Hey Mutineers – Apologies again for the long absence… Biz travel hell has had me on the road pretty much continuously for the past few weeks. However, I did want to post a quick shoutout about an upcoming program you may wanna set your Tivo’s for. This week’s Discovery Channel Fight Quest will be paying a visit to Kerala –
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Discovery Channel / Fight Quest Fri 9/26 10PM / Sat 9/27 2AM San Francisco “India” Jimmy and Doug travel to Kerala, India to study one of the most ancient and dangerous martial arts in the world, Kalarippayattu. |
Fight Quest is a clone of an earlier program on the rival History Channel called Human Weapon and both follow a very similar formula –
A blend of cultural immersion and good old-fashioned smackdown, the series follows seasoned mixed martial arts fighter Jimmy Smith and 25-year-old rookie Doug Anderson as they travel the globe, adding fight styles from Kali to kickboxing to their repertoire.
You Will Now Face the Wrath of 8000 Years of Mallu-Brand Whoop Ass
In each episode, Jimmy and Doug will explore a new location identified with a style of fighting, such as kung fu in Dengfeng, China, and boxing in Mexico City, Mexico. There, after first immersing themselves in the sounds, smells and tastes of the local scene, the two guys will separate to train with local masters of that method — sometimes an ancient art of combat, and other times a modern form of butt-kicking. After several days of intense instruction, Jimmy and Doug will each face off against a local in a no-holds-barred test of skill.
What a great little Tivo present to welcome me back home to SF next week 
Awesome, I never knew about this! My dad (who can bring any topic of conversation to Kerala) will be pleased. Thanks for the heads-up.
Just checked the Wiki page, this style of martial arts sounds pretty bad ass. I guess Mallus are the most gangsta of the Subcontinent.
8000 year old mallu brand 😉
there was no Malayalam or a Malayali until around the late 8th or 9th century !
what am I missing here ..? 8000 years .. #?!
The weapons combat looked awesome but the hand to hand looks like a lot of bitch slapping
It does look a little bit like the bitchslapping fight sequences that I see in Tamil movies. I had never heard of this style before. It is pretty bad-ass!
plain rasa said
There was no Hindi till 17th century. There was no India before 1947. Are you missing the history of India too ? LOL!
The term Mallu was not used till late 1980s. So technically there was no mallu before 80s. Kalaripayattu is arguably considered the mother of all asian martial arts. It is believed that, Bodhisatva introduced it to the monks of China as KungFu. Does anyone think, “Kalari Payattu” and “Kung Fu” rhimes?
I just thought it rolled off the tongue well in a sorta Shaft-tastic way. Didn’t mean to make a history statement 😉