The practice of Kalaripayattu along with it's invaluable life style is very special to enhance various potentialities and to maintain equilibrium of a person's physical, mental & spiritual layers of life.
Kalaripayattu is the most ancient martial art. It was known in the Gurukulam tradition of Gothra culture in India. There were 3 versions of kalaripayattu named Arrappukai version, vatten thirippu version, and pilla thangi version during that time.
Arappukai version consists of a varieties of fighting tactics which is mainly focused on to jump high, standing and lifting legs, bend and fix the body in the middle position and stretch and fight, steps to practice complex exercises, various techniques to develop flexibility and weapon applications are also included. The technique of fighting using the flexibility of the body , the tricky movements in an up and down manner & verieties of jumps are used in Arrapukai version.
Secondly in vatten thirippu version includes varieties of summersaults (Malakkareethikal), a large variety of foot & hand movements (Kalam chavuttu reethikal and vettu chuvadukal) and Body flexibility techniques.
The third one is pillathangi version which consists of ground level stretch movements & its combinations , body flexibility, fast forward & backward movements in different ways, methods to develop the speed & strength of hands . There are also combinations of striking hands on the floor and variety of applications of hands always in low stance movements (kaikuthi payattu) are also included.
The other kalaripayattu names have been derived from names of kalari gurukal(master), his house name, village name etc, according to the situations. They are kadathanadu, thulunadu, odimurisheri etc . After 1957 the Kalaripayattu associations formed and they are coordinated as one union.They divided kalaripayattu in names of northern, southern and central kerala(vadakkan, thekkan and Madhya Kerala) they started conducting kalari competitions. All the Kalaris started then was started under this classification of northern, southern & central kerala.