Kai Peter Hitzer
Kalari.org Founder and Director
Senior Instructor KKA
KKai discovered Kalari in early 2004 while looking for effective exercise to help his recovery from a severe slip disc syndrome. inspired by this experience, he embarked on his first 6-months trip to Kerala in Southern India, starting his studies under Kalari Grandmaster Gurukkal CM Sherif of Kannur. Kai has been passing on the art ever since his return in 2005, his lessons characterized by years of experience with various martial arts, Yoga and their underlying philosophies. A Senior Instructor of the Kerala Kalarippayat Academy (KKA) and the founder of Kalari.org, Kai opened his clay-floor Kalari in Hamburg in 2006.
He is currently based in Hamburg and Barcelona, set on making Barcelona one of the places in Europe to build pit Kalari in the near future.
Kalarippayat
Kalarippayat, or Kalari, has been in practiced since time immemorial. It evolved at the junction of the indigenous dravidian culture of Southern India and the vedic culture. Once a dying art preserved only be a few remaining grandmasters in Kerala, Kalari is now slowly rediscovered. Once it was a way of life, and every 6-8-year-old child would be initiated to the practice at the beginning of the annual rainy season - regardless of sex, caste or religion. Sometimes referred to as the "Tantra Yoga of Martial Arts", Kalarippayat, or simply Kalari, is not just a martial art, but also a powerful healing art and one of the oldest forms of primal human movement still alive. Its fierce physical sequencing is deeply wired into our evolutionary consciousness, ultimately aiming at balancing our whole being on a psychophysical level. The ultimate goal is the realized state that the scriptures describe as „when the body becomes all eyes “.
REGISTER NOW
follow Kai on
web site
www.kalari.org
"Embodying the Animal Spirit“
An Introduction to Kalarippayat
“When the Body becomes all Eyes“
Male and Female Sequencing in Kalarippayat
Yoga and Martial Arts? How does this come together?
Kai Hitzer, founder and director of Kalari.org, will personally guide you through a three-hour journey through the mists of time and back to one of the original roots arts of holistic human movement. Even though Kalari was originally created as Martial Art and Healing Art, its value for the people of today has long transcended these purposes.
Today, Kalari’s unique psychophysical approach makes it an invaluable tool for self-empowerment, growth and long-lasting health. It can teach us how to live our life with proper posture and open eyes. We will start with the very foundations of the practice, building our psychophysical body from the ground up. We will practice the warm-ups, leg exercises and finally Animal Postures. Here we will invest time, exploring the nature and effect of these postures and discovering how they differ from asana. With a good understanding of postures, we will then open the space with the Vandanam, the Salutation Form of the Kalari tradition, exploring the ancient flow of this timeless sequence.
This workshop is perfect for any Yogi, mover, martial artist, dancer or any other practitioner looking to reconnect with one of the original root arts of holistic human movement. The workshop will be assisted by Kai’s Partner Deva, who uses Kalari in her work as a tool of empowerment for women.
Our second three-hour Kalari offering at this year’s LYC takes you deep into the heart of the practice: Male and Female Sequencing or in other words Body forms. In order to ensure proper foundation, we will first revisit the foundations we established during the introduction and pay even more attention to alignment, especially when putting posture to movement. Without moments of time to settle into the posture, we need to pay even more attention, centre and move from the core. But it is that very same challenging process that rewards us by guiding us straight into the moment.
We will take our first steps in the Male Form, experience one of the most vicious forms of Kundalini Yoga, described in the Kalari tradition as “Transformative Fury “. Afterwards we will experience the first flow of the Female Form, putting the energy created in Male Form to action, unleashing movement and creativity and hoping to get a taste of what the scriptures describe as the state „When the Body becomes all Eyes.“
This workshop is perfect for any Yogi, mover, martial artist, dancer or any other practitioner looking for an intense encounter with one of the original root arts of holistic human movement. The workshop will also be assisted by Kai’s Partner Deva, who uses Kalari in her work as a tool of empowerment for women.
Partnerji konference
© 2018 Ljubljana Yoga Conference