Older Traditions
Strength cultures that predate the sport and were never derived from it. The Indian akhara and pehlwani wrestling, with its earth pits, mace swinging and dand and bethak, and the Great Gama. The Iranian zurkhaneh, the house of strength, where varzesh-e bastani is performed to a drum and a recited text, and Gholamreza Takhti. Japanese chikaraishi stone lifting and sumo. These sit at the front of the archive rather than in an appendix, because the Western story of physical culture borrowed from them and then forgot it had.
Part of Bodybuilding
139 moments in this segment.
- - Queen Victoria's Indian clubs, Kensington Palace. Exercise clubs used by the young Victoria, dated 1830 to 1835 by Kensington Palace. The implement is the mugdar of the Indian akhara, absorbed into British domestic exercise decades before Sandow.
- - Zurkhaneh athletes photographed by Sevruguin. Antoin Sevruguin's Qajar-era studio images are among the earliest photographic records of the zurkhaneh, the Persian house of strength. The building's defining feature is a sunken pit, the gaud, ringed by seating for athletes, musicians and spectators.
- - Four Persian wrestlers, Sevruguin studio. Koshti pahlevani, the wrestling arm of the zurkhaneh tradition, is one of the two ancestors of Indian pehlwani, the other being indigenous South Asian malla-yuddha.
- - Pehlwans at Hyderabad. Pehlwani formed under the Mughal empire as a synthesis of Persian koshti pahlevani with malla-yuddha. The name comes from the Persian pahlavan, meaning hero or champion.
- - Milwaukee club-swinging team. Indian club swinging, the mugdar of the akhara, was exported into 19th century British and American military and gymnastic training. It is a documented transmission from a non-Western tradition into Western physical culture, running against the usual direction of the story.
- - Gama Pehalwan’s Tour of London 1910 I जब गामा पहलवान विश्व विजेता बने. On the Great Gama's London tour of 1910. Ghulam Mohammad Baksh Butt, titled Rustam-e-Zaman, defeated Stanislaus Zbyszko in the London world championship sequence that year. His career is documented in contemporaneous British press, unlike much strongman legend.
- - Wrestler with meels. Paired Indian clubs, mugdar or meels, are one of the akhara's core implements alongside the gada mace and the nal, a hollow stone cylinder with handles.
- - 1970s Zoorkhaneh, Iran Warrior Training, Pahlevani. Zurkhaneh training in Iran in the 1970s, from a film archive. The practice was diminished under Reza Shah and revived under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as part of a nationalism built on pre Islamic heritage, so footage from this decade sits inside that revival.
- - Zurkhaneh interior with portrait of Takhti. Gholamreza Takhti, 1930 to 1968, the Olympic wrestling champion and national embodiment of the pahlavan ideal. His death was ruled a suicide and is widely believed in Iran to have been a killing by SAVAK. The archive presents that as contested, not resolved.
- - Zurkhaneh (House of Strenght): Traditional Iranian/Persian gym. Short footage inside an Iranian zurkhaneh.
- - Zoorkhaneh House of Strenght in Iran. A full zurkhaneh session in Iran. A morshed presides, beating a goblet drum and reciting poetry and episodes from the Shahnameh, which sets the tempo for the movements.
- - Kushti in Sindh. Kushti, the same tradition as pehlwani, continued in Pakistan after partition. The Great Gama, the tradition's most documented figure, moved to Pakistan in 1947.
- - Akhara training. The akhara is an earthen-floored training school under a guru or ustad. Training conventionally begins in the teens.
- - Saheb a Zaman zurkhaneh, Yazd. Iran inscribed the pahlavani and zurkhaneh rituals on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2010. Azerbaijan inscribed its own zorkhana practice in 2022.
- - The Pahlevani and Zoorkhanei rituals. UNESCO's own film on the Pahlevani and Zoorkhanei rituals, inscribed on the Intangible Cultural Heritage list by Iran in 2010. Azerbaijan inscribed its own version in 2022.
- - Indian Wrestling | Last Man Standing | BBC Studios. BBC footage of Indian wrestling from the series Last Man Standing.
- - Zoor-khaaneh (House of Strength). Footage from inside a zurkhaneh.
- - Turkish oil-wrestling / Kirkpinar 2011 (yagli güresleri). Oil wrestling at Kirkpinar in 2011.
