10-Year Old Sikh Boy Becomes Youngest Gatka Master

While most young boys in India enjoy a sport of cricket with their friends, 10-year old Manpreet Singh loves nothing more than a coconut being smashed on his forehead using a baseball bat.

The Punjabi boy has become the world’s youngest master of the Indian martial art called Gatka. He is not only brave but laughs before fluorescent light bulbs are smashed across his chest, sending pieces of glass flying everywhere—potentially in his eyes leaving him blind for the rest of his life.

The young boy is a member of the Bir Khalsa Sikh Martial Arts Group in the Punjab city of Amritsar. Some of the stunts that members of this group are involved in are being run over by cars and training that involves using swords and spiked maces.

Each day after school, Singh rushes home to practice his martial art followed by time left to enjoy with his friends doing ‘normal’ activities such as cycling and playing cricket.

Gatka is a sport passed down from generation to generation in the Punjab region, which only Sikhs are allowed to perform. It is a style of stick fighting. The sport not only promotes discipline but it was successfully used in the battles against the Mughal forces in the 16th and 17th centuries. The goal of the sport is to be able to use a vast array of hand-to-hand weapons with precision and perfection.

Most Gatka groups train in religious settings such as in a gurdwara or Sikh cultural center or school. It is considered to be both a spiritual and physical exercise.

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