In Vedic or Gurukul Education System, various self-defence skills at physical, mental and spiritual levels (Marshal arts, yoga, meditation, bodybuilding, gross and fine motors movements) were taught through indigenous sports, and games, play-ways, learning-by-doing constructed activities and self-disciplined daily-life activities.
The teaching and coaching or guidance and practice were given through kinesthetics-cum-spiritual intelligence based activities which were considered as relevant pedagogy. .
In other words, the instructional pedagogy was in the form of multi-sensory activities and kinaesthetics were used to construct knowledge through dialogue and group discussions which in turn was reinforced through coaching and guidance of the Guru for deep-practice, criterion-referenced mastery and internalization.
The kinaesthetic activities often consisted of wrestling, archery, lifting, stick-fights, maze-fights, tree-climbing, racing, tag games, crawling,and animal walks
Appreciative display of learning consisted of synchronized physical displays, recitation-talent, declamation, classical singing, devotional singing, and devotional dancing
For scriptural knowledge, self-study, active remembering and recitation of text was followed by dialogue, content-analysis and focus-group methods. The learning was reinforced by Guru's seasoned and reasoned sermons and discourses backed by stories, songs, examples and self-developmental messages.
The pedagogical framework of Vedic or Gurukul Education is summarised in the following graphic
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