PUNJAB HERITAGE SPORTS

PUNJAB HERITAGE SPORTS GATKA

ਗਤਕਾ gatkā) is the name of an Indian martial art associated with the sikhs of the Punjab region It is a style of fighting with swords and wooden sticks. The Punjabi name gatka properly refers to the wooden stick used. The word originates as a diminutive of Sanskrit gada "mace".By conception, gatka is defensive as well as offensive and focuses on infusing the physical with both the spiritual and mental.

The style originated during the Guru Hargobind Sahibs time, in which due to the severity of mughal opression over the Sikhs and the ruthless attack made on his father Guru Arjan dev, Guru Hargobind taught the art to the nihangs. However, during the British Raj, much of the martial art had been diluted and banned, and therefore this led to a division in two sub-style, called rasmi (ritualistic) and khel (sport) from the 1880s onwards. There has been a revival during the later 20th century, with an International Gatka Federation was founded in 1982 and formalized in 1987, and gatka is now popular as a sport or sword dance performance art and is often shown during Sikh festivals.

Since this revival, the term gatka has sometimes come to be extended to "Sikh martial arts" more generally, including the use of various weapons, more properly called Shastar Vidiya (Punjabi ਸ਼ਸਤਰ ਵਿਦਿਆ shastar vidiyā, from Sanskrit śastra-vidyā "martial arts"). The term in this sense, especially as used by Niddar Singh since 2002, denotes historical martial arts reconstruction of 16th to 18th century Sikh fighting styles.

History

The Sikhs have a long history of martial traditions, ultimately rooted in pre-modern schools of martial arts or śastravidyā of the Rajputs, and the kshatriya caste or India's "Martial Races" more generally.

Guru Hargobind propagated the theory of the warrior saint, and emphasized the need for his followers to practice fighting for self-defence. Guru Gobind Singh, the 10th guru of Sikhism, trained in martial arts in the Panjab. One of his achievements was the founding of Khalsa, the collective society that galvanized the martial energies of the Sikh community and formed the Khalsa Army of the Sikh Empire during the first half of the 19th century.In regards to training the Khalsa, he pledged that he would "teach the sparrow to fight the hawk".

Following the Second Anglo-Sikh War of 1848 to 1849 and the establishment of the British Raj, the Sikh martial traditions and practitioners suffered greatly. The British ordered effective disarmament of the entire Sikh community; even tools and farming equipment were banned. During the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Sikhs assisted the British in crushing the mutiny. As a consequence of this assistance, restrictions on fighting practices were relaxed, but the Panjabi martial arts which re-emerged after 1857 had changed significantly

Instead of producing soldiers for warfare, the Shaster Vidiya had developed during the 1860s into a new fighting style called gatka (from the name of its primary weapon, the sword training stick) which was mainly practiced by the British Indian Army. As Sikh colleges opened in the Panjab during the 1880s, European rules of fencing were applied to Gatka, resulting in further alteration. This led to the formation of two gatka branches, rasmi (ritualistic) and khel (sport).

The system devised by Captain William Ewart Fairbairn and Captain Eric Anthony Sykes borrowed methodologies from gatka, jujutsu, Chinese martial arts and "gutter fighting". This method was used to train soldiers in close-combat techniques at the Commando Basic Training Centre in Achnacarry, Scotland.

• TALWAR : SWORD


• Kirpan: Sharp ceremonial sword worn by baptized sikhs at all times


• Lathi: stick of bamboo from one to three meters in length


• Flexible weapons, such as whips and chains.


• Churi: knife


• Bow and arrow: either traditional Indian steel recurve bows or true composite bows made of wood, horn and sinew. Arrows used are usually fletched reed arrows with tanged steel points.


• Barcha: spear


• Khanda: traditional Sikh and Rajput straight sword


• Peshkarj: dagger


• Kukri: bent sword which broadens towards the point


• Chakram: circular edged weapon that can be thrown. Smaller specimens can be worn like bangles and used as brass knuckles.


• Bagh Nakh: leopard's claw, a spiked weapon worn on the hand similar to the Japanese shuko


• Katar: dagger able to pierce armor

Training

With its strong link to the Sikh faith, gatka groups may train in a religious or semi-religious situation, such as in a gurdwara (Sikh temple). Akharas, usually associated with pehlwani, have also been founded with the exclusive purpose of teaching gatka. Gatka emphasizes having something in both hands eg two sticks, a stick and a sword, a sword and a shield or any other combination. Training with "both hands full" is believed to be an excellent exercise for coordinating the two halves of the body, a concept also found in many Filipino martial arts. The individual's preference for weapons, combination of weapons, and movement patterns leads to the development of individual fighting methods.

The foundation of the art is a movement methodology for the use of the feet, body, arms and weapons in unison. Gatka favors rhythmic movement, without hesitation, doubt or anxiety. The attacking and defense methods are based upon the positions of the hands, feet and weapon(s) during the dexterity regimen.

Chanting holy verses may accompany these exercises. The three-beat-per-cycle played by a drummer adds to the coordination during practice.

Revival

The International Gatka Federation (IGF) was founded in 1982 and formalized in 1987. It is based in Berlin and has chapters in Hamburg and Bordeaux.

In the United Kingdom, Baba Fateh Singh Gatka Akhara was established in East London in 1992, contributing to the establishment of the International Gatka Organisation (IGO).

Niddar Singh of Wolverhampton in 2002 founded a Shastar Vidya school, popularizing the term Shastar Vidiya as a replacement for gatka. Singh calls his style Sanatan Hindu Sikh Shastar Vidiya "traditional Hindu-Sikh martial arts" in order to emphasize the generically Indian (Hindu), pre-Sikhism roots of the style. The school has classes in Wolverhampton, Birmingham, Leicester, Slough and Hounslow. Niddar Singh puts himself in the tenth generation of an unbroken master-student tradition deriving from Guru Gobind Singh. His immediate teacher was Baba Mohinder Singh whom he met on a trip to India he took as a teenager.

There was a gatka tournament held in Oldbury in March 2006. Gatka was displayed during the celebrations of Hola Mohalla in Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha in Hounslow. It was also performed on the 2005, July 4 Independence Day parade on Constitution Avenue in Washington DC, United States Gatka also is performed as a stickfighting dance by the Indian community of Trinidad