Sqay (Kashmiri Sword and Shield)
Kashmiri martial art that Nazir Ahmad Mir reintroduced as a sport in 1987. Competitors use a padded tura stick and a leather bargula shield, with light contact.
Quick Facts
IndiaCharacter & Origin
Training
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.
About Sqay (Kashmiri Sword and Shield)
Sqay is a Kashmiri martial art. Its antiquity rests only on tradition. According to Nazir Ahmad Mir, quoted by the newspaper Rising Kashmir, sqay was a martial art of ancient Kashmir in which kings trained the army, it was locally called shamsheerizen, and it declined after 1819. The agency ANI reports a tradition according to which a king named Diya Dev ordered an army skilled in sqay to be raised. We have not found a founder or a year of origin.
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Its modern form was given to sqay by Nazir Ahmad Mir, who, in his own words, reintroduced it in Kashmir as a sport on 7 May 1987 and wrote its rules. According to the official rules of the International Council of Sqay, competitors use a tura stick made of synthetic fibre and covered with soft leather, and a round leather shield called bargula. Strikes, hits and kicks must be controlled and pulled back after a light touch, and excessive contact leads to disqualification. Besides loba bouts, there are also competitions in performing khawankay forms and in the musical form aero sqay. According to a summary by the law firm Fox Mandal, the Ministry of Sports recognised the Sqay Federation of India in 2015 as a regional sports federation and withdrew the recognition on 5 September 2023, having concluded that the federation had falsely presented itself as a duly registered association. At the 37th National Games in Goa in 2023, sqay was, according to The Times of India, a medal sport for the first time.
History
According to Nazir Ahmad Mir, quoted in 2023 by the newspaper Rising Kashmir, Mir came across sqay while studying texts and chronicles about Kashmir, and it was a martial art of ancient Kashmir. According to him, kings trained the army in it, it was locally called shamsheerizen, it was performed at weddings and markets, and it declined after 1819. According to Mir, the word sqay is Persian and means knowledge of war. A press release of the National Games, taken over by the agency ANI, by contrast derives the name from the Persian word sai, a club or stick. The agency ANI also reports a tradition that a king named Diya Dev ordered an army skilled in sqay to be raised, and the website The Citizen one that the history of sqay reaches back to when people learned to defend themselves against wild animals.
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According to the newspaper Rising Kashmir, Nazir Ahmad Mir from Drangbal near Pampore became acquainted with martial arts in 1975 through an Indian army officer in Srinagar. On 7 May 1987, in his own words, he reintroduced sqay in Kashmir as a sport and wrote its rules. As interest was low at first, he also took up, according to the same interview, the Manipuri thang-ta, trained at the national institute of martial arts in Pampore. From 1992 to 1993, according to the newspaper, he founded the Indian federation of sqay, later left it and founded the International Council of Sqay. Green does not mention sqay in the book Martial Arts of the World.
How it differs
In sqay bouts under International Council of Sqay rules, kicks to the face and chest also score, the shield bargula is a leather circle, and the stick tura is covered in soft leather. Nazir Ahmad Mir, who introduced sqay in modern times, also devoted himself, according to the daily Rising Kashmir, to Manipuri thang-ta, trained at a martial arts institute in Pampore. The rules also state that they apply to federation competitions, school and university games, and all government and official competitions.
Technique
According to the official rules of the International Council of Sqay, competitors use a tura stick of synthetic fibre covered in soft leather and a bargula shield of soft leather. The rules glossary translates tura as sword and bargula as shield. The Citizen quotes a description according to which armed sqay uses a curved single-edged sword with a shield or a sword in each hand, while unarmed techniques include kicks, strikes, locks and hand cuts.
Training
According to Nazir Ahmad Mir, quoted by the agency ANI, trainees learn basic stances, footwork and basic strikes before specific forms. They learn offensive and defensive techniques, including strikes, blocks, kicks and grips with sticks or other traditional weapons. According to Mir, the commands and the counting of points are in Kashmiri. The rules give, for example, the commands legiyasha for the start, wordega for the end and katashah for the bow.
Ranks and progression
The International Council of Sqay rules attest a black belt. A black belt holder may compete only if the belt was recognised by the federation or the sqay academy headquarters in Drangbal near Pampore, and the federation cup and national championship have a black belt category with no weight division. We have not found a full belt colour system in the rules. The rules name the forms khawankay Sangri, Judakh, Harbun, Hadiyatun, Kiratun, Asadhun, Hayatun and Aaqaab and the competition categories khawankay 1 to khawankay 5.
Competition
According to the official rules of the International Council of Sqay, competition is in two kinds, loba bouts, one against one by age and weight, for individuals and teams of three, and performance without music, khawankay, or with music, aero sqay. The bouts are sparring in which some techniques are not allowed. All stick hits, strikes and kicks must be controlled and pulled back after a light touch. Light contact is allowed on the body, only very light contact on the face and head, and excessive contact always means disqualification. According to the rules, the tura stick is thirty inches long for the categories up to seventeen and up to nineteen years, and the bargula shield is twelve to thirteen inches in diameter. Competitors wear a chest guard and a soft leather helmet. A kick to the face dre scores four points, a kick to the chest dha two points and a stick hit yaw one point, and whoever reaches three dre kicks wins. Strikes to the eyes and groin, attacks on the sides, knees and insteps, elbow or stick-handle strikes and hitting a fallen opponent are prohibited. A bout lasts five or seven minutes depending on category, with possible extension, and then the first point decides.
Today
According to the law firm Fox Mandal, the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports recognised the Sqay Federation of India as a regional sports federation in 2015. By an order of 5 September 2023 it withdrew the recognition with immediate effect, because after a complaint about a false registration certificate it concluded that the federation had falsely presented itself as a duly registered society. At the 37th National Games in Goa in 2023, sqay was a medal sport for the first time, according to the daily The Times of India, and the agency ANI wrote about its debut. According to Waseem Beigh, an official of the Kashmir sqay association, whom the website The Citizen quotes, the first international match took place in 2008 and the 21st state championship was held in Srinagar in 2021. Nazir Ahmad Mir states, according to the daily Rising Kashmir, that the state of Maharashtra adopted sqay after his demonstration and that the first state to adopt sqay was Thailand.
Did you know
According to its rules, the International Council of Sqay has included snow sqay among its competitions since January 2008, a winter musical discipline on ice in skates or on snow in snowshoes. According to the daily Rising Kashmir, Nazir Ahmad Mir began training women in 1990 and his first female students were his two sisters. According to the same daily, Hanaya Nisar of Kokernag received the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar 2023 for gold at the 3rd World Sqay Championship in South Korea in 2018.
Frequently asked questions
Who revived sqay?
Nazir Ahmad Mir, who, in his own words in the newspaper Rising Kashmir, reintroduced sqay in Kashmir as a sport on 7 May 1987 and wrote its rules.
What is used to compete in sqay?
According to the official rules, a tura stick made of synthetic fibre and covered with soft leather and a leather bargula shield, with a chest protector and a helmet.
Is sqay a recognised sport in India?
The Ministry of Sports recognised the Sqay Federation of India in 2015 as a regional sports federation, but according to the law firm Fox Mandal it withdrew the recognition on 5 September 2023. At the 2023 National Games in Goa, sqay was a medal sport for the first time.
Similar styles
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