- - Old rituals course through Iranian zurkhaneh. Al Jazeera on the rituals of the Iranian zurkhaneh.
- - Mil clubs at Yazd. The mil is a heavy wooden club swung in pairs. The other zurkhaneh implements are the sang, weighted wooden shields worked lying down, and the kabbadeh, a curved iron bow strung with chain.
- - Chanting at the zurkhaneh, Yazd. The morshed recites while drumming. The recitation draws on the Shahnameh and on Gnostic poetry, and the athletes' movements follow its rhythm.
- - Working out at the zurkhaneh, Yazd. The zurkhaneh is a house of strength in the literal sense: a building type, with a pit, a drum seat and tiered seating, not a room fitted with apparatus.
- - Documentary Film on Pehalwani (Wrestling) in punjab. A documentary on pehlwani in Punjab.
- - Indian Wrestling - KUSHTI Documentary. A documentary on kushti, Indian wrestling. Training runs on the dand, a bodyweight pressing movement, and the baithak, a deep squat, with reported traditional volumes running to thousands of repetitions a day. Those specific numbers are traditional claims rather than measurements.
- - Kushti wrestlers in Akhara. Kushti wrestlers training in an akhara, filmed as stock footage without commentary.
- - Edirne Kirkpinar 2013. Kirkpinar at Edirne in 2013.
- - Takhti's championship brassard. A relic of Gholamreza Takhti, whose standing in Iran rests as much on the pahlavan ethic of chivalry and modesty as on his wrestling results.
- - Kushti at Bharatpur. Kushti is fought on prepared earth rather than a mat. The Malla Purana, a 13th century text, already describes the malla-yuddha practice and its practitioner caste.
- - Tehran zurkhaneh. A morshed presides over the session from a raised seat, beating a goblet drum and reciting Gnostic poetry and episodes from the Shahnameh to set the tempo.
- - Swinging the mil, Tehran. Sessions open with praise of the Prophet and his family. The practice is explicitly ethical and Sufi-inflected as well as physical, which distinguishes it from Western physique culture.
- - Zurkhaneh session, Tehran. The zurkhaneh was prominent under the Qajar dynasty with annual Nowruz competitions, diminished under Reza Shah, then revived under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as part of a pre-Islamic-heritage nationalism.
- - Zorkhana implements, Museum of History of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan maintains its own zorkhana tradition and inscribed it on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2022, twelve years after Iran.
- - Zurkhaneh - House of Strength (Iran Bodybuilding). A film on the zurkhaneh, the house of strength. The implements are the mil, heavy wooden clubs, the sang, weighted wooden shields used lying down, and the kabbadeh, a curved iron bow strung with chain.
- - Senegalese Laamb Wrestling & The World is Sinking. VICE News on Senegalese laamb wrestling and the coastal erosion threatening the communities it comes from.
- - Edirne Kirkpinar 2014 Oil Wrestling. Oil wrestling at the 2014 Edirne Kirkpinar.
- - Zorkhana display at Nowruz, Baku. Nowruz competitions are the traditional calendar anchor of the zurkhaneh year, a Qajar-era practice still observed.
- - Documentary on Kushti (Indian Wrestling)- The Dying Art. A student documentary on kushti as a declining practice.
- - MONOHAR AICH 1. A Bengali interview with Manohar Aich. Aich was born at Comilla in the Bengal Presidency in 1912 and died in Kolkata in 2016.
- - POWER Workout • Zurkhaneh Ritual • Tehran • IRAN زور خانه. A zurkhaneh session in Tehran. The building has a sunken pit called the gaud, ringed by seating for athletes, musicians and spectators.
- - Varzesh-e pahlavani at Mashhad. Varzesh-e bastani, the ancient sport, is the older name for the practice; varzesh-e pahlavani, the heroic sport, is the term used in the UNESCO inscription.
- - Sang work, Mashhad. The sang are weighted wooden shields pressed while lying on the back, a movement with no close Western equivalent.
- - Zurkhaneh ritual, Tehran. Associated in legend with the hero Rostam, though that association is folkloric rather than historical.
- - Mil work, Tehran zurkhaneh. The mil are swung to the drum. Weight varies widely and the heaviest pairs are used by a small number of specialists.
- - Zurkhaneh athletes, Tehran. Athletes enter and salute in order of seniority. The hierarchy is explicit and ritualised.
