Chapter 8

They called me crazy.

And honestly, I understand why.

Picture this: a grown man — a professional wrestler, an award-winning fitness coach — perched barefoot on the gnarled roots of a massive Douglas fir, feet gripping bark, body twisted into a crouch, shifting from root to root without ever touching the ground.

Moving through the branches with a kind of coiled, darting precision that made my training partners laugh and then go quiet.

I called it Squirrel Yoga.

I thought I'd invented it.

Then I saw the animal forms of Kalaripayattu.

---

THE EIGHT SACRED ANIMALS

Kalaripayattu's animal forms are one of its most distinctive features. The warrior learns from eight sacred animals:

• Simha (Lion) — Power, roar, the commanding presence
• Vyaghra (Tiger) — Stealth, explosive attack, the ambush
• Garuda (Eagle) — Vision, elevation, the aerial perspective
• Makara (Crocodile) — Groundedness, grip, the immovable force
• Kangula (Monkey) — Agility, climbing, the playful warrior
• Sarabha (Fantastic creature) — Combination of forms, the synthesis
• Brahmini (Rooster) — Balance, one-legged stance, the alert warrior
• Mahash (Great boar) — Strength, charging, the unstoppable force

Each animal teaches specific movement qualities. The warrior doesn't just imitate animals — they embody their essence.

This is the difference between animal movement and animal flow: you're not performing movements. You're becoming the animal.

---

WHY ANIMAL MOVEMENT WORKS

Modern movement science is catching up to what the Kalari masters knew 3,000 years ago.

Animal movement develops:

• Proprioception — Awareness of body in space
• Coordination — Integration of multiple muscle groups
• Adaptive reflexes — Response to unpredictable stimuli
• Joint health — Full range of motion through varied positions
• Brain development — New neural pathways through novel movement

When was the last time you crawled like a bear, slithered like a snake, or climbed like a monkey?

If you're like most people, it's been years. Maybe decades.

You've traded natural movement for sitting. And your body — and brain — are paying the price.

---

KOYABELL: THE METAL, THE WOOD, THE BREATH

Before I knew the word Kalaripayattu, I was already building it.

I took kettlebells — the metal — and I made them mine. I didn't just swing them. I juggled them. I danced with them. I swung two at a time, three counts, ten counts, switching hands mid-air. I called it Koyabell. KOYABELL. One word. My name fused with the bell. That was the middle of the system.

Then I brought the wood in. Sticks everywhere. Branches. Staffs. Dandas. I wove them into the same flow as the bells. Pick up the bell. Drop the bell. Grab the stick. Spin. Strike. Drop the stick. Bell again. No break. No counting reps. Just flow.

Around that, I built the body weight. Burpees — but not the gym version. Burpees that dropped into animal crawls. Crawls that exploded back up into a jump. Jumps that landed back into a swing. Super slow on the way down to wake up every fibre. Dynamically fast on the way up to fire the nervous system. Control the breath. Control the body. Mind in the muscle. Muscle in the breath. Breath in the spine.

This is what I taught at Coivo. Award after award. Multiple years. They didn't have a category for it because I was building a category. The judges felt it before they could name it.

I thought I was inventing.

I was remembering.

Kettlebells are the modern gada — the warrior's mace. The stick work is silambam and kettukari — the stick disciplines of South India. The animal crawls are the eight sacred animal forms. The burpees, the breath, the slow-to-fast pulse — that's the kalari warm-up sequence, fifty centuries old, dressed up in a Vancouver gym.

Koyabell wasn't a fitness brand. It was Kalaripayattu coming back through my body without permission, without a manual, just the blood telling me what to do.

---

THE STICK AND THE BLADE

Alongside the animal forms, Kalaripayattu teaches weapon work.

I taught stick work to my Koyabell students for years before I understood what I was really teaching. The way you grip. The way you flow. The way you extend your body through the tool.

I called it Koyabell work. My students loved it. It transformed their movement.

I had sticks everywhere in my gym. My main stick — the one I grabbed most often — I called Danda. Or just "Stick." He was always there, waiting.

I grabbed him before training. I grabbed him during meditation. I grabbed him when I needed to move and didn't know why.

The blade came next.

I have blades hanging above my fireplace right now. When I grab one, something happens. The Bollywood music. The face paint. The glitter. Mr. India.

I became someone else.

Now I understand: I became the warrior I always was.

The Kalari master with his urumi. The Nair fighter with his sword. My great-grandparents, practicing in secret, hiding their art inside dance, protecting what the British tried to destroy.

The blade is not a weapon. It's an anchor. A key. A connection to five thousand years of warrior knowledge encoded in movement.

When I grab it, I stop being Prince the coach, Prince the wrestler, Prince the guy who almost died.

I become Prince the warrior.

And so can you.

---

THE WARRIOR'S SPINE

Kalaripayattu teaches that the warrior's power flows through the spine.

Not the arms. Not the legs. The center.

Every strike originates from the core. Every block returns to the center. Every movement — no matter how fast, no matter how explosive — is rooted in the stillness at the base of the spine.

This is why traditional Kalari training includes so much stretching and mobility work. The spine must be free. It must be able to move in all directions. It must be the axis around which the warrior turns.

When I was a kid, I could do a bridge. I could twist my body into shapes that seemed impossible. My coaches noticed. My friends noticed.

I didn't know I was training my spine the way the Kalari masters had been training warriors' spines for millennia.

Now I know.

Now I teach it.

The P.E.M.F. Movement pillar is built on this foundation. Unlock the spine, unlock the warrior.

---

CHAPTER 8: WRAP UP

WARRIOR REFLECTION

• Which animal do you most identify with in your movement? The stealth of the tiger? The groundedness of the crocodile? The agility of the monkey?
• How has modern life limited your natural movement? What would it mean to move like a human again?

TRAINING / ACTION

• Spend 10 minutes moving like an animal: crawl like a bear, slither like a snake, climb like a monkey. Let the body remember.
• Practice the warrior stance — grounded, spine straight, core engaged — for 2 minutes while breathing deeply. Feel the center.

CELLULAR INSIGHT

Animal movements activate deep stabilizing muscles that atrophied from sitting. These muscles protect the spine and joints. Reconnecting with primal movement patterns rebuilds the body's natural architecture.

TOOLS & TECH

The Koyabell Fitness system at iteachprotocols.com incorporates Kalaripayattu-inspired animal forms and stick work. This is the warrior's movement curriculum.

---