What is pashki?

A brief introduction by Geoffrey White. (Reproduced with kind permission)

If this extract has found its way onto your screen, you presumably have some idea what you have here. At the very least, you’ll have heard of pashki. You’ve heard the usual spiel: it’s something like a martial art, something like yoga, something like dance, and yet not quite like any of them. So what is it, does it really exist, and is there anyone alive today who can teach it to you?

Here are some of the commonly asked questions.

1.What does pashki mean?

I am tempted to say, ‘Trouble’. But let’s talk about the word itself. Pashki is a blend of two non-English words. ‘Ki’ is one of a host of similar terms that refer to the life force, spirit, soul, or simply energy. It has various forms throughout cultures and languages, such as chi or qi. You’ll find it in the word ‘reiki’, for example. Interestingly, in ancient Egyptian the word is ka – so pashki ought perhaps to be pashka. However, it’s possible that later adoption by eastern practitioners resulted in the more common modern spelling and pronunciation.

The ‘pash’ element almost certainly derives from Pasht, the Egyptian cat goddess. There is some debate as to what her name really was: Bast, Bastet, Pasht and Pakhet are just a few of the variations. Many people will crossly insist that it must be spelt with a B, not a P. Of course, it’s spelt with neither, since the original name doesn’t use the English alphabet. The spellings we have can only ever be approximations, based on how we believe the word was spoken. It’s likely the sound of B and P were considered to be virtually the same anyway.

The word pashki, then, would appear to mean ‘the life force of the cat goddess’, or simply ‘cat power’. I was amused to learn that this is also the name of rather good American singer-songwriter.