Kalarippayat with Raam

Raam is a kalarippayat performer, instructor, contemporary dancer, choreographer and theater artist. He has been practicing Kalarippayat, a 3000 year old traditional martial art form of Kerala, from the age of 5 as he follows a lineage of Kalarippayat artists. His great grandfather, C.V. Narayanan Nair, re-discovered Kalarippayat to its present form and pioneered the first traditional school in 1956 offering training in northern style Kalarippayat. Trained under his grandfather and uncle, Raam has been performing worldwide, teaching and practicing since 2006. Along the way he has exposed himself to other dance and movement forms like bharatnatyam, ballet, capoeira, modern dance techniques, contact improvisation, floorwork techniques, release technique etc.

With his own training and learnings, he has created a specific pattern to work with student's alignment to find the right balance between strength and flexibility to achieve what is termed as an ideal/neutral body. Kalarippayat as a form is considered to be difficult and physically exhausting but he believes that the right idea about the form is to find softness and fluidity with our body. He hopes to make a change in how Kalarippayat is viewed.