The Art of Wrestling

The art of wrestling is composed of stance, paintra, and moves and countermoves, daw and pech. I have listened to many wrestlers describe at length the importance of a balanced stance, the positioning of arms, legs and head. A balanced stance puts one in position to apply a move or counter an attack. As Ratan Patodi points out, stance is a crucial aspect of the overall technique of wrestling. In his description one can see a concern for detail and precision.

Paintra is the fixing of the feet on the ground after having made a move or having countered an attack. It is the art of standing in the akhara. It is the point of entry into the act of wrestling and the prelude to every dangal. One’s stance puts one in a position to attack or retreat. . . . Every stance has an appropriate counterstance, and one must move in tandem with one’s opponent. Sometimes a strong wrestler’s stance will be so firm that his feet will be as fixed as Angad’s. [Angad was a great wrestler in Ram’s army.] All attempts to shake him will fail.

Eyes and stance move together. Stance brings color to the akhara. A wrestler who is as quick as a black hawk, can, with wisdom and vigilance, move from stance to stance and confuse his opponent. He jumps, ducks,sways, runs, lures and frightens his opponent. He may stand near or at a distance, straight or in a crouch. He may attack aggressively or retreat passively, drop down on all fours, move from side to side and turn around. All the time he has in mind the move he wants to apply and uses his stance to choreograph the attack.

In a stance, one’s forward leg should be in line with one’s bowed head so that the chin is straight above the knee, and one’s center of balance fixed. One should move one’s feet precisely and with purpose. If one’s stance is like a pillar then an attack will find its mark. One should be able to shift one’s weight from one leg to another so as to feint and attack without faltering.

When you set your stance, the forward leg is usually the stronger. Some people are equally strong in both legs. In any case, one must always keep one foot at least one and a quarter hand’s length ahead of the other. With the feet neither too far apart nor too close together, the angle between the feet should be between forty-five and fifty degrees. . . . One’s hands should neither be fully extended nor left limp at one’s side. They should be bent at the elbow and held firm . . . one should be bent at the waist with shoulders somewhat hunched and neck pulled in rather than extended. One’s feet and hands should be tensed so that one can be fast on the attack and firm in absorbing and turning a parry aside. With one’s right foot forward and body crouched there should be enough weight in the forward lean to make for a quick attack but not so much as will imbalance the body and make it fall out of control (Patodi 1973a: 39–40).

Patodi’s description of the paintra continues. He further elaborates the virtues of a firm stance and the positioning of the wrestler’s body. He draws an analogy between the firmness of stance in wrestling to like “stances” in business, war, life in general, and politics. He argues for the natural importance of stance by drawing an elaborate parallel between the innate balance of animals and the requisite balance of a wrestler in the pit. A wrestler with a balanced stance is like a hawk from whom no prey can escape (ibid: 42).

Others have spelled out the importance of stance in equal if not greater detail (cf. Atreya 1972b; K. P. Singh 1974; H. Singh 1981: 75–86; 1984a: 39–41, R. Gupta n.d.: 26). Along these lines a most embarrassing event occurred at a Banaras dangal in which a wrestler from Akhara Ram Singh was pitted against a well-known wrestler from Delhi. After about two minutes of grappling the Delhi wrestler managed to kick the feet out from underneath the Banaras wrestler with such force that his head and shoulder hit the earth while his legs flailed out of control. Having failed to apply this most basic of wrestling techniques, the Banaras wrestler was humiliated.

Although stance is of preeminent importance, the art of wrestling also entails the careful execution of moves and countermoves. It is of vital importance that a wrestler have a firm grasp of a particular move in all its ineffable intricacy. When I told wrestlers that I was writing a book on Indian wrestling they assumed that it would be a descriptive catalogue of daws and pechs, a litany of feints and parries. From their perspective this is what was needed: a step-by-step, blow-by-blow description of every possible move.

It would be simply impossible to do justice to the thousands of moves and countermoves which make up the art of Indian wrestling. In any case, H. Singh (1981, 1984b), R. Gupta (n.d.), Patodi (1973a), Ram (1982),and Mujumdar (1950) have provided synopses of many of the most common moves. Almost everyone, including the authors of many of these books, agrees that their descriptions are grossly inadequate: nothing can substitute for the real thing. In any case, my purpose here is not to give a descriptive account of wrestling moves or to undertake a formal classification of types of moves. I will restrict my comments to a discussion of how any one bout is envisioned: as a whole and choreographed sequence of moves. In doing so I hope to show how the body of the wrestler is broken down, as it were, into sequences of depersonalized movement.

From a skilled wrestler’s perspective every single move, glance, shift of weight and moment of motionlessness ought to be classifiable into some aspect of a paintra, daw, or pech. In a perfect encounter there should be no extraneous or arbitrary movements which do not proceed from or come as a result of some other purposeful action. A skilled wrestler is one who can read this pure grammar of movement most clearly, and who is able to take advantage of his opponent’s misreading: his carelessness. A good wrestler can interrupt a movement and translate it into something for which it was not intended. He must also be able to read ahead and anticipate his opponent’s moves by examining the geometry of his stance. The art of wrestling is to achieve an economy of effective motion. Because every move can be answered with a whole range of countermoves, no two bouts are ever the same. No move is predictable or established as inevitable given the configuration of previous moves; structured improvisation is the key. Wrestlers are taught moves and how to put moves together in chains of motion, but it is only through practice that one learns the art of improvisation.

