Now About Gatka...

A couple of days ago, I posted about a Martial Art I want to learn more about called Shastar Vidya. In that post, I mentioned another art called GATKA, saying that I would rather learn Shastar Vidya, than Gatka. Even so that is true, I do find gatka to also be an impressive fighting style.

So, what is Gatka?

GATKA 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 being 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. Shastar Vidiyā, from Sanskrit śastra-vidyā "martial arts"). The term in this sense, especially as used by Nidar Singh Nihang since 2002, denotes historical martial arts reconstruction of 16th to 18th century Sikh fighting styles.

Here is an awesome intro video about a Gatka School in England:



Like I said before: even though I am more impressed with Shastar Vidya than Gatka, I think Gatka is a great Martial Art, and I think if anybody gets a chance, they should go check it out.