Greetings WMAists, I'm very much interested in the parallels and similarities between Traditional Bareknuckle Boxing and Ving Tsun Chinese Boxing I've hear of such similarities as... - the vertical punch - the wall bag - the frequent use of straight attacks - the stance - the forward guard - simtaneous attack and defense - etc... From a more academic perspective I'm interested in books or any documentation really on Traditional Bareknuckle Boxing that show these similarities. Do you have any books or materials you can recommend me? Thanks, GSR.
doh!!! I just archived my list as I've got about 20 books on hand that I've sworn to get through before I add any more to my library. I'll come back and ad some that fit the bill. Give me just a bit to dig the titles out. I find these sort of connections very interesting. edit: Ok here's two that I don't have. But I'm considering getting these two volumes. They look quite good. Volume 1 http://www.lulu.com/content/101063 Volume 2 http://www.lulu.com/content/105201 Several others well worth checking out: http://www.amazon.com/Bare-Fists-History-Knuckle-Fighting/dp/158567141X http://www.amazon.com/Manly-Art-Bar...0801495822/ref=pd_sim_b_1/103-3160595-7984607 and here's a site that has great info... Scientific Wrestling. They do a package set of barenknucks stuff: http://www.scientificwrestling.com/products/item18.cfm check the vid clip they have their!!
Mendoza and his treatise is a great start- this school teaches pugilsm and they have good texts on the issue http://www.sirwilliamhope.org/Library/ Terry Browns book english martial arts gives a good few techniques which look like wing chun albeit although this is obviously coincidence. you will note in some of the texts on the sir william hope site that frequent use of wall bags. some texts on there are for smallsword and broadsword so youll have to filter yourself and from their they have links to the online treatise. youll note in the book english martial arts that a high block not unlike a bong sau appears although the vertical fist isnt present in the book,some fighters like James figg are depicted in his fighting stance which looks to be obviously used for a horizontal fist strike. Mendoza can be said to be a pioneer in the use of frequent and well thought out straight line attacks,although it has been noted that this could due to his small stature rather than any new fighting revelation of his own. attack and defence at the same is evident in some of the texts and in the excellent wrestling manual by Nicolaes Petter,one can see (i really do recomend this manual). some stances are similar however many are not, what a kew difference is stances is, that pugilsm generally used flowing stances as dictated by the siutuation whereas wing chun stances are pretty fixed. but Barring the mark (putting an arm around the waist and having one hand in guard, could be extrapolated to a wing chun setting i do beleive. if you look into broadsword work you can learn trapping of the blade or of the sword arm, and as most schools of defence did study swordwork aswell as pugilism i doubt these would be hard to transfer to a unarmed setting,these too often use a kick or sweep at the same time as a lock or trap. ken pfrenger is the man to know, most work by him is well thought out and well reasearched, i imadgine dropping him an e-mail may be helpfull, other than that their is a wealth of online manuals out there to look up and also painting of the famous pugilsits themselves and depictiomns of pugilsm (of which their are plents) will give you a better view of how they fought. Good luck!
If its any use to you, here is Dempsey's "Championship Fighting: Explosive Punching and Aggressive Defense". http://stickgrappler.tripod.com/box/dempseycfbook.html
The Linacre group also have this manual by Fewtrell http://www.sirwilliamhope.org/Library/Fewtrell/ Louie
