My family used to have a horse when I was younger. If only I had one now. I would have loved to learn (and still want to) how to ride like the Mongols or Cossaks of old. I agree with you, many European martial arts are overlooked. However, many "European martial arts" are also scams, entirely made up systems with techniques taken from Asian arts and then rendered ineffective through strange training methods and fighting stances.
Not nessecarily disagreeing with you, It would be fun if you could come up with excamples? I can help you out, with "viking" and "Germanic" martial arts, often presented on History-channel and similar kinds of channels. The people have the weapons, then play with them, experimenting, and for all I know, they might do somthing right, but we will never know, as there doesn't exist any sources on the techniques -and don't come with the iceland-sagas, as they were written 200 years after the viking age; that was action-novels, that for all we know -did put as much emphasis on getting the fighting-techniques correct, as Hollywood does today :yeleyes:
LOL freestyle and greco roman wrestling as well as native styles of wrestling still exist, fencing and many styles of WMA sword fighting still exist and none of them are scams. but i understand the problems with many styles. same thing in india where there arent many recorded techniques or lineages with certain MAs.
There are a few out there, most notably "Stav". Eek. However, the nice thing is that it's reasonably easy to spot the scams these days. Fora like MAP are great resources for the uninitiated. Now, if someone is bound and determined to find some kooky hokum and believe in it, it doesn't matter where the fraud comes from. The same people who would be taken in by a fictional European MA would be just as happy with a fictional Asian one, with their choice likely dictated by proximity. They're not going to be interested in a legit MA of any kind... they're more after the faux mysticism and perhaps "looking deadly". Basically, there are no "secret lineages" in European MA... just some obscure ones that are still "out in the open" for those willing to do some looking and perhaps send an email or two. To my knowledge, what we have with living lineages are: Sport Fencing Classical Fencing Hungarian Sabre Boxing Wrestling Folk Wrestling (Gouren, etc) Catch as Catch Can Wrestling La Canne/Canne d'arme Grande Baton Savate Jogo do Pau Juego del Palo Khevsur Sword and Buckler Irish Stick Fighting Everything else you find is likely to be reconstructed. If that's the case (like in my class), the instructor should be able to tell you what manuals are being used and why. If he has instruction in other non-European living lineages (which I do) then he should be honest about it (which I am). Or for that matter, if you're learning German longsword from a classical fencer, he should be honest about that background too. Best regards, -Mark
As a poster mentioned earlier, "Stav" (runes and Norse mythology is their guide for fighting, haha) is one. European WEAPONS-BASED martial arts are usually very legitimate, in my opinion. I also consider Systema a largely BS art, with the exception of Kadchnikov's school of Systema. I have only seen videos of Kadachnikov's training. While other Systema "masters' claim that the art was used for Spetznaz (which has no proof to back it up), Kadachnikov was ACTUALLY a military consultant who worked with small unit combat training and the entire system is now property of the Russian Federation. He has videos for civilians, which are fairly watered down, but also a few proper military training videos on youtube.
Ah, STAV, yes, I've read a bit about that. Beeing Norwegian myself, I find the whole Stav quite inaccurate. I have no problems with people going like "Hm, what if i take all the runes in the old germanic system and tries to copy the figures with a staff?" -then attending some EMA-classes that involves bo -and then try to squeeze the EMA-forms to resemble the runes. -I have no problems with that; as long as it isn't promoted as "Do you want to know how the vikings fought with staffs, pay me a lot of cash, and I'll teach you, as I was thought by my father* (*I think I remember the "founder" of staff claiming that he learned some staff-fighting from his grandfather, but that's either a blatant lie, or this guy have a seriously weird family. I don't know about anybody in norway that teach their children how to fight with staffs, that wave started with the 70's and Bruce Lee. If that grandfather was waving around a staff, it is extremely unlikely that it decended from viking age; at least the Icelanders would be doing STAFF Icelanders knows "everything" about Viking age, and if it doesn't even appear on the Icelandic radar, it's certainly nothing viking-related
Talking about Icelanders, Glima is actually a real WMA-system, but one have to divide between "løse tak", "ryggtak" and "broktak" (loose-holds, back-hold and breeces-hold) The two latter are versions that have been practiced on Iceland at least since 15th century (allthough Icelanders will insist it goes all the way back to Viking age. Not unthinkable, there is no evidence of that). The other "full contact" version, is only mentioned in sagas that was written around 13th century, and some sort of water-wrestling is allso mentioned, but this stuff doesn't contain any techniques, and the "loose-holds"-tournament that was arranged in Norway's viking-markets this summer is more about MMA with viking flavour than anything else; here's a vid. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AY1MuWm4qA"]Norwegian Glima Championship in Gudvangen 2011 (Del 5) - YouTube[/ame]
I was going to mention Stav too as I was in Hull for 4 years and that was where it started...errr I mean was rediscovered [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SmVo_ixO2c&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SmVo_ixO2c&feature=related[/ame] Absolute tosh!
I'd love to see theese dudes visiting bullshido.com with a scramaseax, asking if anybody on that forum would like to try to attack them, and then they could demonstrate the superior art of STAV against a typical dagger-sized viking weapon :yeleyes: (Here's a scramaseax; they were between 20 and 50 cm long :yeleyes: http://images.tribe.net/tribe/upload/photo/34f/e35/34fe3553-1984-49dd-a14c-e27259315c4a )
The Bear is right. Here is a video from one of these groups. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StucLOl-Z-Y&feature=related"]ДиÑциплины шермиций. ОÑновные Ñлементы. ЧаÑÑ‚ÑŒ перваÑ. - YouTube[/ame] Its classical European fencing, very akin to French period techniques. As much as possible I think living lineages (if this one is valid) should be encouraged. Reconstruction should be done where nothing is present anymore.
