of times and places, but this is a good book to borrow, unless you are really trying to build a library for a wide body of research.
And that started this post.
Kalaripayattu - what is it?
At its heart - it's a martial art. But it's also a form of healing and form of body movement and training. It comes from Kerala, India, and it's a form of unarmored combat comprising hand to hand and a series of weapons. It's also a healing system - Kalaripayattu practitioners use a massage technique delivered with the feet ("thrimmu") - it can either be relaxing, improve fitness and flexibility, or heal maladies including injuries and other health conditions. Another element of the art is that practicioners at the most senior levels become versed in the system of "marma" - there's a serious degree of crossover with Ayervedic medicine, but there are also differences. One big one is that practicioners use marma both to heal and to hurt - as hitting these points of the body in the right way can be crippling and extremely painful.
Literally - "kalari" refers to the space in which the art is practiced. It's normally a pit dug into the earth, with a roof on poles above it. The pit is not a full story deep - so you get the cooling of the earth coupled with the heat escape & airflow of the open air above it, with a roof to keep it from becoming a swimming pool. The pit would then be floored with packed mud and cow dung - which hardens very nicely into a cement like surface (but not at knee-breakingly hard).
"Kalari" is also short hand for Kalaripayattu, so you'll see me use that way a lot in this article.
"Payattu" means "bodily movement" or "method" or "art" - in fact, practicing sequences of body movements is called mei payattu (mei = body). So you could roughly translate this to the exercises done in the space. Not a bad description.
How Old is It?
I really wish I could give you a reference I trusted. Here's what I've got...
The legend is that it was taught to humanity by a god - usually attributed to Parashurama. Or else it was honed and originally taught by an Vedic sage named Agastya. When you think Vedic - think ancient. Pre dawn of Christian era and the bedrock that kicks off most of the origins of what we can document about India.
There's plenty of sites that also point to it being in the Sangam literature (300 BC - 300 AD is one estimate) - when I actually find what literary reference that is and what it says, I'll let you all know. I don't doubt that some form of fighting is documented. But I've found that in research, there can be a whole lot of extrapolation, with everyone quoting everyone, and no reference to the source material.
I do believe I can find (TBD reference) suitably old and SCA era relevant texts to knightly warriors in the region that is now Kerala - who were in fealty to a king, subsidized by the state, and available to kings as champions. There's plenty of reason to believe that 1 on 1 duels were part of the context, and that these men acted as champions for the rulers. They also participated in wars. And it's pretty clear that this was a highly specialized skill that took a whole lot of training. So far, none of that is out of line with modern Kalari practice - but there's not a lot to go on there in terms of actual practices.
It's often cited as the oldest martial art in the world - and that's got potential. This stuff is really hard to say with certainty, but we do have plenty of evidence that there was plenty of trade between India and the Far East. We also know that India had the means in terms of a fertile country, plenty of habitable climates, and other very useful materials for building, healing, eating and innovating - that it got very advanced as a country, very early. And when the Chinese came to visit, they came to learn. Certainly Buddhism came to China this way, and it's not unreasonable to believe Kalari practice did too. Did it predate other forms in the area that is now China? I have no clue, and I don't know enough to assert it. Also - it's pretty likely that doing violence upon each other is something that humans have been doing and getting better at in many times and places, so there's no absolute here. Is it really old? Probably. Oldest ever... really... for sure... - not sure we'll ever know. Documenting movement systems is incredibly hard. Finding documentation of them is even harder.
There are some references to the thought that it was actually named Kalaripayattu in 1362AD - but I sure wish this site gave actual references. That's nicely specific, but totally unsupported by sources. There are medieval literary sources for the use of the term as a place in which training is done - one in particular is in Medieval Indian Literature, An Anthology by K. Ayyappa Paniker. This is a 4 volume set that can be purchased on Exotic India, in all 4 volumes, or one can dig up the Malayali volume for likely a cheaper price. In there is a literary source from mid to late period that references the word "Kalari" as the space in which the fighters who are in the poem train. It's clearly an important space, and the training they do is clearly highly dangerous (based on the plot of the story), but there's no specifics on the movement form.
Kerala (or at least parts of it) manages to stay out of Mughal domination until after the end of the SCA period - we end our period with this region in the Nayak empire - which is the last Hindu ruled foothold. It runs up to the 18th century, by which point the British domination is also a force.
British domination did a number on pretty much all Indian arts - and Kalari is no exception. It was outlawed. I haven't pulled up primary sources on that one, but it ought to be relatively easy to trace. How much did Kalari then look like what we have now? No clue.
