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
Indian martial arts body. Stances and forms traditionally made up the early training before students progress to free sparring with sticks to simulate swords in an exercise called gatka, although this term is more often used in English when referring to the Panjabi-Sikh fighting style. A common way to practice precision-cutting is to slice cloves or lemons, eventually doing so while blindfolded. Pairing two swords of equal length, though considered impractical in some parts of the world, is common and was considered highly advantageous in the Indian subcontinent. Stick-fighting (lathi khela) may be taught as part of a wider system like Gatka, silambam