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Lethal spots, vital secrets : medicine and martial arts in South India

Some Vital Spots of This Study Themes of the Study, State of Research, and Data Used Geographical Setting: Kanyakumari Social Setting Experiencing the Vital Spots, or How to Learn a Secret Practice Experience and Fieldwork Vital Manifestations. MARMAN, MARMMAM, AND VARMAM SPOTS Premodern Textual References and Classical Ayurveda Vedic and Sanskrit Textual References Vital Spots in the Ayurvedic Treatises Therapeutic Concepts of Marman Spots Vital Spots in Yoga Traditions Vital Spots, Manual Therapies, and the Martial Arts in South Asia Vital Spots in Martial Arts and in Medical Treatment in Kerala The Vital Spots in Tamil South India Vital Spots and the Relationship between Siddha Medicine and Ayurveda Siddha Medicine and the Siddhars The Emergence of Siddha Medicine Conclusion The Vital Spots. HETEROGENEOUS THEORIES, CONSISTENT TRADITIONS Siddha Theory and the Vital Spots Vital Spots, Time, and Astrological Concepts The Vital Spots: Classification and Confusion Anatomico-Regional Classification Humoral Classification Prognostic Classification Numbers, Names, and Discrepancies Healing Spots What's in a Name (andNumber)?Conclusion: Ambiguity and Heterogeneity of Varmakkalai Dispensary and Training Ground. MEDICINE AND MARTIAL ARTS INTERTWINED Dispensary and Training Ground: Interrelated Spheres Inside the Vital Spot Dispensary Inside the Vital Spot Training Ground Ritual inside the Training Ground Learning the Vital Spots Progressing Physically in the Study of the Vital Spots Progressing Mentally in the Study of the Vital Spots Medicine and Martial Arts Intertwined The Vital Spots in Therapy and Martial Training The Healing and the Harming Touch Force and Timing Time Limits Conclusion Healing the Hidden. SOMATIC MODES OF ATTENDING TO BODIES A Vital Spot Afflicted Vital Spot Trauma, Causes, and Consequences Therapeutic Practices in the Vital Spot Dispensary Healing the Hidden Radiography and Invisible Spots Tracing the Secret: Palpating and Measuring Vital Spots Signs of Varmam Curable or Incurable Signs of Death Naming the Secret: Vital Spots and Biomedical Terminologies Healing the Vital Spots Emergency Treatment Vital Spot Massage A Somatic Mode of Attending to Ailing Bodies When Not to Treat Conclusion Virtue and Liability. THE VITAL SPOTS BETWEEN CONCEALMENT AND REVELATION “Varmam Means SecretConcealment of the Vital Spots The Hidden Practice: Concealing Treatment and Martial Activities Concealing Knowledge Toward Students The Virtue of Secrecy Perceiving the Secret The Secret on Display: Performing and Transgressing Secrecy Publishing the Vital Spots Anaesthetizing a Chicken: Live Demonstrations of the Vital Spots “These Boys Only Learn Cilampam”: A Martial Arts Tournament Secrecy as Liability Secrecy as Capital Conclusion Embodying Secrecy. A MORAL ECONOMY OF LEARNING AND THE TRANSMISSION OF TACIT KNOWLEDGE Knowledge Transmission as Moral Economy and as Embodied Learning Hereditary Transmission of Knowledge Text and Context Meaningful Names Experiencing the Vital Spots Knowledge, Skill, and Lucky Hands Grasping the Vital Spots Learning by Touching: Nonverbal Vital Spot Instruction Intricacies of a Learning Relationship Carefully Choose, Test, and Conceal A Moral Economy of Knowledge Transmission “Treat without Arrogance, Thinking of Your Guru”For the Knowledge to Stand Tacit Knowledge and Moral Economies of Learning Conclusion Epilogue. FROM TACTILITY TO TEXTUALITY, FROM KANYAKUMARI TO THE WORLD Into the Siddha Curriculum?Transmitting, Translating, and Transnationalizing Varmam Publicizing and Globalizing the Vital Spots Translating the Vital Spots Networks of Vital Spot Promotion and Regulation Lost in Translation? Vital Spot Martial Arts Some Concluding Reflections Bibliography

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Vital Spots, Manual Therapies, and the Martial Arts in South Asia
As already noted, the earliest textual references to marman are found in contexts of war. In many warlike combat practices in historical South Asia and in contemporary India we find martial practices that address specific parts of the body, perceived as particularly vulnerable. Furthermore, these...
