European Martial Arts

dent

Just from a quick look around the boards and I notice how many of us do Asian Martial Arts be it Tae-Kwon-Do, Jujutsu, Thai etc

Are there many European Martial arts around that are being actively taught? I know we have Sambo, Greco-Roman wrestling and I guess Boxing.

I understand for example that European knights did very similar sword forms to those taught in Jujutsu.

I'm sure they had there own form of unarmed combat too.

Just wondering if anyone here has looked into this kind of thing and if they have an links or sources I could look into. I'm sure there are probably plenty of obvious examples that I have missed.

Thanks

fragile

Academy of European Medieval Martial Arts

Millionaire

Krav Maga is a european ish system of self protection.

dlofnep

Believe it or not, Ireland actually had it's own form of wrestling hundreds of years ago. If you google it, you'll find out a bit about it.

pearsquasher

2 years ago i worked oin the "King Arthur" movie - yes it turned out to be pants :rolleyes: ... and met loads of folks into European MA's.

- The polish dude who was into sabre fighting and cavalry stuff. He had worked on lots of epic polish dramas including 1000-horse battle scenes. He also got involved in riots in germany in the 80's as a photographer and noticed some similar feeling of battlefield vibes - tunnel-vision, the chaos, insticntive responses coming out etc. We chatted loads about that sort of thing. He also had studied some trad karate and was well able to move with his sword and shield. We fought well on the field that day my friends.

- the inner-city biker dude.... well used to street argy bargies and scuffles wth bikers He had live in Sweden for 7 years and learned some stuff with aze and shield, spear-work and especially the swedish bow. Me, him and the polish dude this some long battle scenses together and we all noted how it was all footwork and instinct really.

- the italian fencer. This was a 5o years old chappy who had worked on Gladiator and lots of other re-enactment stuff. He was a 15th century fenceing master with a teacher who was in a tradtional lineage. We did some practice togther with broadwrords and discussed closequarter fighting.- he was particularily interested and very good at two=-blade stuff... the rapier at a distance and its tiwin dagger for up close. He had some similarl locks and strikes to the Bujinak stuff i learn. It was all good.

- genreal reenactment dudes form all over irland scotland and england. They all had great stories and varying interest in arms and armour as well as empty hand stuff. Most belonged to an historiocal re-enactment group. One English chap was part of a grpup that worked out how exactly Claymnore s and large broadswords were pysically usee dmy knights basedd on practical physics and the need to conservee energy - very like how the Bujinkan teaches such things in fact.

I met lots of guys who did mu thai, capolera, karate and aikido on set. I often asked them how they thought their arts helped them in the battle scenese while carrying unfamilar weapons like shields and spears and mostly i got strange looks. High kicks went out the window, 1 on 1 exchages of blows were rare and ground fighting was rediculously short due to the mutliple enemy factor and use of weapons. There was a few of us, amongtsh the majority of lads just having a laugh, who took the scenes seriously and chatted about how things really went down.

Overall it was an amazing experience and it opened my eyes to the wealth of European MA's out there. Unfortuneately, European fighters didn't have the same sort of record-keeping abiltities and interest in preserving real fighting knowledge as the Easter tradtions do and so a lot of info has to be extrapolated. In fact i met a gorup of Scots who study Japanese Bujinkan with the primary view of taking the priciples learned and adapting them to Scortish weapons and tactics. It seemed to work really well. and was a perfect example of the idea that all cultures and all peopels come to the same conclsuions about fighting when war is being ranged. I like to think that studying the Bujinkan is studying the European arts as in the end, similar ideas emerge on doistance timing, use of weapons, controlling space, shielding, evading and ...increaed odds through trsaning.

dent

pearsquasher wrote:

Unfortuneately, European fighters didn't have the same sort of record-keeping abiltities and interest in preserving real fighting knowledge as the Easter tradtions do and so a lot of info has to be extrapolated.

It is a pity alright. I'd imagine its very hard or impossible to find the genuine article. Seems like there are a lot of re-enactment groups around and such.
Pity those pesky monks didn't apply there record keeping skills to Martial Arts.

Dyr

theres guys (mostly in the states)who claim they're doing irish stick-fighting calling it bata, now my spider senses go into overdrive when i hear this but they claim it was chicken soup and that theres even a few heads here in ireland who had this stuff shown to them by their fathers

Millionaire

Ah well Bata eh? you cant knock a good health bite of niche marketing.

bit like systema.

memphis

Bambi wrote:

theres guys (mostly in the states)who claim they're doing irish stick-fighting calling it bata, now my spider senses go into overdrive when i hear this but they claim it was chicken soup and that theres even a few heads here in ireland who had this stuff shown to them by their fathers

The used to use the skilleagh (sp?) as a weapon in old Irish times, perhaps this is what you are on about Bambi??? Am sure I came across a website on it before. Try google it, am too lazy to do it myself now!

pma-ire

here ya go now!

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/4933/shillelagh.html

weyhey

pearsquasher

From articles on the web it seems that quarterstaff fighting was a common enough practice by young English gentry before the 1900's. I've seen some clips and a lot of it is similar to the jo-jutsu I've seen.

