what are western martial arts?

Those old French Sailors developed Savate from a series of kicks that they'd practices while balancing in various forms on the ships deck, holding onto the deck for example, and, apparently, incorporated punching [or developed existing] when the met the Pugalists in the UK. So there's a couple more, unless I missed some on the way through... in addition, didn't we incorporate some of their kicks on this side of the channel, and if so... what did we do with them?

 

Yeah, but one theory I've heard states that savateurs learned some of their material while travelling in the East (as sailors). So... does it still retain it's "Western-ness"? There's a lot of cross-pollination, which makes this sort of discussion very difficult to answer definitively.


Stuart

 

Greenoch style

I believe the 'Greenoch' martial art style was invented as a joke by the Monty Python team (I think it's mentioned in the Holy Grail film)
If there is a Greenoch style it would be throwing a pie/fish/pizza supper in your opponents face and kicking him whilst he's scalded!!!!

Louie

 

In addition, people are creative by nature. I find it laughably improbable that the French hadn't figured out to kick or punch effectively before interacting with Asians or the British. It ain't rocket science, and people are smart. Considering the violent nature of many pre-modern societies, I believe indigenous martial arts were already well-formed before interaction with far-removed societies.

Best regards,

-Mark

 

... and more to the point, I think that the Asians already knew martial arts before the French got there.

 

Um... I'm not sure what you're saying here. I said that one theory was that the Asians influenced the French. Not the other way around.

 

You may well be right. But if we can confirm that French sailors travelled to Asia, and we can visually confirm that savate and, say, karate do share some technical similarities, then it's difficult to rule out influence of one on another.

That's not to say that all martial arts flowed from Asia, obviously. That idea is patently ridiculous. But the search for pure styles has always seemed kinda fruitless to me (and I'm not sorry for that).


Stuart

 

True, but given the spooky technical similarities between German Longsword and Kenjutsu, and Jiu-Jutsu and Ringen, one could be tempted to say that they influenced each other, but obviously they did not. So given that two arts, separated by a continent could be so similar as to be "kindred spirits", then it could be argued that a few or even more than a few points of convergence between two arts are more likely to be coincidence that not, even with significant cultural exchange.

Best regards,

-Mark

 

True. Though I'm tempted to believe that simpler, more functional developments happen independently. If the crucible is the same (i.e., actual sword combat), then the conclusions being the same isn't terribly surprising.

But with flashier, more stylistic similarities (e.g., a jump spinning back kick), I tend to assume direct influence. It's hard for me to imagine the crucible by which a technique like that independently seemed the most logical answer to two distinct groups.

I don't know though.


Stuart

 

Then explain Basque zipota? Did Basques sail to orient too? And Parisian street thugs? Jeu Marseillais was developed during French Revolution as physical training for sailors. Pictures I´ve seen, it looks more like Capoeira. Balancing with hands and so on. There might be oriental influence in Savate, who knows? And all the theories might contain part of the truth.

Ps. As savateur, I don´t really care. I know the history up to Michael Casseaux, and that´s enough to me.

 

Can't do. I'm no authority on savate. I'm just saying what I've read. But as a savateur, you're a much better authority than me. So I'll defer.


Stuart

 

Or fish slapping?!

 

>
This may be of interest to you:
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Talking of the Gauls (c. 400AD) Ammanius Marcellinus wrote:
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'In fact a whole band of foreigners will be unable to cope with one of them in a fight, especially if he calls in his wife...poising her huge white arms, begins to rain blows mingled with kicks, like shots discharged by the twisted cords of a catapault.'
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There are three things of note here, one, the expression 'poising her huge white arms'. This is suggestive of adopting a fighting stance. Two, the use of kicks. Three, the date; It is unlikely in the extreme that the French (Gauls) of 400AD would have ever seen an oriental martial art.
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The full quote and much more is in my book, 'English Martial Arts' by Anglo-Saxon Books Ltd.
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Best wishes,
Terry

 

Again with the facts. You guys are killing me.


Stuart

 

Quick answers and speculations:

WMA are often divided into HEMA and "living lineage" styles.

HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) are those extinct MAs that have been revived, mostly over the past twenty years. These are modern MAs based on detailed instructional treatises produced by the historical masters, via intensive academic research and pressure testing (full-contact fencing with two-handed swords, daggers, grappling, etc.)

