Editorial: Sports (PROFESSIONAL) - HONORABLE MENTION
Malla Yuddha - The Indian Ancient wrestling

Photo © Emiliano Pinnizzotto
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The fighting, body to body, that unites taken, throws, levers and which is intended to subdue the opponent on the ground has very ancient origin. Leggendare are the fights that are narrated in the history and mythology, details of wrestling scenes are found in caves dating 15,000 B.C. also in wall paintings in Egyptian and Babylonians tombs; They are narrated by Homer during the Trojan War in the Iliad, in the ancient Indian Mahabharata and in the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh. In many parts of the world is possible to find variations of style of wrestling, in India the traditional wrestling called : Malla-Yuddha. (from sanskrit Malla: athlete and Yuddha: Battle, fight, war) The Guru Hanuman Akhara is one of the most important centers for the training of champions in this discipline.
Athletes train in a center without comfort, in conditions very distant from our own modern western gym that bring out Olympic champions.
The strenuous physical exercise, with outdated equipment and means that seem to us far away, strengthen the wrestlers, who are preparing to fight in a ring of clay,(arena or Akhara) wearing only a loincloth. The wrestlers begin each session by flattening the floor of the ring, and prepared the arena with incense and blessed and purified the field by offering prayers to the patron deity of the gym.Start at this point a grueling fight melee in the clay, with outlets and levers the two bodies becoming one, hair and sweaty bodies are covered with clay, almost to not make them see and breathe, muscle tension It is an extreme limit and the meeting goes on till the complete submission of the opponent. This fight is probably, in all its variants, the most 'ancient method of unarmed combat used by humans
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The fighting, body to body, that unites taken, throws, levers and which is intended to subdue the opponent on the ground has very ancient origin. Leggendare are the fights that are narrated in the history and mythology, details of wrestling scenes are found in caves dating 15,000 B.C. also in wall paintings in Egyptian and Babylonians tombs; They are narrated by Homer during the Trojan War in the Iliad, in the ancient Indian Mahabharata and in the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh. In many parts of the world is possible to find variations of style of wrestling, in India the traditional wrestling called : Malla-Yuddha. (from sanskrit Malla: athlete and Yuddha: Battle, fight, war) The Guru Hanuman Akhara is one of the most important centers for the training of champions in this discipline.
Athletes train in a center without comfort, in conditions very distant from our own modern western gym that bring out Olympic champions.
The strenuous physical exercise, with outdated equipment and means that seem to us far away, strengthen the wrestlers, who are preparing to fight in a ring of clay,(arena or Akhara) wearing only a loincloth. The wrestlers begin each session by flattening the floor of the ring, and prepared the arena with incense and blessed and purified the field by offering prayers to the patron deity of the gym.Start at this point a grueling fight melee in the clay, with outlets and levers the two bodies becoming one, hair and sweaty bodies are covered with clay, almost to not make them see and breathe, muscle tension It is an extreme limit and the meeting goes on till the complete submission of the opponent. This fight is probably, in all its variants, the most 'ancient method of unarmed combat used by humans
BACK TO GALLERY