I've aslo heard that theres a sort of secret archaic society of German fencers who learn combat with real sowrds and that you could very easily meet some gentrified Bavarian chappy with odd looking scars on his face from secret duels and stuff.

There plenty of journal's and books of various 15th, 16th and 17th century European warriors who survvived upteen battles and set up schools of swordsmanship and such. These guys definitely knew the chaos of real fighting and the need for hand-to-hand skills, wrestling and small weapons use. I'll try and fish out an great online article i read once of a particularily experienced guy who seemed to be something of a European Musashi.

Yep.. it's a pity our monks were too busy drawing nice religious books instead of working out sophisticated methods of waging war!

blondie83

dlofnep wrote:

Believe it or not, Ireland actually had it's own form of wrestling hundreds of years ago. If you google it, you'll find out a bit about it.

Yup, twas called celtic wrestling, or coireacht (sp). They did it in the Irish college I was at, was quite interesting and a little like judo

Rev Hellfire

you could take a look at http://livinghistory.ie

Its more re-enactment ( you know what I mean ).

Musashi

Medieval Dagger Manual

"Translation of Fiore de Liberi's printed words by Hermes Michelini of Calgary, 2001. Pictures grabbed from original 'Flos Duellatorum' sketches"

Martial Arts Manual

Another Fiore based group

NovaScrimia-another group using old fencing manuals to train

Schola St. George Swordmanship Group

If you want to learn more about European Sword styles try Sword Forums-Historical European Sword Forum

pearsquasher

Some great articles there.

I just remembered one particular fella on the set of the film who stood out in terms of how he approached the fight scenes and his interest in weapons. He was certainly an re-enactor but didn't mingle much wuth the big groups of them down there - moslty hanging around on his won playing woth swords, spears and shields. One day i saw him playing with some small hatchets and went over to chat. I picked up a large heavy war axe and we had a go at sorto f half-speed randor (sparring)i - they were rubber bladed.

It became really apparent that they guy new his stuff - naturlaly moving onto safe positions, giving me openings, using his wepons as shileding and generally flowing as well as any Bujinklan instructor i've met. It turned out he 'd nver messed with smal axes before and saidf "i'll be figuring these out at home this winter". This chap was into systematically figuring out how wepons work and had done a lot of research on his own. He was very good at being relaxed with weapons and using them iwth his body mivement, exactly how we do it in Bujinkan.

I mentioned the Bujinkan to him and he was immediately diosmissive of anything oriental, seemingly having been put put off my the masses of unrealistic Ma and kung fu films out there. I asked him had he seen Kurasawa movies whcih have more real-time, less flowery movements and he hadn't. This guy was a natural mover and had come up with all the kamae (stances) that you see in most MA's by himsefl - precisiely because they're natural shapes the body needs to take to protect, attack, move around, carry heavy weapons etc. I definitely would have liked to see this guy at a Bujinkan seminar or two where he would quickly pick up on the natural movement and adapt it to whatever weapons he was working with that time. He actually really made me think about the kinds of men that every now and then come along and just have pure natural talent - we see them a lot in sports, music, film etc but now and then a projidy pops up in the ma world and it totally throws you. Well this guys was oine of them and he was actually biased against MA's! I hope i meet this guy again someday and see how's he's done mastering the ax.

Colm_OReilly

Bambi wrote:

theres guys (mostly in the states)who claim they're doing irish stick-fighting calling it bata, now my spider senses go into overdrive when i hear this but they claim it was chicken soup and that theres even a few heads here in ireland who had this stuff shown to them by their fathers

As in "I'm gonna bata you with this stick"?

Dyr

actually if you put it that way, i was taught that stuff in the christian brothers!

*dons wollen black belt and kilt then signs deal for 5 dvd instructional series on "Scoil bhata edmund rice"*

EPO_MAN

dent wrote:

It is a pity alright. I'd imagine its very hard or impossible to find the genuine article. Seems like there are a lot of re-enactment groups around and such.
Pity those pesky monks didn't apply there record keeping skills to Martial Arts.

dent what are you on?
You are 4/5 years studying re-enactment dressed up as a fighting art.
It's too late for you!!

dent

EPO_MAN wrote:

dent what are you on?
You are 4/5 years studying re-enactment dressed up as a fighting art.
It's too late for you!!

Pot calling the kettle black my friend

EPO_MAN

I used to have a video until some fu*cker borrowed it and never returned it and there was a frendch guy on it fighting called Savate. it was a style of kickboxing but was developed in france indegiously to the onion and garlic munchers.

EPO_MAN

dent wrote:

Pot calling the kettle black my friend

At least i know i'm doomed!!!
Doomed I say!!!

memphis

pma-ire wrote:

here ya go now!

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/4933/shillelagh.html

weyhey

See! Told ya it was there somewhere. Knew I wasn't imagining things.

Thanks Paul! (oh, see ya at the weekend, looking forward to it, Sir, really looking forward to it!!!)