"Living lineage" forms of WMA are much rarer, especially outside of Europe. They include quite a wide range of stick, knife and unarmed combat styles which are often practiced both as games/sports and as fighting arts. A quick sampler would be Jogo do Pau (Portuguese stick fighting), Juego del Palo (many regional styles of Canarian stick fighting), numerous traditional forms of stick and knife fighting still practiced in Italy, Icelandic Glima wrestling, French savate/canne de combat, etc.

"Greenoch" was a joke probably inspired by "Llap Goch", which was itself a joke put together by the Monty Python team back in the '70s.

No-one knows where savate ultimately came from but recent scholarship suggests that it may have been influenced by African kick-fighting games observed by French travellers during the late 1700s and early 1800s.

 

GREAT MINDS THINK ALIKE!!

 

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Possible, but kicking has been France since long before the 17th century as I posted on this very thread:
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'Talking of the Gauls (c. 400AD) Ammanius Marcellinus wrote:
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'begins to rain blows mingled with kicks, like shots discharged by the twisted cords of a catapault.'
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I would be interested to know which scholar has put this theory forward as I would be interested in reading his dissertation. So I would be grateful if you could point me in his direction.
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Terry

 

Terry,

without a doubt, kicking has been around in France as long as there have been Frenchmen with feet to kick with. However, as the Marcinellus reference dates about 1300 years before the emergence of what is generally recognized as the first references to the modern sport/art of French kickboxing ("jeu marseillais", originally) it can't really be taken as evidence of a continual tradition of indiginous French kickboxing.

The "scholarship" in question is mine, based on correspondence with Luc Cerutti, who is (as you probably know) one of the leading contemporary historians of la boxe Francaise. Most of the formal scholarship into this subject, such as it is, has only been published in French - see Jean-François Loudcher's "Histoire de la savate, du chausson et de la boxe française, 1797-1978 : d'une pratique populaire à un sport de compétition".

My thesis, still under development, is that as the emergence of specific kick-boxing references in France followed closely after the French expansion into Northern Africa, the Sahara and French involvement in the African slave trade (Martinique, etc.) during the late 1700s and as these references were immediately preceeded by a popular (French) awareness of African kicking games, evidenced in French postcard images, "traveller's tales" republished in the popular press, etc., it's not unlikely that the quite sudden emergence of a semi-codified French kicking game/fighting style was directly influenced by African models.

The nature of the relationship between French, Italian, Basque and British forms of kickboxing is still very much open to question and the truth is probably that modern savate can trace its lineage back to a wide range of sources.

 

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Hi Devon,
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Thank you for taking the time to reply with such detail.
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My post was intended to raise the awareness that indigenous arts do not necessarily have a foreign origin. The flip side of course is that foreign origins must not be ruled out as source except by research. This you are clearly doing and I look forward to seeing the results.
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An interesting point arises though whereby nations have common practises which develop in different ways. So that the use of kicks in fighting, for example, is probably world-wide and yet what wass at one stage quite literally a common practise branched in to subsets, each with its own emphasis on method and/or purpose. Added to this is the cross-contamination of martial systems that make the researchers job even harder. For example, French savate, or its period equivalent found its way in to British boxing manuals to teach people how to defend against those kicks. This was because British thugs had begun to copy the French style in their attacks on members of the public. This despite the fact that kicking was used in the earlier schools of British bare knuckle fighting. By the time of the Apaches, kicking, due to various rule changes, had largely died out of competitive boxing and so was 'imported' back in, a re-contamination so to speak.
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A similar situation arose when British boxers began to fight and teach in America, two centuries later American boxing methods were being 're-exported' back to Britain. Of course I am not for one moment suggesting this happened with savate, it is more a comment on sociological trends rather than martial evolution. Might there have been, for example, Roman martial influence in North Africa which evolved into African fighting practises!
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I both respect your work and sympathise with its difficuty in the sense that some years ago I devoted quite a bit of time trying to track down the origins of English Morris dancing which, one school of thought holds, originated in North Africa. So on that basis alone I wish you well in your task.
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Cheers,
Terry

 

Greenoch was I believe invented in a MA newsgroup for topping peoples 'secret' MAs and associated tall stories.
Greenoch