Why has British fighting culture since the 19th Century Has been stereotyped as being"Fists Only"?

Inspired by the discovery that Savate Subforum of Reddit has been adopted by a new mod and is no longer restricted. Last time I visited the sub its been a year since the last post as made.

Now a stereotype so common in the martial arts world is that the Brits (and by extension her former white colonies like Australia and the USA) is that disdain using the legs in fighting is an ungentlemanly and cowardly and that real men use their fist (and maybe arms if they learn a bit of wrestling). And that English speaking fight instructors esp n London always emphasize leg techniques as something you shouldn't do because of the high risk of many dangers particularly losing balance esp kicking (but not just that but sweeps and knees and general leg movements). So the cliche is that British fighting approach as still with the arms esp fists because they are the quickest, most practical, and most of all least risky approach to fighting.

I wrote this months ago.

https://www.martialartsplanet.com/t...-take-europe-by-storm-like-in-america.133844/

And the stuff I mentioned including references to Barton-Wright (founder of Bartitsu, the real life martial art Sherlock Holme's fighting style as based on) in the link pretty much dispel the clihe of British culture intrinsically scoffing down on kicking as a myth.

ANd I'm not counting multiple discussions other posters made before I jned rddit including one person's article mentioning that British wrestling uses traps and other leg techniques in a twisted irony of the British martial arts perception that they only strike with fists and also sending out observations of the paradox that the French Savate is basically the earliest organized form of Kckboxing while at the same type French wrestling is completely based o upper body techniques and the most popular style created in France Greco-Roman wrestling would become the dominant approach today used in international competition. And another poster pointing out evidence of Savate in ancient Gaul in another sub and so much more.

But I rally have to ask why did the UK got this stereotype of fistcuffs only? Forget the hooligan fights my Scottish Grandma as a young girl in London. Barton-Wright mentions numerous times that many British gentlemen fool themselves into thinking their eekend arror training in Boxing is enough to handle anything on the streets and he mentions more than thrice of young British middle class guys getting cocky and talking out in the slums at night, participating in the escalation of social situations into violence, and then getting quickly taken out by soccer-loving poor British manual laborers who it several kicks on the leg quickly knck the young cocky Gentlemen down, if not outright break their legs in the process before these Gentlemen could even throw a jab jab straight combos.

My grandma may have immigrated from Scotland to London by her teens, but she tells me of stores of her other relatives who migrated to England t and were sending paycheck for her family by mail............... That generations earlier her own grand uncle (born in 1878) who was living in Liverpool at 15 got involved in a protest turned into riot at a factory in and as jailed because he kicked a policeman in the stomach and then jumped on a table and did a flying vertical kick midair at another policeman and KO'd him too before 3 more policeman sucker hit him with a bat. Add how he learned to do Kung Fu movie style strikes? He practically played Football almost all his freetime at this age.

Indeed you don't even have to search out martial arts specific literature or even read at all-even pop culture entertainment takng place in the 19th century like the recent The English Game on Netflix portray British commoners perfectly capable of using their legs for "cowardly striking".

But still I really have to ask why this stereotype of the Anglo Saxon world not just UK but former colonies is so ubiquitous n international eyes?

I mean starat peekng out articles from this Website.

Australian Savate Homepage

Which is the oldest still running collection of articles on Savate on the World Wide Web (though another Savateur from Canada told me on Discord the site creator had to move it to Wordpress from the original Web Domain because it was getting costly). Its a webste considered so much of a ell done archive on the subject that Britannica Encyclopedia even gave it an Award as seen on the front Page.

You'll immediately find the mentions of Charles Charlemont's legendary fight with British Boxer Jerry Driscoll and the proof of supremacy over regular Boxing and various contemporary statements from French professors criticizing the limitation of British fistfighting.

Even the Bartitsu Society (one of the fe websites on Sherlock Holme's styles that continually gets updated) rote an article criticizing the French of cheating in this bout as well as various diatribes criticizing not just Boxing but also Savate as being useless for general self-defense some which already mentioned in the linked Football post on this sub).

