English Martial Arts??

English Matial Arts??

I've heard a couple of times mentioning the old English Martial arts.
Are they referring to boxing, and old wrestling or is it something else. Are they still taught today, and are they any good.

 

They are in practice today, a variety of indigenous weapon arts including sword, dagger, cudgel & quaterstaff they also do the older styles of boxing & wrestling (which have kicks)

They've been going a while now, the founder is former Kung Fu master, Terry Brown. I doubt if he would have bothered if they weren't effective for him personnally or for the people who train with him.
I believe he can be contacted at:

http://www.maisters.demon.co.uk/

Louie

 

I suppose "fisticuffs" would be.

 

Boxing that's about all i've heard. Boxing is shared by most of europe as a sport as is wrestling.

The Irish have some of their own. Boxing and Bata stick fighting which is based on boxing are well known. Bata is Irish cane fighting. Very interesting.

 

Re: English Matial Arts??

Here's a link to my book reviews;
http://www.martialartsadvice.com/cat.php?cat=4

Loads of books about aspects of Old European Martial Arts, including Terry Brown's (Maister of London) book-
'English Martial Arts' (Get a copy).

Also Paladin Press has a Fantastic book called
'Master of Defence' (The works of George Silver)
by Paul Wagner.

Which is a detailed analysis of George Silver's 1599 Book 'Paradoxes of Defence'. I haven't finished it yet, but will post a review soon (on my website), it's excellent.

European Arts were and are fantastic, highly developed and something to be historically respected.

 

True English MA is here:

http://www.jogoff.com/worldcup/#

Cheers,

DH

 

hahahahah Paul Kaye Demonstrating some of Basingstoke's finest.

 

I wanted to post that Brit Fight, but didn't cos of the language. Funny as hell

 

Bear in mind that historically Britain has been at war for most of its existance and before. As a nation we have fought for our nationality (and to be fair lost for a large portion of it) since like forever. The martial arts that occured back then are a mix of different cultures Roman, saxon, viking and the celtic fighting styles. The true english martial arts are primarilly weapon based, cos lets face it who wants to go hand to hand with an armoured loony waiving what seems to be a metal surfing board at you. For this reason weapon combat such as sword and Long bow were emphasised while our unarmed skills suffered. But then who needs to use unarmed in that period when you are capable of putting 10 arrows into the air all capable of punching through plate mail.

What would qualify as an english martial art now I am not sure. A lot of those skills have been lost to time. Although some are practiced still gone are the days when we had to practice with a bow or sword every sunday for two hours in front of clergy members.

 

Not necessarily true, The English Fight (olde style Boxing) was a relatively complete Fighting and sophisticated system consisting of many Striking (Kicks, Chops, Punches, Hammerfists, Forearm and Elbow strikes etc) and Wrestling (Throws, Locks, Pins, Breaks, Hoists, Groundwork etc).

Remnants of this and other systems remain in still practised, but minority Fighting Arts from the British Isles today.

If you are interested, then read, as a starting point, 'English Martial Arts' by Terry Brown (Anglo-Saxon Books) for more information.

 

Longbow, Broadsword, Dagger, Pint lifting, oops that is not a martial art.
What the hell its better than most MA's

David (hick)

 

Might find something here (or someone who knows something about it): www.theARMA.org

 

TeJitsuDo is English.
Adapted from Eastern Martial Arts and mixed in with traditional Boxing Techniques. Its quite new and is still developing.

 

English Martial Arts

The English Martial arts are alive and well in England and America.

We have the main Company of Maisters club in Mill Hill London.

We have an English Martial arts club in the Wallace Collection in London.

We also have a Company of Maisters club in America run by Chris Myers.

If you want to know more look at the website for the Company of maisters

Frank

 

damn shame you've not spread out up north, or even to the midlands so far. London is a fair treck from here, plus its stinks of car fumes.

 

You could allso search for a guy named Mendoza, an author of an english(?-It sure seems very similar to what SoKKlab describes some posts above.) -boxing manual from the 17th century.
(I might miss by a century here, as I've only been briefly introduced to the manual by a chap named Colin Richards, currently living in Germany. He does lectures, in most WMA's actuly. His force is Italian Longsword and Sword/bucklar; I-33)

 

see as far i've seen, people like maisters and terry brown, only go as far back as 16th century english systems (like elizebethian times)

Given that the art, architecture, religion were fairly advanced many years before this, where is the info on these earlier arts. By earlier i mean, before the church hit uk, possibly even as far back as prettanic days. We had systems of divination then, ideas of systems in all other aspects of life, surely a martial art system of some form must have been around before 16th century. (I'm also fairly sure that systems would have been in celtic ireland/prussia/germania/gaul/ even nordic systems around this time. where are they now.

Any info would be most appreciated ?

 

Yes, there were martial systems that existed in England before the 16th Century, but without written documentation it is difficult to discern what that system would have been like.
The absence of written documentation is not unusual as paper is a delicate medium and much has been lost to fire, flood, war and plague, not to mention of course the Disolution of the Monastaries by good old Henry, where many manuscripts would have been held. This is not to say that something may not be found in the future, as many libraries have not fully their collection, or have recorded it in error, and there are also private collections where material may be held and not come to light unless that collection is sold or is otherwise made public.
In addition to that we must remember that the documents before the 16th century would have been more likely to be hand written, which means that only one or two documents may ever have existed unless someone decided to have them copied. For instance, there were only 5 copies of Fior Battaglia recorded in Nicolo III's library, if these had not been copied would we be aware of the existance of this particular MS. It was not until the advent of the printing press that manuscripts could be more easily produced and disseminated and this is why we have a sudden increase in the available amount of date for later periods, as well as the fact that these documents would have had a couple of hundred years less wear and tear than earlier manuscripts.
Also, it may surprise people to learn that England was not as advanced culturally as one may think. England was pretty much a cultural backwater, being on the edges of the Angevin Empire and also embroiled in war for lengths of time that really stretched the coffers of the English to the very limit into bankruptacy and beyond. This may of course, be another reason why fighting systems are not recorded in England before the 16th Century.
As far as the existance of earlier forms of MA, I would say look at the traditional wrestling systems, although probably a sportive version of what they developed from, if we consider what is banned as well, we may get close to a realisation of what some early forms may have looked like. In addition to this we cannot ignore the more traditional forms of folk dancing as these may well hold some clues as to what the ancient martial systems may have looked like, but I am sure that Louie can talk more about that aspect.
However, when looking at these earlier forms, however, they may have descended and exist today, we must remember that there has been hundreds of years for these things to change, for example look at the english language and how this has changed since the 14th Century.
Finally we must remember that the English is a mix of people from all over Europe and each would have bought their own cultural heritage with them, and also their fighting arts, and these too would have been absorbed into the fighting mix and would have changed systems of Martial Arts....
Sorry I will stop now, as I am boring even myself.

Regards
Rob

 

Not boring at all, quite informative. I had thought of morris dancing as akin to a form of throwing, wearing heavy armour, even irish dancing may have a martial aspect to it.
Although i realise the factors affecting the texts concerning the older arts, i just do find it very difficult to believe that nothing survived. If we look at say the knights templar and roslyn chapel it was not uncommon for things to be hidden from the church's destructive reach. i'm sure texts will be aroud. somewhere.

 

The search for Indigenous Martial Arts