As India was getting its independance, Kalari was revived. It's likely that some folks had maintained the practice in secret. I have never found specific lineages on that, but this is plausible. I seem to vaguely remember a man who also researched sacred texts on the subject and worked to revive it from there. But I've never found a reference to him or those texts outside of a vague video from years and years ago. There are some very rare texts that are fragile and under lock and key, and also so esoteric that they aren't readily searchable - so I'm willing to believe.
Here's some references that are about as close to credible as I can get:
- https://kalaripayattuclass.com/about-kalaripayattu/#:~:text=Kalaripayattu%20History,in%20the%203rd%20century%20BC.&text=During%20the%20British%20rule%20in,of%20Kalaripayattu%20across%20the%20state.
- http://www.kalaripayattubangalore.com/about/kalaripayattu-history/
- https://www.bookmartialarts.com/news/the-worlds-oldest-martial-art
- https://www.scoopwhoop.com/How-Much-Do-You-Know-About-Kalaripayattu-The-Mother-Of-Martial-Arts/
Teaching and Core Skills
This is a really rigorous form. It takes stamina, core strength, flexibility and control. Normally practitioners are not overly muscled, it's a lot of lean muscle, as the exercises push for both flexibility and power through control. There's no magic to this - it's hard work. The massage program really helps - as the massage for enhancing athleticism (Katcha Thrimmu) works to both lengthen muscles and work out knots and irregularities in the muscle tissue, as well as activating the marma points (and the nerves and the bloodflow around these points) and invigorating the recipient's basic bodily functions.
The first part of education is exercises done in groups. It starts with a series of animal poses and kicks. The two together help build balance, body awareness, strength/stamina, and some understanding about how to move about. These techniques do have a defensive purpose, but they are also building blocks that the more advanced student can leverage later. The first big accomplishments on this are working through a series of mei payattus - choreographed combinations - that simulate one side of a fight, but in a way that is a sampler of movements, a useful flow, and a stamina builder. There's a series of these, numbered, and fairly universal. If you are familiar with other martial arts and thinking "sounds like a kata" - you are not wrong.
The system builds from there through hand to hand combat - grabs, some punches, hand blocks, and also hand fighting combinations.
As students get more comfortable working with each other in a combat situation, they'll move into stick fighting - both short and long stick. Then edged weapons. The weapons have somewhat of an escalating level of complexity, so the student progresses, leveraging techniques as they go from one weapon to another. The most lethal looking and one of the last weapons is the urumi - a flexible sword of sharpened steal. The length can vary as can the number of steel tongues. Just watching someone working solo with one of these can take your breath away. Google for impressive videos of combat with these.
More stuff on weapons:
https://kadathanadankalari.in/kalaripayattu-weapons/
http://www.kalari.in/kalaripayattu/levels-weapons/
https://www.keralatourism.org/kalaripayattu/picture-gallery/sharp-weapons/23
Notice some schools have a very clear and formalized system but there's not exactly 1 specific order here.
When you think about progress on this - think years. The traditional way would be to start as a kid of 7-9, and work daily on it. Then by your teenage years you may be getting into weapons, and a capable practitioner 10-15 years later. If you are an adult doing this part time in the US, without the benefit of hours a day to train, and without the formative body adjusting properties of a kid... think more like 20+ years.
There's no set belt system. Or if there is - it's a modern marketing concept developed to help with expectations of modern students. Generally you can tell expertise through how a practitioner performs the form and how much they know about weapons.
Massage
Mileage will definitely vary - but 1-5 years into study, a student is likely to be invited to participate in the massage aspect. At least for us, this is an annual event, and it's a rather special time. The massage is performed with the recipient lying on the floor and the masseuse (generally the guru or an appointed delegate) performing the massage with the feet. That can sound a bit terrifying, but the majority of the strokes are done with one foot on the person, and the other foot on the floor, with the benefit of a rope at shoulder/head height of the provider for a bit of balance. The provider is expected to control the weight, pressure and angle of the strokes - and the additional leverage provided by working with the feet means that the giver has more options for how much weight to apply to any given stroke. So it is a very vigorous process, but controlled.
For the body of students, this is generally done as a group - there's a fair amount of logistics involved and it's a special time. Folks are generally encouraged to take time off to relax, and recipients eat a cleansing diet for a week or more before the sessions start through to a week or more after. The shortest program can be 3 sessions over 3 days, but programs are more normally 1 week or more. For really serious practitioners or very hurt people, a month is not unheard of.