And don't get me started on Europeans VS Chinese Styles and other internatonal proto-MMA competitions where the Brits are almost always represented by a strictly boxing fighter (with the occasional crosstraining into wrestling prizfighter in the tournament).........

I really have to ask why did the UK get this stigma so attached to their fighting culture esp before Bruce Lee's international popularity? And why so many mainstream instructors who are easily accessble to Middle Class Brits seem to reinforce this cliche in the UK from the 19th century all the way post WWII?

Not only as afull well-rounded styles restricted to the British aristocarcy and military as fa as tutelage goes (which despite the vocal fighting sports journalism of Britain opposed at the time, commonly crosstrained in Savate and pick and mixed techniques from across not just Savate and the rest of the Europe but even contemporary Asian stuff)?

It got so ridiculous that I remember a website where they referenced Newspapers criticizing Bartitsu for using dirty tricks and being crudely brutal!

Yet....... As I mentioned multple times on my other post and even in this topic right now the poor working class in Brits not only had no qualms about using "sissy kicking" but a surprising number of commoners threw strikes ith genuine power and even refined tecniques because of playng England's most beloved sport at home and even at the factory during break time.

Hell forget Soccer Football..... Parts of Rural England has this sport!!!!!!!

Shin-kicking - Wikipedia

So you don't need soccer or rugby to see commoner Brits knew about kicking as a thing to be done in brawls as they had Shin Kicking and other Bizarre sports across the rural country that makes you go WTF!!!!!!

So honestly, why did Britain get the stereotypes of being the nation that only fights with your fists? Esp since the aristocracy and military trained in MMA styles and in fencing schools that made heavy use of leg techniques (in addition to taking bits of various styles from Savate and rest of Europe as contemporary Chinese and Japanese styles)? And moreso since the commoners use leg strikes all the time refined from playng games like Shin-kicking and esp Football?

And why did the existing fight clubs seek to reinforce that image for decades on the international scene? I mean noticeable the lack of British wrestlers in pre-UFC MMA cross country bouts is staggering and its as though British fight organizations were intentionally restricting their pool of warriors from the Boxing gyms!

Where as other countriessent out fighters from different styles. I already mentoned France and Savate (who managed to score some victories against Chinese and Japanese fighters) but the Germans had sent some wrestlers in these international bouts with mixed results in addition to boxers and fighters who trained in both. Russian fighters ere known to do an MMA approach even though they came from specialized backgrounds like fencing. Spain has a long history of testing different eapons against countries near the coloies in duels.

So I have to ask why British fight culture came to be this way (and in turn the stereotype also got latched onto America, Canada, and other former colonies)? Despite the fact that majority of England in the 19th and early 20th century and even all the way up until today played in a sport completely revolving around kicking a ball (which also happens to be the most popular sport in the world) while the Britis military always borrowed bits and pieces of fighting styles and even discounting crosstraining and foreign influence, British nobility practised fencing styles heavily incorporating sweeps, trips, and other leg movements and also picked up the latest cool looking fads like Barttsu?

 

Hello, I'm new here, but let me make a theoretical/semi educated guess. First, I'm not an expert on the UK or boxing history. However I do make a casual study of the current Thai Boxing culture. I think it's possible the answer may be found here. Primarily because both are practiced as "combat sports."

The fact that both western boxing and Thai boxing are combat sports has allowed them to be pressure tested, and also associated with gambling. When it is a sport/when money is involved, it becomes all about the rules of the game. In other words it is good because the techniques have to work against resisting opponents, but only in the context of the ruleset.

One of the reasons Muay Thai is considered a more realistic martial art for self-defense, is because the ruleset allows for many of the things you are saying are absent from wester boxing.

At one time, somewhere in the past, for one reason or another/ultimately tied to spectators and money, wester boxing eliminated things like kicks from the rules.

When you practice something for sport, competition or gambling, you are not trying to preserve any techniques. Rather you practice techniques that are allowed and lead to success.

