Kiripolu (Sri Lankan Wrestling)
Sri Lankan wrestling forming the grappling strand of angampora. The British banned martial arts practice in Ceylon in 1817, so much of the tradition was lost.
Quick Facts
Sri LankaCharacter & Origin
Training
Who It Suits
Organisation & Competition
What the style is built from
Editorial rating on a 0–3 scale, based on how much room each area gets in ordinary training.
Catalogs & Databases for Kiripolu (Sri Lankan Wrestling)
About Kiripolu (Sri Lankan Wrestling)
Kiripolu is Sri Lankan wrestling and forms the grappling strand of the wider angampora tradition. That tradition divides into several parts: angam covers unarmed fighting, illangam fighting with weapons, and kiripolu the wrestling — throws, takedowns, locks and control of the opponent on the ground. Wrestlers compete unclothed apart from a loincloth, on an earth floor, and preparation includes oil massage and breathing work drawn from the local healing tradition; that linking of combat training with medicine is characteristic of angampora as a whole, as it is of Indian kalaripayattu, with which it shares a cultural space. Documentation is thinner than the antiquity claimed for the tradition would suggest, and there is a specific reason. After the Uva rebellion of 1817 the British colonial administration banned the practice of martial arts in Ceylon, and the ban held for decades; the tradition was kept hidden within families and much of it was lost. Today's form is therefore partly a twentieth-century revival assembled from what survived, and it differs in detail between family lines. Part of the tradition is the so-called maya angam, the study of vital points and of healing; as in kalaripayattu, the assumption is that whoever can injure can also treat.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.