Time for the next installment of this crazy life i sometimes attempt to call my own....
For the past few days i've taken up residence in a small martial arts acadamy, of sorts. I'm here thanks to the inspiration of my current travel companion, a sound french guy called Ronan. The main reason for coming was to try and gain an insight into the South Indian art of Kalari. Ronan's been studying this for the past 4 years, along with various other fighting arts, and he's been making his way to a couple of gurukals (masters) in it's origen state of Kerala throughout this time. He seems a bit of a crazy guy at first with the 'trademark french' dredlock with short-back-and-sides look along with weird and wonderfull tattoos but he's a really sound guy with his head in a good place (perhaps his month of isolated meditation in the mountains just before we met may have contributed to this??... who knows?). Anyway, he got me enthused about trying something a bit different and the place seemed to have an air of authenticity about it, unlike many of the yoga and martial arts schools set up in the tourist centres. So i decided, as usuall, to drop my current plans and take the latest oppertunity that happens to have presented itself to me.
The acadamy is pretty far out of the way and in all my days in the area i'm yet to see another white face. It's a pretty simple set up with a couple of basic rooms and kitchen for resident students, of which in all its years has only seen a handfull of forigners (and most of these thanks to the influence of Ronan!) so i feel it's a bit of a privilage to have found it... The master's family home is on site which is a large, old traditional keralan house although in varying states of disrepair it creates quite an atmosphere. There's also the Kalari (practice hall) itself, which houses a pretty grusome array of weapons, an antique gym and a school house (as the gurukal also teaches conversational english to local children).
No sooner had i arrived and dumped my bag, i was immediatly pounced apon to teach a lesson in conversational english slang to the advanced students. This put me on the spot a bit but in usuall form i managed to blag my way through and so now i've become a regular feature in the daily lessons to kids with a never-ending supply of questions... The rest of my time here is spent split between excruciatingly painfull and difficult excersises and trying to recover and hide from the heat with the gekos!
The average day begins at 5 with a 2 hour session of Kalari, swiftly followed by a 2 hour session of yoga. both are compleately new to me and so tend to leave me sweating buckets and in all sorts of pain that i didn't know existed! Then we find some breakfast in the only place to eat in the village which gets a little repetitive as it only has one meal on offer! The saving grace is that surrounding the acadamy are numerous mango trees which have just about come into season so we find a new shipment delivered to our quarters by the Armit (the servant boy) every day. He's what Ronan calls a 'small devil' and despite being a little basterd, kicked out by his own family and bestowed apon our master, he's really quite entertaining and always has a misgievous glint in his eye.
The main part of the day is too hot to do anything too exciting so we kick about, trying to get some sleep and find entertainment (hence the unusually long e-mail, sorry chaps....) At about 5 we then move into the gym and thrash ourselves for an hour or so before the evening kalari session which finishes about 9:30. All in all it's pretty knackering and as of yet i've had to get used to it being not all that rewarding but i'm sure it's doing me some whole lot of good somehow. Kalari itslelf is a bit like cappawera in that it's an ancient deadly art turned into a non-combative series of excersises which make up a really impressive sort of dance with vicious weapons. When done properly it looks pretty spectacular but it requires a whole lot of dedication. So far i've only advanced to the long-staff, which i'm told is pretty fast work for a total beginner to martial arts, although i'm pretty sure this is only to make me feel better...
Ronan's heading back to france in a few days. Gurukal tells me he wants me to stay for a month but i'm not so sure i'm in the right sort of mind set for that kind of dedication, besides i've now got someone on the case trying to hunt me down a second hand jeep with the veiw to making it my chariot to the north so i'm pretty excited about the prospect of owning my first car!!! (possibly, maybe, we'll see...). Anyway, we've got 3 more days and i've already learnt so much, who knows what'll happen... There's definately scope to continue practicing myself though and at the moment i'm really psyced to do so, even if my scraped, knocked and batterd body isn't so keen!
Now Ronan tells me we must go and kill ourselves in the gym again... this traveling lark isn't all s***s and giggles you know!!
Sorry about the mahuuuussive message but i was bored (skim reading is probably the way forward....)
As always, take it easy, missing you all (-ish) and enjoy...