In Thailand, if the rules changed today, and suddenly you could not grab kicks, instantly every gym in Thailand would stop practicing grabbing kicks. It would happen overnight. Why? Because they are not preserving a system, rather they are participating in a sport, or competition, often with money involved. This would seriously degrade the combat effectiveness of the art. Some people would not be happy about the rule change, but they would adapt quickly nonetheless.

My suspision is that boxing has been around for a while, and practiced for competition for a long time. When the rules prohibited kicking, it was simply never practiced or really thought of again, in the context of boxing.

Furthermore, the fact that it was not allowed would instantly cause it to be viewed as underhanded. I think the answer is directly related to how universally popular boxing was, vs the desire for effective self defense.

Incidentally feet are extremely offensive in Thai culture. Showing someone the bottom of your feet is the same as flipping someone off. So you can imagine how counter cultural kicking someone is. Yet it is a vital part of Thailand's national sport. So I would suggest societies views on feet are not necessarily related to a lack of kicking in a martial art.

These are my initial thoughts on this.

 

Did He? I'm Quite familiar with Barton Wright. Where exactly does he say that?

 

Yep you've heard it here. Association football apparently teaches a corpus of sophisticated martial arts kicks. Infact kickboxers, savateurs karateka and Muay Thai practitioners are terrified of the humble proletariat football player/hooligan so much so that they wish they could attend these underground seminars of kicking maestro's rather than those upper class boxers who live amongst the liberal metropolitan elite.

 

I don't know anything about British fighting culture but do know boxing culture pretty solidly.

Speaking for myself as a boxer, with a little karate in me, I don't like or ever want to kick because I need my legs and feet working at all times to keep my hands engaged and my butt moving.. Kicking is a great way to hurt yourself and immediately limit your mobility. You can run away from a fight with busted hand, but hurt your leg, ankle or foot it's going to go south.

In my dumb head, that's just smart fighting, I don't think it's unique to the British either. I'm sure plenty of Thai people only fight with their hands, too.

 

@ Botta Dritta

Also from the same Interview

The Tactics of Bartitsu (Kick)Boxing |

Go us the search bar and type in Football and then n another individual saerch Hooligan on the site's searchbar which is the right at the start of the articles and below the words Categories after reading the article. You'll find not just Barton-Wrights mentions Football a few more times as well as Hooligans in various articles posted on the website but even other people both practitioenrs of barttsu and practitioners of other styles who lived as contemporaries also comments about hooligans, football, and how their crude seemingly rough fighting approach is unexpectedly dangerous (including mentioning a fw of theiir brute force unrefined kicks).

 

Except as I pointed out the British working class throws kicks all the time esp in Football Related Violence. Just watch some of the riots after Italy's victory and other violence that took place at Wembley Euro 2020 last year. Hell just int he recent UEFA games (which just ended weeks ago) there are stuff on Youtube of brawls in France and Germany and kicking eve against standing opponents i a not so uncommon occuren ce esp low strikes aroun the leg area.

So its not like all leg techniques are extremely risky. Especially since all over the world fromt he recent riot in Mexico to the outrage at Nigeria being unqualified for the FIFA cup earlier this year, lo kicks are practically the norm esp upwards vertical kicks (whats often called the generic soccer kicks) and stomps.


So your assumptionis qute wrong and unfortunately you just once again prove th so common (and orribly inaccurate) belef of the stereotype of Brits being fistcuffs.

Discountning untrained folks at Football games....... Take a look at British wrestling esp Catch and Freestyle, the latter which is one of the two resling styles thats been endorsed by the Olympics Federation and been in Every Olympic games since the early 1900s (won't be surprise if I learn its probably been in the Federation at the founding).........

Catch and Freestyle uses heavily leg moves from tripping your opponents the using your legs to aid in pins and submissionsto even outright blatant stuff like sweeeps as seen ina similar motion to Judo stuff.


So your assumption is pretty wrong here since brawls across the world have low kicks even from people who don't fight and even Olympics includes a Western Wrestling style ht uses heavy use of legs as one of heir oldest continually included rosters.

So much that ironically England has never won any medal at the the arms -only Greco Roman Wrestling but won Gold several times in Freestyle that uses leg-based techniques like sweeps and trips despite the stereotype that Brits see fists as the only proper way to fight and using legs in any way including low risk stuff lke Kneeing as ungentleman coardly.

