Sapps and Sticks

[Jeeti]

Is anyone on here from MBT? We used one of their Saaps at Fusion and they were sick...they were absurdly light...did you make them?...and yeah I have the same question as Faizan...i saw you guys (UR Bhangra) at Hungama, and your khunde looked legit to me and agreed your dance was money.

 

[Havish]

With Khundey - if you are just starting off as a team then going to home depot and buying regular wood for them works fine because you might not have the funding for it. But if you want traditional khundey its hard to find them in the US, ones that have the curve at the end. The best thing is to get them from India because it won't cost as much as say Toronto and you will get great quality. The key with this is having someone bring them back with them because shipping will cost a lot.

With Sapps - I would advise buying them. We made our own once a few years back and first of all its takes a lot of time to make them perfect. Second you need to have the right type of wood because sapps go through a huge amount of stress, so if you get the wrong type of wood they will break easily. Once again I would advise getting from India, but if you might not have someone going there soon, then I would try to borrow some from a team in the area.

 

[imakhilyou37]

Hmmm what if you just got wood canes and made them longer lol, or just used the top from em. I don't know how that'd look but maybe that'd work.

"Rock out with your DAANG out"
~Akhil Chandan

 

[anayb]

Jeeti,

What up. We got our Saaps from Punjab Sports in Canada like Shubh suggested, but we modified them a little. First we sanded them all down like hell so they were nice and smooth and didn't make our finger bleed. Then, we stained the wood to give it a nice wood finish. We noticed that after doing this, they got a lot looser and easier to use.

Punjab sports had 2 types of saaps when we were there. 1 for 15 and another, supposedly better quality wood, for 20 or 25. We chose the higher quality wood. Unfortunately, our Saaps started breaking really quickly (within a month). We started with 9, and by the time Fusion (2 months from purchase) came around we were down to 6. I don't know if this was a result of the modifications we made or the actual Saaps from Punjab Sports. We ended up borrowing 3+ saaps from MSU, who borrowed them from PDDS... but they were definitely different than the ones we had, both in shape and style. Not bad, just different.

So basically if you hit up punjab sports, really look at the rivets for the Saaps, and guestimate if they'd break or not. Also, if you wanna extend the life of the saap there is a technique we learned that doesn't put as much stress on them: Instead of hitting and then turning (when doing the most basic saap move), start turning before you hit, and hit right when the saap has turn 90 degrees. This technique helped out a lot not only with preserving the saap's life, but also to maintain energy in our arms.

Kinda went off on a tangent there. My bad

-- Anay
MBT
http://www.umich.edu/~bhangra

 

[Nikhil]

RIP Bruah and Nithesh's homemade saaps.

Courtesy of Aman Dhaliwal

 

[TheBraveOne]

but dude remember the sapps from punjab sports are directly from jallandhar and are some of the good qality sapps in my opinion but some do break quickly its true, however even if u get the thickker sapps from india they can beak easily too...the point is that any sapps can break do to the wood but when u use the skinnier sapps from punjab sports there looser than the thicker sapps u get from india...teams like nachdi, sgpd, shan e use sapps like those that are skinnier and do more difficult moves with them...i find it harder to use the thicker sapps

 

[anayb]

Jeeti,

My bad. I just realized you are on TRB, meaning you were probably at fusion 2 years ago, not last year. Those saaps were a LOT different. They were helllllla thick and heavy, but they rarely broke. They lasted over 3 years. I wasn't there to order those ones. Gotta go straight to the pind to get those...

-- Anay
MBT
http://www.umich.edu/~bhangra

 

[kinnell]

I've been messing around with the SAAP I got from Panjabemall.com. Initially it was pretty heavy and hard to hit. Now after hours of dancing in my room, it's really loose and pretty baller. Total cost was $30 and I'm happy.... for now!

 

[Manjot]

you can always loosen up the bolts to make it more slanky

 

[Vick]

Faizan and Mariam, marital problems?

 

[JSahota]

The kundey that our toddlers use, are actually homemade. I have no idea how they were made, but they have the curve at the top, and are very light weight. We actually used them ourselves at vibc this year. For chikey the best are from India, but for vibc we didnt have enough so we bought ours from Lebas of India in Malton, the chikey are red and yellow, so theyre pretty funky looking, but are very light. More than half of the dancers used those same chikey on stage at vibc n they worked well.

 

[Velli]

if a shika breaks, save it and use the broken shika pieces to replace any cracked pieces in other shikhe. Also loosen the bolts if possible or you can go to any hardware store and get bolts that u can loosen and tighten to personalize the shika to ur liking. Also using a wax/oiler will def help make the shika more smooth and easier to use.

However practice makes perfect. Gotta keep those elbows out.

 

[Amit]

Hey guys,

Thanks for all the great advice.

We currently have the "home depot" sticks and we just tied some cloth on the top, but we do want to look into investing into real dhaangs and sapps.

I am actually going to be going to Hamilton, Ontario this weekend and if possible, I want to check out some bhangra props while I'm there. Do any Canadians, or knowledgable folks, know if there are any places around there? I won't have a lot of time to travel far so hopefully there's a place nearby.

 

[TheBraveOne]

hamilton is realli close to both brampton and malton (punjabi capitals of toronto)..id say about a 20 min - 40min drive depending on where u are in hamilton so u shud chek out those places