Silambam Asia where silambam greatly influenced many fighting systems. The Indian community of the Malay Peninsula is known to have practiced silambam as far back as the period of Melaka's founding in the 15th century, and likely much earlier. The soldiers of Kings Puli Thevar, Dheeran Chinnamalai had Silambam army named "thadii pattalam", Veerapandiya Kattabomman and Maruthu Pandiyar (1760–1799) relied mainly on their Silambam prowess in their warfare against the British Army. Indian martial arts suffered a decline after the British colonists banned Silambam along with various other systems. They also introduced modern western military training which favoured fire-arms over traditional
Silambam of the stick. There are sixteen of them among which four are very important. Footwork patterns are the key aspects of Silambam. Traditionally, the masters first teach kaaladi for a long time before proceeding to unarmed combat. Training empty-handed allows the practitioner to get a feel of Silambam stick movements using their bare hands, that is, fighters have a preliminary training with bare hands before going to the stick. Gradually, fighters study footwork to move precisely in conjunction with the stick movements. In Silambam, kaaladi is the key to deriving power for attacks. It teaches how to advance and retreat,