- - Zurkhaneh, Tehran. Under Reza Shah the practice was diminished, then revived under his successor as part of a state programme of pre-Islamic heritage nationalism.
- - House of strength, Tehran. The International Zurkhaneh Sports Federation was founded in 2004 and has pushed the practice toward a competitive, scored format.
- - Grand Sumo: The Beauty of Tradition. A long film on grand sumo and its ritual structure.
- - Full Documentary - Khusti. A full length student documentary on kushti.
- - 'Pocket Hercules' Aich dies at the age of 104 | Oneindia News. News coverage of Manohar Aich's death. Indian competitors won NABBA Mr Universe titles in both 1951 and 1952, Monotosh Roy in the Group III amateur class and Aich in the professional short class, four and five years after independence.
- - 8 Facts About India's First Mr. Universe. A short summary of Manohar Aich's career. He joined the Royal Air Force in 1942 and was imprisoned for striking a British officer over pro colonial remarks, and is reported to have trained harder while incarcerated.
- - India's first Mr Universe Manohar Aich dies at 104. Hindustan Times reporting Manohar Aich's death at 104 in June 2016.
- - Manohar Aich the "Pocket Hercules". On Manohar Aich after his death. He received the Banga Bibhushan award from the Government of West Bengal in 2015.
- - The gaud at Yazd. The gaud is a sunken octagonal or circular pit. Athletes enter it in a fixed order of seniority, and the ritual choreography is as fixed as the exercises.
- - Zurkhona in Dushanbe. The International Zurkhaneh Sports Federation, founded in 2004, claims member federations across dozens of countries. Tajikistan is one of the Persianate states where the practice continued outside Iran.
- - Sudan athletes keep centuries-old tradition alive. CGTN on Sudanese athletes maintaining the wrestling tradition.
- - Many young men in Senegal seek fame and fortune through combat sport. CGTN on young Senegalese men entering combat sport for money and standing.
- - Sudanese Wrestling: Old Sport, New Country - The Feed. SBS on Sudanese wrestling carried into Australia by refugees, an intact strength tradition transplanted.
- - Kirkpinar 2017. The 2017 Kirkpinar oil wrestling championship at Edirne, filmed at length.
- - Takhti zurkhaneh, Yazd. A zurkhaneh named for Gholamreza Takhti. Yazd holds several of the best preserved historic houses of strength in Iran.
- - Zorkhana at Nowruz, Baku. Azerbaijani zorkhana performance at the Nowruz festivities, five years before the UNESCO inscription.
- - The House of Strength: Ancient Persian Martial Arts in Yazd - Iran (4/2018). A zurkhaneh session at Yazd, filmed by a visitor.
- - Zurkhaneh, The House of Strength in Kerman, Iran. A zurkhaneh in Kerman, Iran.
- - The dand. 's bodyweight pressing movement, the so-called Hindu push-up. Traditional volumes are reported in the thousands of reps per day; the widely repeated figure of 4,000 is a traditional claim, not a measurement.
- - The baithak. 's deep bodyweight squat. This plate is captioned as possibly showing the Great Gama, Ghulam Mohammad Baksh Butt, 1878 to 1960, titled Rustam-e-Zaman.
- - Daily Life at a Sumō Stable | nippon.com. Daily life at a sumo stable, from nippon.com. Sumo is the dominant organised Japanese strength and mass tradition, and its relationship to body size is the opposite of bodybuilding's: mass is functional rather than displayed.
- - Panjabi Wrestling - From India to the UK. Punjabi wrestling followed from India to the United Kingdom, where the diaspora kept the practice going.
- - The fight is for life in India’s oldest Wrestling club | Can't Stay Down. The Olympic Games channel at what it calls India's oldest wrestling club.
- - Kushti Wrestling Documentary - Chandu Pahalwan Akhara. A documentary at the Chandu Pahalwan akhara.
- - A Senegalese Wrestler Trains to Become the ‘King of the Arena’ | Short Film Showcase. National Geographic following a Senegalese wrestler training for the title of King of the Arena. Laamb training is a strength culture with its own methods and no relation to bodybuilding, and it draws crowds a physique contest never has.
- - Lucknow Akhara - Traditional Kushti Wrestling workout. A training session at a Lucknow akhara, filmed without commentary.
- - 667. Tarihi Elmalı Yağlı Pehlivan Güreşleri 2019. The 667th historic Elmali oil wrestling festival in 2019, one of the regional events below Kirkpinar.
