Kalari Therapy

Nadis and Marmas

Next to being a martial system, kalaripayattu offers a system of healing. Kalaripayattu uses massages and movement as its core of treatment, similar to the modern day
physiotherapist. While the physiotherapeutic treatment is based on the modern scientific notion of the body, kalaripayattu uses the model of the body as proposed by
Ayurveda (North India) and Siddha (South India), which are indigenous Indian medicinal systems. These systems are based (among others) on the existence of nadis and
marmas. Nadis are perceived as energy channels of the body, and marmas are sensitive spots located on those channels which allow us to tap into and influence the
energy streams. Modern science has failed to discover any energy channel in the human body, and, as a result of this, its existence is denied by skeptics of the
theory. However, according to Ayurveda, nadi is closely connected to pulse (the pulse at the wrist, for example). The pulse of a person is a combination of the pulses of all bodily fluids running through a particular part of the body. This relates the streaming of fluids (blood, lymph fluid, etc.) to the life-energy flowing through the nadis. Apparently nadis can be viewed as the bundle of different vessels transporting bodily fluids.

Ayurveda and Siddha look therefore at the body from a mesoscopic point of view, not microscopic (cell and chemical level) as with modern medical science.
Ayurveda and Siddha offer still actual techniques because of of the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts: the body functions as a whole and not
each part separated from the rest of the body.

 

Treatment

Kalari Darshana offers nadi and marma based treatments: kalari massages, nadi massages and marma manipulation.