An issue which continually rears its head in the Akhara is the tension between spending time learning techniques and time spent ‘testing’ them. It’s a big issue and one debated throughout the martial arts world.
The rise of both sports martial arts (MMA in particular, as well as boxing) and social media have reinforced a kind of cultural understanding of what ‘real’ fighting or combat is. We can’t help but be subconsciously influenced by the media - particularly everything we absorbed on TV growing up. This understanding portrays combat as intense violence typically involving an exchange of blows, counters upon counters and a number of rounds/spells of engagement.
What I will suggest here is that this need not be the case and further still that in SV, and I believe most pre-modern understandings of combat, it is quite different.
To start with I propose that the difference between armed and unarmed combat is substantial. However, it is significantly reduced in what I have observed by the protagonists of the sparring concept. I empathise with their point of view as I fully accept that purely unarmed combat, even unrestrained, largely falls under the same parameters of sport combat we see today. The issue arises in the increasing tendency to use padded, blunted and light training weapons in armed combat training as it effectively reduces this distance between unarmed and armed combat and hence leads one to develop unarmed attributes in the guise of armed ones.
For some context in SV, the phrase armed and unarmed is largely unhelpful. It is better understood as ‘live’ blade and ‘non-live’ blade. So for example having a kara (steel bracelet) or nakha (claws) is effectively considered unarmed and we have absolutely no intent to fight empty handed. Sikhs are turbaned and bearded on the whole which isn’t much good in empty hand combat. Our ancestors wore weapons around their waist in such a way that the very movements of unarmed combat would lead to loss of said weapons. So it should be fairly obvious that the ‘Sikh’ martial art cannot be an unarmed one.
More generally though the unarmed mentality is in many ways the very antithesis of the live blade combat as:
It may not matter who hits first as being cut whilst cutting may still result in serious injury or death - so this cannot be considered ‘successful’ in any sense
But a clean first hit can be everything, or better put a clean entry can be everything. In unarmed fighting though it is possible to hit first without being hit, it is less likely to be such a technique which gives a big enough advantage to end the fight in your favour. With an edged weapon this first strike could in a blink of an eye result in a mortal blow. The chances of success due to successful clean entries is much higher with edged weapons than unarmed and hence it is a much more valued ability.
This is why dhaiphat (meaning two and a half strikes) is such a key concept in SV, .
Two and a half strikes - dhaiphat
With an edged weapon and two warriors intent on killing - a fight is one of two and a half strikes is as follows:
You are at a range to deliver a killing blow
Your opponent is also in this range
This counts as two ‘proper’ strikes each
Whoever gets in the ‘half’ strike, such that they can deliver theirs whilst avoiding their opponents, kills without being killed.
You can see here clearly how SV emanates from a battlefield situation as in every engagement this simple sum is a truism played out multiple times.
Training
To exemplify the difference between unarmed and armed i’ll make another sporting analogy. Usain bolt recently made the move to be a professional footballer. This is someone who was top in his former field. Against the 99% of us who aren’t professional footballers he probably would do very well given that his previous training gave him attributes that would give him a big advantage over ours. But, against others who have specifically trained as footballers he is right down there in the bottom 10%. So he is top 1% in one field and bottom 10 in the other. The analogy is perhaps obvious now - but my key point is the skills and attribute gained from the ‘unarmed’ sphere will give you a big advantage in armed combat with the 95% and vice versa unarmed to armed. But if you meet a specialist from the other you go right down to the bottom of the ladder. So if my premise is true about the gap between unarmed and armed it is one with serious consequences for martial artists.
The question which remains then is how to train effectively without fooling oneself outside the unarmed sphere.
In SV we use live blades. We do so responsibly and though cut a few times, considering the number of times we use them, there are very few instances of injury. Only the master and his senior students do this - however, from early on students are introduced to live edges in a controlled manner. One of my stand out memories is seeing a very able kung fu fighter go unarmed against my master and then seeing the difference once both had edged weapons. It was like two football (soccer) teams who have honed different skills and tactics. In the first unarmed bout the power, speed and forward intent made for a very even bout. But in the second Gurdev’s primary honed skills of finding correct angles and entry points resulted in a short bout with clear undisputed success.
For those of us who have done SV a good while this contact with the blade is inseparable from the art itself. The moment this respect is lost for the edge our art is lost and skills diminished.
The drawback then is what many may term training for the intensity of combat. For classes and students for intense exchanges to take place we do use sticks. However these are hard wood sticks. Such sticks are able to deliver a solid blow which would totally incapacitate you and probably put you out of action for a good while in one strike. Hence, though not life threatening as such like a blade, it is still worthy of serious respect. What such sticks aren’t though are implements with strikes one can ignore or happily take in an exchange. Thus one must still seek to avoid being hit as their primary goal. Our Gurdev’s have taught ‘fight to survive, survive to annihilate ’.
This form of training perhaps is a slow burner when juxtaposed to the all-action sparring many are accustomed to as ‘real’ combat emulation. It is also a form of training which requires a lot of honesty. All I can give is my perspective on one side of confronting a live blade under any conditions, which is one of focus and intensity. Having the knowledge that one error could be the last one I make.
Learning what an edge can and can’t do is also vital as over reaction can also be an issue if live blades are a novel idea. ‘Tagging’ someone with a training blade isn’t the same as cutting someone. My gurbhai Mugz expertly demonstrates this having formed various checks of structure and cut using high tensile rope and other such objects to check whether a given strike would in fact bite, draw and cut.
It is for these reasons blade specialists spend inordinate time making sure that each movement counts and the precision required to make a tiny surface area which is the edge work for you is again a long process but one with much reward once honed.
Shastar is Guru
With this form of training comes to life the maxim shastar is the Guru - meaning the weapon is your teacher.
If your weapon, the implement you use is a training weapon or your hands and feet, they will be your ‘guru’ (teachers/masters) and instruct you well if you are good students. They will teach you the lessons they are designed for. But they can’t teach you what they aren't - so sticks can't teach what an edged weapon would, that’s a different Guru.
Shastar Vidiya ultimately derives its techniques, strategies and tactics from edged weapons. All else is merely a by-product. As this is its root, it means that the art optimises for this purpose and transposes that understanding to other scenarios. This is essentially why we don’t ‘spar’ in a broad sense most people take the term to mean - exchanging blows and scoring it for example. It’s also why we dial up the agility attributes potentially at the cost of size, power and speed. I think of one of those FIFA games on a console where you have a score for speed and shooting etc. for each player as an analogy. Except with the human body if you have too much emphasis on power you lose speed, if too much speed then agility is compromised and so on. Perhaps every art or martial culture optimised in different ways which is why difference exists like in the animal kingdom. This variation would be akin to a long gone genetic mutation which explains the difference between two species.
In SV we optimise for agility, that’s in our DNA.
Nature tells all…
To finish, one of the few surviving peers of my master’s master was able to pass down his words through an audio recording. There’s so much wisdom in this recording it would fill up multiple blogs. The one I’ll use to finish is how he derives many martial understandings from observing predators in the wild.
Here’s the lesson paraphrased for this blog:
Tigers don’t spar. They stalk, they assess, they posture. If one out maneuvers the other often that’s the end of it. The defeated slinks away knowing they have been bested by agility and tactical positioning. They have to get it right, it’s a matter of life or death.
So they assess, they find the perfect range, the right angle and at the pivotal time they pounce.
With quickness of mind, and feet - they pounce.
This is the way of the Singh.
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