- - Warming up in the gaud. The session is continuous and drum-led rather than set-and-rest. The morshed's tempo, not a clock, governs the work.
- - WRESTLING inside Africa (Nuba fighting) 🇸🇩SUDAN. Nuba wrestling in Sudan, filmed on location. The Nuba tradition is a strength and grappling culture with no relation to the Western gym, and it is one of the oldest continuously practised in Africa.
- - Indian Clubs/Mugdar Documentary | Rajasthan India. A documentary on mugdar, the paired Indian clubs, filmed in Rajasthan. Indian club swinging was exported into British and American military and gymnastic training in the nineteenth century, a documented transmission from a non Western tradition into Western physical culture that inverts the usual direction of the story.
- - A day in the lives of sumo wrestlers. The Japan Times following a day in the lives of sumo wrestlers.
- - Traditional wrestling sits at the heart of society in Niger. CGTN on traditional wrestling in Niger, where it holds a central social position.
- - A History Of Ancient Nubian Wrestling. A history of Nubian wrestling, which appears in ancient Egyptian tomb painting at Beni Hasan and is among the oldest depicted athletic practices anywhere.
- - संतों और साधुओं की अखाड़ा परम्परा Akhada tradition of saints and sages in India. On the akhara tradition of Hindu ascetic orders. The word akhara names both a wrestling gymnasium and a monastic order of sadhus, and the two senses share a history.
- - Swaminathan Akhada Documentary Varanasi | Gada | Jori | Sumtola | Gar Nal | Yoga | Kushti. A long documentary at the Swaminath akhara in Varanasi, showing the gada mace, the jori clubs, the sumtola beam and the gar nal stone ring in use. These implements are the visual signature of the tradition and predate the barbell.
- - The Rules of Turkish Oil Wrestling - EXPLAINED!
- - A Wrestler’s Dream in Senegal | Africa Direct Documentary. Al Jazeera's Africa Direct on a wrestler's ambitions in Senegal, including the money in the sport.
- - Zurkhane (House of Strength): General Introduction Part 1. An introduction to the zurkhaneh and its structure. The practice is explicitly ethical and Sufi inflected as well as physical, which distinguishes it from Western physique culture.
- - Zurkhane (House of Strength): The whole training session Part 8. A complete zurkhaneh training session filmed end to end, part of a documentary series on the practice.
- - Meet the Great Gama Pehlwan. Brut India's short introduction to the Great Gama.
- - Deceptive Weight of Maces and Clubs | Steel Mace | Clubbell | Mudgar | Gada. On the mechanics of maces and clubs and why their weight behaves differently from a dumbbell of the same mass.
- - Zorkhana at the Victory Sports Festival, Baku. Azerbaijan's zorkhana was inscribed on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2022, the year of this display.
- - Mil swinging, Baku. The mil clubs are swung in fixed patterns behind the shoulders, the movement that most visibly distinguishes zurkhaneh work from Western weight training.
- - The kushti house. An akhara building. The institution is a school, a gymnasium and often a residence for its wrestlers at once.
- - Kushti court. The earthen pit is the akhara's defining surface. Bouts fought on it are the tradition's competitive form.
- - Indian wrestlers. The most documented pehlwan in Western sources is the Great Gama, who defeated Stanislaus Zbyszko in the 1910 London world championship sequence and is recorded in contemporaneous British press.
- - Mud massage at the akhara. Massage and earth work are part of the akhara routine, not incidental to it.
- - Traditional weights. The nal is a hollow stone cylinder with handles, lifted and pressed. It predates any Western apparatus of comparable function.
- - Persian-style weights in an Indian akhara. Implements move between the two traditions. The name pehlwani is itself Persian, from pahlavan.
- - Traditional kushti exercises. Dand and baithak, the pressing and squatting movements, are done in very high volume and form the conditioning base of the tradition.
- - Ancient Indian Wrestling Gym Akhada | Kushti Documentary. A documentary inside an akhara, filmed by The Flowing Dutchman, who documented several Indian training halls in detail.
- - USA, Indian wrestlers practice at Guru Shyamlal Akhada, New Delhi, USA wrestling world tour. American and Indian wrestlers training together at the Guru Shyamlal akhara in New Delhi.