 

The amount of British people who have done any kind of traditional wrestling is negligible.

The ubiquity of Brits playing football as kids probably does affect the likelihood of untrained people to kick in a fight, but in my experience football teaches some bad habits that have to be drilled out of people to kick effectively.

Maybe back in the days of heavier footballs kicking technique was different....

 

You're talking about soccer hooligans rioting. "Brawls the world over", whatever.

I was talking about smart fighting. These things are mutually exclusive, in my opinion. It's not like you can point at many pro fighters who also moonlight as kicking football crazies.

 

As a member of the British proloterait who unfortunately knows some football holigans, and has trained in martial art and fight gyms for quite some time, it's quite obvious you have no real experience in the subject matter and are therefore drawing inaccurate conclusions from cherry picked information.

I'm guessing your not from here, (I'm guessing your American?) hence why you romanticise the group's involved.

A) social violence is different then asocial violence.
I e. A match fight in a pub is different then self defence against a mugger, you seem to confuse the two things.
B) Historically the Queensbury rules for boxing (after they were invented of course) were applied to social violence somewhat, and stepping outside of that could be viewed as poor behaviour for social violence.
C) kicking someone "whilst they are down" is viewed as bad behaviour, it's such a popular mentality, that it's even a popular phrase still, it's the "whilst they are down" bit which is important, not the kicking bit.

Football Hooligans don't train fighting, or even football, they just get drunk/high etc and go group fighting with all their also drunk and high mates. People who are good at that, keep on doing it, people who aren't good, end up getting hurt a few times, and then move on.

 

Did you smss the part where I describe British wrestling styles? One which freestyle has been part of the Olympics before WOrld ar 1, in fact one of the only old spots that is combat based to have remained alongside Boxng, Fencing, an Grco-Roman Boxing?

You didn't read OP have you? Did you miss the part where mentioned my Grandma as born in Scotland and then immigrated to London and lived there most of her young life?

Did you even forget the fact that Brton-Wright who's Bartitsu was the basis of Sherlock Holme's martial arts s quoted couple of times on this threads including actual direct quotation of someting he said n an interview?


Lst but not lest your trying to differentiate the difference between social violence an asocial violence is nonsense considering........

British Wrestling styles included use of legs for stuff lke tripping and even blatant offensive moves like Sweeps.

Why do so many people like you seem to forget one style of British wrestling Freestyle, is so huge that its the only old grappling style along with Greco-Roman to still have remained in the Olympics since the 1900s?

And this shows how little you actually even did cursory reading on the subject nevermind the deeper points brought up.

LLike despite the French being so associated wtht he oldest organized Kickboxing style closely matching most modern federation rules, why as French wrestling almost exclusively am based?

Esp when even the stereotypical British fistfighter, if he crosstrains in contemporary Victorian Wrestling, would be using trips and knee pins and oher leg techniques just as much as hs fist when in clinching range? Which is actually shown by real life records in proto MMA bouts across the world in teh very few instances British Boxer-Wrestler hybrid actually fought and even won against Savateurs and other more well-rounded styles lke some Kung Fu schools.

So this cliche of British so stereotyped as boxing is so ridiculous. Forget tripping your opponent and other low gravity moves, the Boxer Brit cliched has reached so common acceptance that a lot of people outside the Isles are even surprised to learn the UK has wrestlers in her fight subculture. So it goes beyond "kicking are for sissies" as a lot of foreign productions tking place in London only shoas thugs as Boxng and not knowing how to pin someone o the ground into submission or do ahadlock to choke someone in an ambush ,etc.

Its super ridiculous stereotype if you actually know British culture. You just have to take a look at shows that commonly aired on the old BBC formtt to quickly see how much MMA approach to fighitng has always been a part of British culture and is so readily apparent in British popular media

I'm not even talking about the SHerlock Holmes adaptations or even The Avengers which legendary Savateur Roger LaFond was one of the main fight choreographer for and even taught the main cast some techniques-t shows that Diana Rigg's (who later becomes Tracy, one of th most popular James Bond girls) character using a heavy kicking approach................