For others - people receiving relaxation or healing massage - the appointments may be more ad hoc.
There's a serious degree of overlap here with other Ayurvedic healing practices, including:
- Tinctures may be recommended to help students balance the needs of the body.
- Diet and daily living is as important as the massage itself. So is mindfulness.
- The oil is specially blended to fit the needs of the students and the massage, although it will likely be 1 oil for the collected needs of the students receiving the massage
- The flow of energy through the body and how it works is quite similar to Ayurveda
There's an element of closeness and trust in this experience that is difficult to explain. Part of it is taking a lot of time and effort to do something special. Part of is is that when I say "vigorous", I also mean "probably painful" - any hurt, any weakness can be a source of inflammation and irritation that is then provoked by the massage. The goal here is to beak down weakness and literally rub them out. And the use of hot poultices with oil can add to both the healing and the pain. That takes a lot of trust on both sides. The student has to trust that the provider is giving pain for the benefit of healing - and the provider has to trust that student has the right mindset and is able to respond to the instructions and take the guidance. Providing this massage can be exhausting and also increase any pains and weaknesses the provider may have - so it takes a lot of affection to administer it.
Usage & Other Aspects of Training
These days a whole lot of what you'll see is demonstrations of choreographed fights. For the most part, that's what's shown in theaters, festivals and other public venues. So - if you're thinking it looks rehearsed - it very well may be. There's a substantial tradition of this, and it's certainly how the art survives and is promoted today.
Students do learn improvisation and sparring, but a huge part of the starting point is movements and heavy drilling. Because many of these movements can hurt the practitioner if if not done correctly, there's plenty to get right before you add the chaotic element of sparring. The beginning of combat training takes the form of choreographed combos performed with a partner. But schools will build towards ad hoc movements. With that said - there are other forms out there that will get to the improvisational sparring side of training significantly sooner.
There is a reason and rational to every part of the movement, but the teacher may not be explanatory about what that is. A common feature of Indian movement education is to focus on doing the form correctly and the teacher giving the student enough verbal correction for them to build the correct movement into their body - without necessarily explaining *why* the correct movement is correct. That can be challenging for a non-Indian student, as elements of modern American schooling (for example) can do the mental model first, and the drilling later (if ever). There is a viable rationale here - reasoning out how exactly an attack or defense will work will take more time than having an instinctive reaction. There's also a variability on teaching style. My teacher is very much willing to explain the "why" but he may be a bit of a renegade.
As with other arts in India - this is a commitment - both a semi-religious one, and a type of fealty. There's a bond of trust here, and an important aspect of the education is the bond between teacher and student. You'll certainly be spending enough time together that you'll be family! But also there's an assumption that you will care for each other like family - this isn't a transactional relationship. The teacher is crafting something here using the student as the material - working out how best to get the student's body performing the art to the best of its abilities - as such the act of teaching is custom and a demonstration of giving and caring. The whole teacher/student relationship in Indian movement arts deserves its own article, but I had to give a nod to it here.
Clothing
Originally, in it's day - this was an unarmored art from a really hot and humid place. As such, more than a very light amount of clothing was a disadvantage. The common garment would be a wrapped or sewn lower body garment that looks like a dhoti or long shorts, and a tightly wrapped long rectangle that works as both a belt and some protection and core support.
The postures and movements all aim toward keeping an unarmored combatant safe - with a focus on protecting the middle/lower abdomen and head.
Feet for training are always bare. It's hard for me to see how shoes would be a reliable part of the combat situation, as full access to feet for balance, grip and pivot is essential. In modern times, there are some martial art types shoes that may be worn when dealing with surfaces that are dangerous to bare feet.
Favorite Videos
Every time I look there are more and more, so here's a few of my favorites, with notes:
- Urumi Demo - My teacher - Anil Natyaveda - he is both a dancer and a martial artist, and in this case, he's combining both. He's also working out choreography for a show (Snake and Ladders). The second half of this is also a reasonable sample of class with him. He's teaching a few somewhat experienced students.