(Lethal spots, vital secrets : medicine and martial arts in South India)
Dispensary and Training Ground. MEDICINE AND MARTIAL ARTS INTERTWINED
varmakkalai is “the art [kalai] of the vital spots [varmam],’’ and it combines therapeutic and combative techniques in a mutually enhancing, complementary fashion. This is so as vital spots are vulnerable points in the body, which can be used for therapy as well as for incapacitating an...
(Lethal spots, vital secrets : medicine and martial arts in South India)
Medicine and Martial Arts Intertwined
I was sitting together with Velayudhan in the backyard of his house one afternoon, enjoying a short break from the rush of patients. The acan picked up two cilampam staffs which had been leaning against a coconut tree, and after throwing one over to me, started to playfully exchange a few...
(Lethal spots, vital secrets : medicine and martial arts in South India)
Vital Spots in Martial Arts and in Medical Treatment in Kerala
Marmmam, a derivative term of Sanskrit marman, in Malayalam has come to mean “knack of doing something” (Zarrilli 1998, 157) or “secret.” Marmmam spot applications are found in contemporary Kerala, usually in martial arts practices called kalarippayattu, literally...
(Lethal spots, vital secrets : medicine and martial arts in South India)
Lost in Translation? Vital Spot Martial Arts
In all these discourses and attempts to promote and transmit varmam, martial aspects which draw on vital spots seem irrelevant. In its description as medical science, martial implications of the vital spots are eliminated. In a publication of the Arts Research Institute, Coimbatore, which is devoted...
(Lethal spots, vital secrets : medicine and martial arts in South India)
STRATEGY—A MARTIAL ART
The beginning of organized forms of strategy sprang from the need for people either to defend themselves or to defeat their enemies. In keeping with the earlier extrapolation of Gause's principle, this is really a manifestation of competition between similar entities requiring the same resources. At...
(Strategic Management in the 21st Century. The Operational Environment)
STRATEGY—FROM MARTIAL ART TO MARKETS—THE WHO
Historically, one of the first acknowledged uses of strategy in business happened when Socrates counseled the Greek militarist, Nichomachides, after he had lost an election for the position of general to the Greek businessman, Antisthenes. Comparing the duties of a general with that of a businessman,...
(Strategic Management in the 21st Century. The Operational Environment)
Martial Arts
Martial arts classes include children with a variety of disabilities. The classes can be modified to allow skills at the wheelchair level in forms, fighting, weapons, and breaking. Children are taught self-respect, control, and can advance through the belt system. They are also taught basic self-defense...
(Pediatric Rehabilitation)
An Investigation of Chinese National Cinema through the Representation of Nationalism in Chinese Martial Arts Films
Qi Zhang1 Email: qi.zhang@dcu.ie.t Email: zhouxiang.lu@nium.ie. and Zhouxiang Lu2,t 'Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland ^National University of Ireland Maynooth, Kildare, Ireland The extent of the film industry’s transformation into a transnational and global business...
(Conflict and Communication: A Changing Asia in a Globalizing World)
Nationalism in Chinese Martial Arts Films
Martial arts can be dated back thousands of years in Chinese literary history. As early as the West Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), Sima Qian had depicted a number of wandering knights in the ‘Records of Grand History’ (written between 104 and 91 BC; see Teo 2009, p. 17; Hamm 2005, p. 12). He expressed...
(Conflict and Communication: A Changing Asia in a Globalizing World)