Improvisation has an ineffable quality, and in order to capture it in words the bout must be broken down into distinct parts. Memory serves to amplify the ineffable by distorting the sequence into isolated events. After a dangal one can often hear groups of men recounting a particular bout and criticizing the wrestlers on the basis of the choices they made: “He moved back when he should have moved forward. His weight was on the wrong foot. All he had to do was stand up and it would have been all over. He should not have let go of the ankle.” Often these remarks center on particular moves: “He was in the perfect position for a dhak but he missed his chance and left his leg open. He didn’t have his weight far enough under to make the dhobi pat work. He was too far away to try a bhakuri.”

As they are so recounted, all moves are abstractions from what is in fact a chain of improvised motion. It is instructive, however, to understand how particular moves are conceptualized outside the framework of a competitive bout.

The multani is one of the most popular moves in Indian wrestling because it is difficult to execute correctly but spectacular when applied properly. Ratan Patodi describes five variations of the move. The most common one is as follows: “You are facing your opponent and both of you have one hand on each other’s neck. At this point grab your opponent’s other hand with your free hand. Jump forward and pivot on your rear foot while kicking up your front leg to catch your opponent’s rear leg” (1973a: 53).

Naturally this description is an abbreviation of what actually takes place: a shift of weight from one leg to the other, the twist and bend of the hips, a rotation of the shoulders, the corresponding forward pull of one’s opponent’s arm and neck, and the positioning of one’s body close enough to one’s opponent to enable the pivot foot to work as a fulcrum. There are a host of other minor but crucial aspects of the multani; for example, the correct way to grip and pull the hand and the most effective way to pull the neck forward and down.

The sakhi is another effective and popular move. You have shaken hands as the bout is beginning. If your opponent’s right leg is forward, grab his right wrist with your left hand. Circle your other arm over the upper part of his right arm and lock it straight. Insert your right leg between your opponent’s legs and hook it behind his right knee (ibid: 61).

Patodi completes the picture by referring to a photograph which shows a wrestler tripping his opponent with his hooked right leg while pulling down and pushing forward on the locked right arm.

The kalajangh is a common, effective, and relatively easy move to apply. As your opponent leans forward off balance, you grab his left arm above the elbow with your left hand. You drop onto your right knee and simultaneously duck under your opponent’s chest while sliding your right arm between his legs, grabbing hold of his right thigh. Rolling to your left, flip your opponent across your back so that he lands on his back with you on top of him.

Every dangal bout is read, retrospectively, as a series of moves and countermoves. However, not all of the moves are recalled. Only the most glaring mistakes, the near falls, the effective tricks, and the successful parries are remembered. Ratan Patodi recounts the following bout, for which the prize was 100,000 rupees, between Kartar, a disciple of Guru Hanuman, and Suresh, a disciple of India’s best-known wrestler, Chandagi Ram.

At exactly 4:45 P.M. the minister of sports introduced the wrestlers and inaugurated the dangal. Having defeated the excellent wrestler Jayprakash, Suresh stood taut, fit and with an expression of self-confidence on his face. Kartar, trained by Raj Singh and experienced in international competition, stood near by, his body radiant.

For twenty minutes the two wrestlers sized each other up and measured one another’s strength and skill. Both being fresh, neither of them wanted to make the first move. Both wrestlers fought defensively. Sometimes Kartar pushed forward and at other times Suresh would advance, but after twenty minutes it was impossible to tell who had the upper hand. There was a difference however. Kartar was pacing himself and not wasting his strength while Suresh was putting all of his energy into defensive tactics. He was getting more tired by the minute.

At 5:05 P.M. Kartar applied a very strong dhak and although Suresh was not quick enough to defend himself completely, he did manage to grab Kartar’s back. This unsettled Kartar who maneuvered his way out of the pit while freeing himself. The referee called both wrestlers back to the center of the pit and the bout continued. However, Kartar was off balance and after two minutes he halfheartedly tried to apply another dhak, but this time Suresh got a better grip of his waist and brought Kartar to his knees.

This moment was for Kartar a time to catch his breath while Suresh continued to expend his energy. Three times Suresh put his knee on Kartar’s neck and tried unsuccessfully to flip him over. Using his strong neck Kartar was easily able to rotate out of danger. Each time he foiled Suresh’s efforts the crowd in the stadium applauded such that the arena echoed their appreciation. All the while Kartar was recovering his strength for what was to be a bout that went on for an extra fifteen minutes.

Both wrestlers were tired after thirty minutes, but they remained cautious and wary of each other’s moves. . . . As the fans’ hearts beat faster and faster Kartar applied a bagal dubba in the eleventh minute and brought Suresh down with lightning speed (1986a: 81–83).

Any bout can be reduced to three basic principles: strength, stamina, and skill, with skill being a function of both experience and training. The grammar of a wrestler’s movement and the geometry of his stance are a direct representation of these basic factors. There is, I think, a transparent and ultramundane quality to this art that serves to root aspects of the wrestler’s identity in nature and the supernatural.