Ogornat Takia Akhara, Varanasi, India

Ogornat Takia Akhara would have been impossible to find without the local knowledge of a guide, the high boundary walls gave nothing away, a short flight of steps and a very low entrance made entering the Akhara even more secretive.  Once inside, the space opened out completely with a beaten earth training area littered with various bits of traditional equipment such as stone neck and hand nal, jori clubs, nail jori clubs, bamboo and stone gada.  Cast iron dumbbells and more modern lifting bars and plates.

Ogornat Takia Akhara – Low entrance. The entrance is low so that you bow on entering the Akhara, and pay respect to Lord Hanuman, the God of Strength.

Huge selection of Jori Clubs, note a pair of chrome jori clubs at the centre of the back row. I was told that these clubs were the heaviest Jori Clubs in their collection.

Large selection of Gada – Mace in this room, they are all made from concrete or carved stone and have a bamboo handle.

Nail Jori

Massive Nail Jori.  These clubs are used for training purposes, to make sure that you have good form, if you rip your back in the process you will only have yourself to blame for bad form.

Grand Master of the Akhara

Group shot with the Grand Master of the Akhara, some of the wrestlers and the Nail Jori.

Jori Clubs – My First Time Ever Swing

Jori Club Swinging, this was my first time ever using Jori Clubs.

Indian Clubs

Indian Club Swinging, I was very surprised to learn that Indian Club swinging was no longer practised, for example, two hand heart-shaped swings, alternate swings etc.

All the members of the Ogornat Takia Akhara were very interested in the swinging of lighter clubs, in this case, we used a small pair of Jori Clubs for the demonstration.

Here is one of the coaches swinging alternates, I suspect that he must have done it before as he went into it without hesitation knowing exactly what to do.

Hand Nal

The coach demonstrating a hand Nal lift (a NAL is a hand-carved stone with a central handle), in the next four photographs.