Fort Kochin
Arriving in the heat of the afternoon the bus drops us off and we pick up a rickshaw driver to our guest house. Fort Kochin is filled with guest houses. A ferry ride away is Ernakulam where most people are dropped for the train station and bus. Fort Kochin, though, is where you want to be. It buries deep nasty secrets of old European feuds and battles over Indian grounds, including Jewish, Portuguese and Dutch settlements. Most of the fort now are just remnants of a conflicted past, but kept alive with names like “Bastion street” or “Rampart street” – inviting discussion of 16th European fort and city planning.
However, not all is lost to the times of history. Our guesthouse is 200 years old. We stayed at "Dream Catcher Guesthouse". Although we wrote a review for it on Tripadvisor, it was under the scrutiny of the owner as he sat us down and read what we were writing on the review. So it's not exactly truthful. Beware of "Dream Catcher Guesthouse" as the owner is businessman first, host second. Not to say it was a bad stay, but there was the very heavy money greedy vibe. He did also hook us up with tickets to the Kelari and Kathakali show.
Moving on, the Franciscan Church is 400 years old, the Jewish Synagogue is over 500 years old, and the city itself breathes off its colourful past. And in its past that currently struggles to live in modern times gives way to Kelari Payattu. This martial art is very special to South India, in Kerala State specifically and is the only remaining martial art form alive from over 5,000 years ago. Older than Chinese Shaolin Monk Kung Fu. In fact, this martial art is to believed the beginning and origin of all martial arts. We had the opportunity to see a very rare performance of Kelari Payattu.
On a small stage and a smaller audience, these martial artists showed hand to hand combat, weapons, and pressure point techniques. They fly through the air demoing how to attack, parry, and counter while weaving and feinting each other. At the end of the show, Neil, our friend from Korea whom we met up in Kochin, went up to the stage and was shown a wrist lock technique.
The benefits of Kelari is known more widely through a different medium. Through it’s healing powers. As martial art masters have to know how to break down a body, they must also learn to rebuild the body when its hurt. And as such, the traditional medicine called “Ayurvedic” comes from the Kelari history of re-building the body after battles and hard training sessions. Ayurvedic medicine incredibly popular, well-known, and most widely used in India. This includes deep tissue massages, different oil baths, and lots of stretching. In fact, it’s believed that Yoga is a branch of Ayurvedic healing that found a different audience.
The power of ayurvedic shouldn’t be shrugged off as some laughable homeopathic treatment. More than 5000 years of recorded medical documentation provides its support. We have seen first hand evidence of the healing powers at work. The martial artists on stage have had a deep stab wound to his thigh from training. (They train with real weapons) He is perfectly fine now. And even more impressive, one of the other martial artists has had Polio and suffered from a walking inhibition. We clearly couldn’t tell, especially when he’s jumping around dodging attacks from a spear while throwing counter attacks with his swords. But when he stands still one leg is clearly more deformed than the other. But through Ayurvedic treatments, he can do more than the average human.
It seriously is a pity to see these martial artists pour their hearts out on stage show casing their life secrets and no one really knows of them. Ironically enough, everyone knows about the Kathakali dance, aka Indian Miming with percussion. It is a very over rated dance, if we could call it a dance. This traditional dance has 2 drums, a cymbal and a singer who narrates the story while the characters mime out their speeches. During the show, a few people walked out and saw several others covering their ears because of the percussions as the dancers stomp around and yell on stage. I think those people should’ve seen the Kelari martial art performance. They would’ve enjoyed it a lot more. After the show, we went for dinner. A night isn't complete without a mandatory surprise thunderstorm to cool the night and call out the mosquitos. We ran back to our guest house.
For more pictures of our India trip, click here
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| Kelari Payattu |
Arriving in the heat of the afternoon the bus drops us off and we pick up a rickshaw driver to our guest house. Fort Kochin is filled with guest houses. A ferry ride away is Ernakulam where most people are dropped for the train station and bus. Fort Kochin, though, is where you want to be. It buries deep nasty secrets of old European feuds and battles over Indian grounds, including Jewish, Portuguese and Dutch settlements. Most of the fort now are just remnants of a conflicted past, but kept alive with names like “Bastion street” or “Rampart street” – inviting discussion of 16th European fort and city planning.
However, not all is lost to the times of history. Our guesthouse is 200 years old. We stayed at "Dream Catcher Guesthouse". Although we wrote a review for it on Tripadvisor, it was under the scrutiny of the owner as he sat us down and read what we were writing on the review. So it's not exactly truthful. Beware of "Dream Catcher Guesthouse" as the owner is businessman first, host second. Not to say it was a bad stay, but there was the very heavy money greedy vibe. He did also hook us up with tickets to the Kelari and Kathakali show.
Moving on, the Franciscan Church is 400 years old, the Jewish Synagogue is over 500 years old, and the city itself breathes off its colourful past. And in its past that currently struggles to live in modern times gives way to Kelari Payattu. This martial art is very special to South India, in Kerala State specifically and is the only remaining martial art form alive from over 5,000 years ago. Older than Chinese Shaolin Monk Kung Fu. In fact, this martial art is to believed the beginning and origin of all martial arts. We had the opportunity to see a very rare performance of Kelari Payattu.
 |
| Arm lock techiques |
The benefits of Kelari is known more widely through a different medium. Through it’s healing powers. As martial art masters have to know how to break down a body, they must also learn to rebuild the body when its hurt. And as such, the traditional medicine called “Ayurvedic” comes from the Kelari history of re-building the body after battles and hard training sessions. Ayurvedic medicine incredibly popular, well-known, and most widely used in India. This includes deep tissue massages, different oil baths, and lots of stretching. In fact, it’s believed that Yoga is a branch of Ayurvedic healing that found a different audience.
The power of ayurvedic shouldn’t be shrugged off as some laughable homeopathic treatment. More than 5000 years of recorded medical documentation provides its support. We have seen first hand evidence of the healing powers at work. The martial artists on stage have had a deep stab wound to his thigh from training. (They train with real weapons) He is perfectly fine now. And even more impressive, one of the other martial artists has had Polio and suffered from a walking inhibition. We clearly couldn’t tell, especially when he’s jumping around dodging attacks from a spear while throwing counter attacks with his swords. But when he stands still one leg is clearly more deformed than the other. But through Ayurvedic treatments, he can do more than the average human.
 | |
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It seriously is a pity to see these martial artists pour their hearts out on stage show casing their life secrets and no one really knows of them. Ironically enough, everyone knows about the Kathakali dance, aka Indian Miming with percussion. It is a very over rated dance, if we could call it a dance. This traditional dance has 2 drums, a cymbal and a singer who narrates the story while the characters mime out their speeches. During the show, a few people walked out and saw several others covering their ears because of the percussions as the dancers stomp around and yell on stage. I think those people should’ve seen the Kelari martial art performance. They would’ve enjoyed it a lot more. After the show, we went for dinner. A night isn't complete without a mandatory surprise thunderstorm to cool the night and call out the mosquitos. We ran back to our guest house.
For more pictures of our India trip, click here
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