Just take a look at an old Wuthering Hights movie starring Timothy Dalton who'd later become James Bond. Not only is kickng and some wrestling sown but he even pcks up wooden sticks and fights with it like a swords man including stances and quick but well pwoered blows and stuff.

Roger Moore's pre-Jams Bond stuff totally shows him using tripping while clinching the enemy and other Freestyle Wrestling stuff.


So the existence of the stereotype is utter bollocks to begin with and one has to wonder why outside of native British produced media like Roger Moore's Ivanhoe show from the 50s, are Brits portrayed all over the world as Handcuffs esp in AMerican movies and in Japanese vieo games (like Dudley from Street Fighter 3)?

Just the fact since the 19t century British wrestling hs already included sweeps in the rule shows how silly this stereotype has become the internatonal manage of the UK!

 

"Peak murica"
An American telling a British person about how British people "fight" because his Scottish Granny lived in london for while, and he's watched the 1970's avengers.......

You probably want to look into the difference between primary and secondary sources of information and how to evaluate them.

 

Not only do I have relatives living in Manchester and other places across the country, I just visited Liverpool last year and came back from London for a week back in May June.

And for a self=proclaimed Englishman you are pretty ignorant of the country's culture.......

Remember Diana Rigg throwing high kicks and knocking people out? Or Sherlock Holme's cane fighting? Or any local channel TV where someone gets their legs kicked by a character who is shown plaing footy as their hobby episodes prior?


And even disregaring how pop media shows so much leg moves that the Brit fistfighter stereotype is nonsense to start with...

You still ignore the points about popular wrestling stles in the UK esp Freestyle using your legs to trip your opponent and then pinning them on the groun ith kn your knees or squeezing your legs over them so they can't escpe...


Dosn't the fact Freestyle is the only grappling sport Britain ever won gold medals in at the Olympic Games seem awfully suspicious? Are you no gonna claim British boys don't wrestles beause "sweeps are cheatin!!!"? Despite the fact you can still find wrestling programs at colleges and gyms across the country and even some primary schools still have wrrestlng as an afterschool rpogram? Which since they practise primarily freestle they would be teacing seeps and other lo body stuff?

 

No. I am skimming over a lot of what you post because it's a firehose of random unrelated stuff, but indefinitely think your entire premise is so flawed you're doing that old thing of writing really long posts and then when you don't like the responses that disagree, everyone is wrong but you and nobody's reading your posts (which is probably true, why would we).

I suggest shorter posts and more focused points, for right now you're all over the map. You're talking about James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, and soccer fan morons, throwing in a little British wrestling history, attacking some stereotype that just doesn't exist as far as I know.

If your whole point is that "British people kick too" well then you've wasted a lot of time pointing out the obvious. I already knew that and I'm not remotely European.

 

This is the problem with your line of argument. Youre pulling a fake problem out of thin air and trying to convince everyone it's not a real thing.

Only it never was a thing until you brought it up. I'm no debate expert but this falls into the realm of strawman maybe. Attacking an error no one else is making

Now, if you were actually challening someone else who said these things, your rants might make more sense. But I've never heard such things and I don't believe they exist, which makes me wonder why you're so bothered by this.

 

Two weeks on holiday, I guess you must be quite the expert!

So anyway wrestling is great, it's not popular in the UK, here's a brief rundown of our actual success, it's not that long a read!

https://britishwrestling.org/home-2/young-people/olympics/

Many many more people train judo, then freestyle wrestling, I've never heard of any schools or colleges offering freestyle, but I do know several MMA gyms that offer wrestling classes, often the wrestling instructor is also a judo instructor, because there really isn't a grass roots scene at the moment.

There's a few Sikh Temple wrestling schools in the UK, the one I'm thinking off seems to work as an unofficial centre of excellence, great people.

 

Wolverhampton Wrestling Club | Wolverhampton Information Network

These people are great. (I know it's not Brum, but it's closeish)

 

A) I never said I was an Englishman.
B) You do know being British isn't the same thing as being English?