- - Why Mud Wrestlers Give Up Everything For An Ancient Sport | Still Standing | Business Insider. Business Insider on why mud wrestlers give up everything for kushti. The pehlwan lives in the akhara under the guru's authority, which is a total institution rather than a training schedule.
- - How ancient wrestlers built their strength (Chikara Ishi) 力石. A short introduction to chikara ishi and how the stones were used.
- - Manohar Aich - Pocket Hercules. On Manohar Aich, the Pocket Hercules, who won a NABBA Universe title in the professional short class in 1952. He stood four feet eleven inches and lived to 104. Aich is the bridge figure between the Indian physical culture world and a Western physique title.
- - The Great Gama & The 1200kg Stone. On the stone Gama is said to have lifted at Baroda in 1902, usually given as around 1,200 kilograms. The stone exists and is displayed; the weight and the circumstances are traditional claims.
- - 力石総社 お祭りStone lifting in Japan chikaraishi. Stone lifting at a Japanese festival, filmed at a shrine where the chikaraishi are still used.
- - Kushti, India. Malla-yuddha, the indigenous South Asian wrestling that fed into pehlwani, is documented far earlier than the Mughal synthesis that produced the modern form.
- - Preparing the pit. Preparation of the earth is part of the training itself. The akhara is maintained by the wrestlers who use it.
- - Pehlwani
- - Ancient Indian Fitness Group Kochi | Mudgar | Gada | Indian Clubs | Clubbell. A traditional Indian fitness group in Kochi working with mudgar clubs and the gada mace.
- - The Great Gama Pehlwan: The Story Of The World's Greatest Wrestler | Complete Biography. A Pakistani account of the Great Gama. Gama moved to Pakistan after Partition in 1947 and died in Lahore in 1960, which makes him a figure both countries claim.
- - Japan’s Hidden Strength Culture You Didn’t Know Of - Strength Unknown - Chikara Ishi 力石. On chikaraishi, the Japanese strength stones lifted at Shinto shrines, with feats recorded by inscription on the stones themselves. East Asian strength culture is the least documented part of this history in Western sources.
- - Gama Pehlwan ने Bruce Lee को क्या सिखाया ?| Tarikh E597. The Lallantop on the Gama and Bruce Lee connection. Bruce Lee is reported to have studied Gama's conditioning methods, and the claim is widely repeated in both Indian and martial arts sources.
- - Kushti wrestlers, India. The akhara's earthen floor is turned and treated with oil, turmeric and other additions. Wrestlers cover themselves in it before bouts.
- - Akhara bout. Pehlwani predates modern gym bodybuilding in India by centuries and was not derived from it. Most English-language histories of bodybuilding treat these traditions as a one-line courtesy before jumping to Sandow.
- - Wrestlers at the akhara. The tension between traditional kushti and modern gym bodybuilding is a live thread in India, not a settled succession.
- - Kushti training. Training under a guru or ustad conventionally begins in the teens, sometimes earlier, and covers diet, conduct and celibacy rules as well as exercise.
- - 'Our Olympic games': Turkey's historic oil wrestling championship | AFP. AFP on the Kirkpinar championship, which Turkish competitors describe as their Olympic games.
- - The brutal sport that you have probably never heard of | Next of Kin: Laamb. A long documentary on laamb, made for a rugby audience unfamiliar with the sport.
- - Akhara Swaminath: The Legacy of India's Oldest Wrestling Tradition. On the Swaminath akhara and its claim to be India's oldest continuous wrestling tradition, from the Sankat Mochan temple in Varanasi.
- - Senegal’s Traditional Wrestling - Where Culture and Strength Collide. On Senegalese laamb wrestling, which combines grappling with striking and is the country's largest spectator sport.
- - Traditional Japanese Powerlifting Competitions - Sannomiya Unosuke Chikaramochi & Chikaraishi. On traditional Japanese stone lifting competitions, the chikaramochi, and the Sannomiya Unosuke tradition.
- - Gama Pehalwan: Subcontinent's superhero who could not be defeated I गामा पहलवान: जिसे हराया न जा सके. A long account of the Great Gama, who lived from 1878 to 1960. The training volumes usually quoted for him are traditional claims rather than measured records, and the archive presents them that way.
- - गामा पहलवान का अखाड़ा | Datia Madhya Pradesh में आज भी मौजूद है 😱. A visit to the akhara associated with Gama at Datia in Madhya Pradesh.
