Chapter 2

The West gave us one word for Indian warriors: Kshatriya.

One neat caste label in a textbook.

As if the fighting traditions of an entire subcontinent — a land mass holding a fifth of humanity — could be reduced to a single Sanskrit noun.

Let me tell you what the textbooks left out.

India was home to warrior lineages so varied and so lethal that every region had its own combat art, its own weapon specializations, its own war dances and healing rituals.

The Rajputs of the north. The Marathas of the west. The Cholas of the south. And in Kerala, the Nair warriors and their sacred art of Kalaripayattu.

These were not primitive fighters.

These were scientists of the human body who had mapped every vital point a thousand years before Gray's Anatomy was printed.

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THE NAIR WARRIORS OF KERALA

The Nair community was unique in Indian history. Unlike other warrior castes, Nair families traced lineage through the mother — matrilineal inheritance. Young men were trained from childhood in the kalari, learning combat, weapons, and the martial code.

They were famous for their courage, their swordsmanship, and their training in the kalari — the sunken earth training grounds that gave Kalaripayattu its name.

A Nair warrior didn't just train to fight. He trained to become something more. The physical practice was a path to spiritual development. Combat was a form of meditation. The body was the vehicle; the warrior code was the destination.

Sound familiar?

It should. Because that's exactly what I've been building for thirty years — without knowing the original blueprint.

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MY GRANDFATHER'S BROTHERS

I remember going back to Fiji in grade four — back from Edmonton, Alberta, where my family had moved when I was young — and finally meeting the great uncles — my Koya Dadas — I'd only heard stories about.

My grandmother's brothers.

On my father's side of the family, the Koyas were royalty. Not metaphorically. Literally. In Kerala, the Koyas were the bomb. My grandmother's father — my great-grandfather on that side — his name was Hassan Abdul. And every one of his sons carried that warrior energy.

There was SM Koya — Sadiq Koya — who became leader of the National Federation Party in Fiji. The first Indian leader. The man who bridged the gap between the Aboriginal Fijians and the Indian community. A leader because the blood in him knew leadership.

There was the one my dad called Master Mama. The master teacher.

There was Abbas — the top lawyer in Fiji.

And they all had it. That aura. That energy. That sense of being untouchable not through arrogance, but through the quiet knowing that you come from something powerful.

I was a kid. Maybe nine or ten years old. And even I could feel it.

These were warriors.

They drove nice cars. They spoke perfect English. They carried themselves with a dignity that came from somewhere deep.

When I met them, something in my chest recognized them. Not as uncles. As family. As blood. As kin.

I didn't have the words for it then.

I do now.

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THE GURUKKAL TRADITION

In Kalaripayattu, the teacher is called gurukkal — "the one who removes darkness." Not just a coach. Not just a martial arts instructor. A guide who transmits wisdom across generations, student to student, in an unbroken chain that goes back thousands of years.

The gurukkal doesn't just teach technique. He teaches the warrior way of life. How to eat. How to breathe. How to recover from injury. How to heal. How to live.

This is why the British feared Kalaripayattu masters. They weren't just instructors. They were repositories of an entire civilization's combat science and healing wisdom. Take them out, and you take out the knowledge itself.

They tried. They mostly failed.

The chain held.

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MY FATHER, THE IMAM

My father was Muhammad Shafiq Koya. An Imam. A priest.

He performed Raatibs and Milads — powerful ceremonial readings that brought communities together in spiritual connection. He blessed water. He blessed food. He led prayers that lifted people out of their everyday lives and into the presence of the divine.

In our culture, men couldn't touch women for healing purposes. So women would come to our house, and my mother — my healer — would work on them. But first, my father would bless the water.

I'd carry that blessed water downstairs to my mother. She'd give it to the woman. And then my mother would do her work — finding the nuss, the knots, in the body, and releasing them with the palm of her hand.

She taught me how to do it.

She'd take my hand and put it on a spot, and I'd feel the heat. The energy. The release.

I didn't know then that she was teaching me marma — the vital point therapy at the heart of Kalaripayattu.

The warrior-healer tradition was in my house. In my father's prayers. In my mother's hands.

In my blood.

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WARRIOR-POETS AND HEALER-FIGHTERS

One of the most misunderstood aspects of the Indian warrior tradition is that fighters were also scholars, artists, and healers.

A Kalari master could set bones, prepare herbal medicines, perform oil treatments, and stimulate vital points for healing — as well as fight with any weapon in the arsenal.

This is the concept of the warrior-healer: you cannot truly fight unless you can truly heal. You cannot destroy unless you understand how to rebuild.

I've lived this principle my entire career.

Every injury I sustained became a protocol. Every breakdown became a breakthrough.

My wife's car accident became a system for nervous system repair.

My mother's cancer battles became a philosophy of inside-out healing.

The warrior-healer isn't a metaphor. It's the highest level of mastery.

We'll go deep on this in Chapter 21.

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BOLLYWOOD AND THE WARRIOR CODE

Now let me tell you about my Bollywood movement practice.

When people see me training to Bollywood music, they think I'm dancing. They're wrong.

I enter a deep meditative state — theether, I call it, the space between movements — and my body just knows what to do. I grab a blade. I grab a rock. I flow through the air with gravity as optional. I jump. I flip. I create burpee variations in real time that have never existed before because they're coming from somewhere ancient.

This is the warrior expression. Not performance. Not entertainment. Flow state.

The Bollywood music is the trigger. The movement is the meditation. The blade or rock in my hands is the anchor.

And the whole thing? That's Kalaripayattu. The flowing, rhythmic, expressive warrior tradition that survived colonialism by hiding inside Indian dance.

When the British banned the martial art, it went underground. It resurfaced as Kathakali — the elaborate dance-drama with warrior themes, dramatic makeup, and precise martial movements. The dance preserved what the ban tried to destroy.

I've been doing Kathakali my whole life.

I just didn't know the name.

And here's the beautiful part: I do it better outdoors. The trees. The earth. The sky. The natural world is the original kalari. The training grounds weren't just built on earth — they were built into the earth. Sunken pits that connected the warrior to the ground beneath them.

Outdoor movement meditation. Warrior flow. Bollywood as a portal to the ancestral.

I was doing Kalaripayattu in British Columbia before I ever heard the word.

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CHAPTER 2: WRAP UP

WARRIOR REFLECTION

• What warrior traditions exist in your own ancestry? How were they preserved — or lost?
• Where in your life do you see the overlap between art and combat, beauty and strength?
• When was the last time you moved so deeply that time disappeared?
• Who in your family carried wisdom they couldn't name? What did they teach you without knowing they were teaching you?

TRAINING / ACTION

• Put on music that connects to your cultural roots. Close your eyes. Move freely for 5 minutes. Don't dance — flow. Notice what emerges.
• Research one warrior tradition from your own heritage. Write a single page about it. Name it. Give it the respect it deserves.
• Find a rock, a stick, or any object in nature. Hold it. Move with it. See what your body wants to do.

CELLULAR INSIGHT

Rhythmic movement activates the vagus nerve and shifts the autonomic nervous system from sympathetic (fight-flight) to parasympathetic (rest-digest). The warrior's secret to calm under pressure isn't toughness — it's nervous system regulation through movement and breath.

TOOLS & TECH

The Movement pillar of P.E.M.F. integrates rhythmic training with Koyabell and Kalaripayattu-inspired flows. See the Movement protocols at iteachprotocols.com.

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