It doesn't matter. What the nihangs did 100 years ago has no relevance today. Because people fight differently now. As a karate black belt, 90% of what we learn is useless, cos it revolves around how people fought 100 years ago. Today, most teenage boys likely to cause fights (at least in the uk) do boxing. But when boxing was really popular, people used to throw punches, hence why the "man to man fist fight" image was there. But now that UFC is popular, people do all sorts like grappling, knees and all (even with no training).  And also, I highly doubt anyone ever attacked a nihang Singh unarmed back then, just by seeing their saroop with shastaraan. What they did do, however, was Loh Mushti but that was more of a sport than a combat system. They definitely would have trained in basic fighting like wrestling and strikes but not a system. Because any good fighter knows that trying to find a "code" to fight by is stupid. But in terms of unarmed fighting, it was rare and probably revolved around disarming an armed attacker (do NOT even attemp to learn that, you will get killed and there's no point even trying to learn).   If you're interested for historical/ preservation purposed then great, but if you want to learn it for self defense or fighting tactics then pls don't, because what worked then won't work now and Nihangs were probably quite limited in hand to hand combat training cos they're armed to the teeth, deterring any unarmed attacker and killing one if they tried to fight

and the gatka akharas haven't improved. I saw stuff on BBC and it was embarrassing. Still teaching bhangra moves, morris dancing and I came across an infinity symbol stick move taught as a beginner move??!!

13 years later from this post.. No one else has come forward and say with their chest..... They also know full Jungi vidiya. Absolutely no one