- - A KUSHTI Documentary: The Spirit of Indian Wrestling. A documentary on kushti and what its practitioners understand the sport to be.
- - The Wolf Who Brought a Bodybuilder’s Physique to Sumo: Chiyonofuji. On Chiyonofuji, the sumo yokozuna who was unusually lean and muscular for the sport and trained deliberately for it after repeated shoulder dislocations. The clearest point of contact between sumo and physique training.
- - The Most Brutal Sparring Session | Extreme Traditional Training Revealed. A full sparring session filmed inside the Tatsunami sumo stable, from the stable's own channel.
- - The 664-year-old sport that still blows minds | Kirkpinar Turkish Oil Wrestling. TRT on Kirkpinar, the Turkish oil wrestling championship at Edirne, which has run since the fourteenth century and is among the oldest continuously held sporting events anywhere.
- - Teaching Larry Wheels 3,000 Year Old Persian Strength Training. An Iranian coach teaching zurkhaneh training to a Western strength athlete. Useful for seeing the implements handled by someone who has never used them.
- - Chikara Ishi (力石) - Japanese Power Stones. A long study of chikara ishi, the Japanese power stones, and the shrines where they are kept.
- - Face-To-Face #06: What is Akhada? Real Meaning & History of Akhada | Open Question. An explanation of what an akhara is and where the institution came from.
- - This is what it takes to be a sumo wrestler - What in the World podcast, BBC World Service. BBC World Service on what sumo training and life actually require.
- - The Last Pehlwans: Inside the Dying Akhadas of Kolhapur | Stories That Matter. On the declining akharas of Kolhapur in Maharashtra, a city with one of the strongest wrestling traditions in India. The pressure on the akhara from modern mat wrestling and from land value is the subject.
- - Inside India's 103-Year-Old Wrestling Akhada. Inside an akhara in India that has been running for 103 years. The akhara is a mud floored wrestling gymnasium and the substrate on which Indian bodybuilding was later built, with training implements that predate any Western apparatus.
- - Turkish Oil Wrestling: A 600-Year-Old Tradiditonal Turkish Sport. A short history of Turkish oil wrestling as a six century old practice.
- - Why Turkish wrestlers are covered in 2 tons of olive oil. On the olive oil used at Kirkpinar and why the wrestlers are covered in it. The oil is what makes the sport a conditioning contest rather than a technical one.
- - The Great Gama: Myth, Legend, or the Greatest Wrestler Ever?. An attempt to separate what is documented about the Great Gama from what is legend. The distinction matters here because Gama is the best documented non Western strength figure of the period and is still routinely written up with invented numbers.
- - Inside India’s 7,000 Calorie Wrestling Diet | Forked. On the diet of an Indian wrestler, reported at around 7,000 calories. Almonds, ghee and milk rather than the protein powder economy of the Western gym.
- - Haryana Wrestling Documentary: मां-बाप भूखे… हरियाणवी पहलवानों का असली सच! Yogeshwar Dutt । Olympic. ABP on wrestlers in Haryana and the economics of the akhara, including the cost to families of supporting a pehlwan.
- - LAAMB • Senegalese Wrestling Rhythms • Full Video (35 Min) • Lutte Sénégalaise. A long film on the drumming and rhythms of laamb. The music is not accompaniment; it structures the event, in the same way the morshed's drum structures the zurkhaneh.
- - कुश्ती से पहले कैसे होती है अखाडे की पूजा? जीतने के लिए क्या करते हैं पहलवान?. On the puja performed at the akhara before wrestling. The akhara's religious dimension, usually organised around Hanuman, is inseparable from its training practice.
- - Sumo Wrestlers in London | ARTE.tv Documentary. ARTE on a sumo tournament staged in London, and what travels and what does not when the sport leaves Japan.
- - विदेशी पहलवान काशी में सीख रहे देसी दांव-पेंच, अखाड़े की मिट्टी से जुड़ा दिल.... Foreign wrestlers training in the akharas of Varanasi. The traffic now runs both ways, which is the same direction of transmission that carried Indian club swinging into British and American military training in the nineteenth century.
- - Traditional Wrestling: बैतूल का ऐतिहासिक अखाड़ा, 144 साल से कायम है दंगल की परंपरा | Original | MPCG. Zee on a historic akhara at Betul in Madhya Pradesh that has run for 144 years.
