Second training bout in the akharda

Yesterday I flew from Rishikesh to Dehli in order to wrestle in the traditional Indian Style of Kusti. I was warmly received by Deepak and his Family. I did an Interview with him on the Traditions of Kustiwrestling and his Relationship and Dedication to the practice of Kusti. I will share the 45 Minute Video when I am back in Germany (sadly the Camera stopped recording after that time, we talked a lot more about Wrestling) Today he took me to train in a Akharda, where he was taught Kusti since childhood. In the Photos you can see the preparation of the Akharda which consist of breaking the ground with a kind of shovel and afterwards breaking the clay clumps. After this process the wrestling pit and the wrestlers are sanctified with smoke. The Process is also called awakening the Akharda. Before this there can be no Kusthi. The huge guy with the white and orange shirt is Vikram Pehelwan, he starred in the famous Indian wrestling movie called Sultan. The Person in the white attire (Kurta Pajama) is the Guru of the Akharda. His Name is Jasram Ji, he also competed in the Junior World Championships in Germany in 1969, was a famous Indian wrestler, head of the Dehliwrestlingassociation and trained more than 20000 wrestlers during his lifetime. His students can be found in every corner of India. The first guy I am wrestling is called Tarik, he is one of the best wrestlers of the Akharda and pinned me twice in 6 minutes. I was surprised by his techniques, for instance in Kushti you can put your knee on the neck of the opponent and than grab his costume (Janghia) to lift him up. It puts quite a lot of pressure on your cervical spine and with the face in the mud it doesn’t feel pleasant. :D Also there is no time limit and no points. You can only win by pin, which is just short contact of both shoulders to the mat. After that I wrestled another guy, who also had nice moves. This time no body got pinned. I will upload videos of the training once I am back in Germany. After sparring, the wrestlers do different kinds of exercises. They are similar to push ups and squats, climbing a rope an training with weights.