- Two guys are astounded at how hard this is - the tone of this is not my favorite, but it highlights a bunch of the more advanced stuff from a perspective of someone who fights in a different style, and it does the best it can to talk about the history and the breadth of the form. It's a little "bro" for my taste, and I wish the Indian teachers could say more... but there may be a serious language barrier here.M
- Sample mei payattu - this guy is a pretty good example of what a trained kalari person looks like - notice how lean and coiled he is. He's super flexible and almost springy - but not without strength. Some of his moves in this one are a bit flourish-y which makes it feel even less like combat, and there's variations on his style that are new to me - but I liked that he's doing it slow enough to appreciate, but I don't think this is slowed down in editing
- Sample short urumi fight - I may be partial because this has a lady in it. But also - it's got 2 of the jumps I really like in this type of fight, it shows the beginning of the fight, and it's held in one of the most traditional looking Kalari spaces I've seen and gives you a sense of what that might be like.
- Curved stick fight - one of the weapons that I think is under-loved. Small stick work takes a heck of a lot of moxy. It's terrifying.
- initial stick work - OK, this school always has rock music and I just love that. But also I don't see the basic drills on long stick very often. They also do 2 stick (new to me!)
- Long stick class - yeah, that's probably the most authentic, unedited, version of what training looks like (stay tuned, the same kids have a music video of kalari too!). This is the finished product, along with the words used in drilling.
As you can see if you let videos play through, there's a few big schools of Kalari making videos these days - CVN is probably the biggest, but I don't think I grabbed any of their videos. So you can get into a school's stream and then see a whole bunch of stuff from the same group.
I skipped a bunch of fairly pretty productions, as Kalari gets used a bunch these days in dance choreographies as well as fight choreography in scenic places - it's just really hard to get a sense of a form when people are trying to put their own creative imprint on it.
I also skipped a bunch of "somebody explains kalari to you while being astounded and doing it for a limited amount of time" - the one case I included at least had enough good points to make me happy. There's a few others out there - take it for what it's worth - I don't think you can be a valid representation of the form in a short time. My perspective on Kalari changes with every year I do it. I fear reading this in another 5 years!
About Me
Since I've put enough questions about validating historic information and enough judgements and subjective information out there, it seems only fair I give my credentials. I started Kalari in March 2007, studying with Anil Natyaveda through Navarasa Theater Company and Dance Academy and I've studied it continuously since, always with him or with others from that organization. At this point I'm the longest US student in the organization, although there are several others who are starting to get "old", give or take 5 years and many others with more expertise in India.
I've learned to do the basic movements, short & long stick, a small bit of edged weapons (knives), hand to hand, and to assist with massage. At this point, I've probably done ~10-13 sessions of Katcha Thrimmu or the process for sick people (raksha thrimmu), receiving it myself and/or administering to others while assisting my teacher. I've also assisted in teaching, and done some number of public demos. The majority of my study is in the Boston area, but as my teacher travels, I've also worked with him in LA, Albuquerque, and India, having made two trips that included visiting him and his family there.
I research on my own, as well, although I'm not an accredited historian, and sadly, I don't speak more Malayalam than the basic commands of Kalari (which are their own variant of the language in an older style), so I'm a bit hampered there. Because I also study historic Southern Indian art - I have some cross over into what I've seen images of from the static arts.
Along with Kalari, I started studying Bharata Natyam in 1999, having done dance all my life and with 10 years of experience in concert violin. I performed my Arangetram in 2016, and studied Carnatic vocal music for several years prior to that. I also teach and perform belly dance and Burlesque on a regular basis. I'm a year into Capoeira and will jump into a class on just about any movement.
I started my passion for India in the 90s as a kid, but started researching the culture seriously in 1999 after my first trip to India in '98 and while joining the SCA and eventually becoming a Laurel among other things. The SCA being the SCA, it encourages a generalized understanding of history - so you can go here to see my lifetime bibliography.
BOOKS:
Accessible as it is a Westerner writing it. But also odd, as he has not fully developed his body into a Kalari style, so the pictures are rather off although the writing can be helpful.
Really a super book, but it does not have practice/specific details. It’s a great description of the art and the culture that surrounds it. The guy who researched and wrote this spend a LOT of time on it.
This book says not one word about Kalaripayattu - but it’s a very user-friendly work on the weapons and writing of a medieval Indian source text on combat. It’s hard to trace whether this text has anything to do with Kalaripayattu, but it would be a great source for anyone trying to do an Indian flavor of SCA combat.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-e&q=NAH900Medieval+Indian+Literature+-+An+Anthology+%28Set+of+4+Volumes%29
Previously mentioned books that refer to Kalari. This is a big purchase for a small reference. The set is really lovely, with a lot of good references across a variety of times and places, but this is a good book to borrow, unless you are really trying to build a library for a wide body of research.
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