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My TIVO recorded a show called \”deadly arts\” for me today from the Fit TV channel. The show was alot like to format of many travel channel shows where someone travels somewhere and a camera follows them around while they visit local sites.
The difference is that in this show, the host is a woman with 25 years of martial arts experience, and she goes around the world to spend a few months studying other arts as a student. Camera’s follow her around as she talks to different practitioners of the arts.
The show actually wasn’t too bad. Was a little cheesy, but fairly good. I would recommend it. The episode I watched was on a French martial art called Savato (or something like that).
Anyway, they have some upcoming episodes on Muay Thai, Capeiroa, and some other forms. Can see the schedule here:
http://fittv.discovery.com/tvlistings/series.jsp?series=108911&gid=0&channel=FIT
I’ve seen the show. Just watched the Savate episode. Before that was aikido. Its interesting to watch. FITtv actually has some good shows on there like \”the Gym\” also.
Modern savate looks pretty much like American kickboxing but you see lots of hard toe kicks and there’s some mannerisms that are a little different. Classic savate has more of a distinct flavor to it, but its sort of goofy- they’d swing their guards behind them to get momentum on kicks. And their hands seemed to be held lower than the modern kickboxer- its interesting how over a hundred years ago, everyone seemed to hold their hands lower- look at where the hands are in traditional asian arts like karate and kung fu, in LPR rules boxing, savate, even old pictures of Greek boxing. I wonder if that’s ever going to come back.
Going to foreign countries to learn about different fighting styles reminds me of this book I once read \”Secret Fighting Arts of The World\”. It wasn’t really about styles, just about one specific technique that each person interviewed (one in each country) had developed and there was some weird stuff, such as a guy eating a special diet, so that he’d get really bad breath, which he would then breathe onto his opponents, making them faint. 😆 According to the author it really worked. Of course it would be hard to ask your mugger to wait until you are done eating your special diet before continuing with the mugging. 😉
There was also some stuff about the famous death touch and a guy, who would use a kind of hip thrust that would knock opponents unconscious. Oh, and a \”corkscrew\” punch, that would be directed at the abdomen, and if done just right, would go right through to the intestines and would really hurt the opponent, possibly even be deadly. That was a \”hsing-i\” technique, has anyone heard of it?
Ha, I’ve read that book. Its a gem that all martial artists should own. Its so unbelievable, but who wouldn’t want to know more about \”the Canton Corkscrew\”, \”the Macedonian Buttocks\”, \”the Ganjes Groin Grab\”, and \”The Mexican Knife\”? What’s funny is that I don’t have the book, and I haven’t read it for years, but I remember it from memory.
Interesting stuff- the Ganjes guy could do selective breaking of bricks (breaking only the middle ones) and transferred this skill to attacking the groin- if the person defended by blocking with their thigh or leg, he could still pinpoint the groin and shock it with brick breaking force. This would be a useful skill. The hip thrust was designed to hit hard enough to break the pelvis bone. Another useful skill if you could do it. The Mexican knife guy would use his heavilly conditioned open hand to attack with spearhands and chops. This reminded me of stories I heard as a kid about my step great grandmother (if there is such a relative) who was a very short woman with hair that went almost to the ground, but was worn in a giant white bun. Anyway, she made tortillas for many years in the traditional fashion, and developed crazy conditioned hands. She was feared by some of her kids who ended up being huge burly guys, who were still scared of this little old lady that would chop you if you mouthed off.
Man, I need to get a copy of that so I can put it on my bookshelf next to my black and white copy of \”World’s Deadliest Fighting Secrets\” by Count Dante, the World’s Deadliest man, copyright 1968. Another horribly bad gem.hsing i/xingyi is a southern kung fu style that does lots of low stance and force training type stuff. I thin that particular technique is called a fire punch (which gets into this whole complicated five element thing- suffice to say that it has nothing to do with acually starting fire or anything like that).
Yeah, I also thought that it was pretty interesting. Some of it might not be practical, such as the bad breath thing, but the hip thrust could work very well. When I first read the book, I actually tried it against the heavybag and developed some power with it. Not perfect of course, but still useful for fighting in close – you could use the hip to make some space and if you are good at it even hurt the other guy (aiming at the groin for example). It’s an interesting move and your opponent probably wouldn’t be expecting it.
The corkscrew punch seems good, too, but probably hard to learn. You couldn’t really practice it against a heavybag, but would need a willing partner, who would let you punch him and then tell you about the progress you are making… 😉
There was some other good stuff – such as the Mexican knife thing and something about the art of strangling someone.
Someone gave me that book as a gift some years ago, it was a pretty new version (the original was written in 1962), the ISBN number is: ISBN 0-8048-1608-5 , it was written by John F. Gilbey, in case you want to order it.
I haven’t looked into it myself for a while, I just thought of it when we were talking about going to foreign countries in search of strange fighting styles. I think I’ll take another look at it now.
This is kind of a friend of a friend of a friend type story so I don’t know how valid it is, but 20+ years ago my karate instructor at the time was talking about this book. He was real close to a guy who knew the guy who wrote the book and said it was initially done as a joke, but it got published and made a bit of money. Again, don’t know if it’s true but I do remember the book being really good as a joke and really bad if it was serious.
I wouldn’t be surprized if most of it was fabricated. But its still a fun book, and at least some of it is legit- the savate kicks and corkscrew punch (well, as much as legends about the perfectly developed reverse punch).
I seem to recall one character in it was a British guy who trained extensively in headbutting. He used a sandbag (I think) with some scarves attached that he could grab onto like an opponent’s arms, sleeves, or lapels. I used to have a similar training device full of split that I used for developing hand strikes and headbutts (the best thing I’ve found for practicing uppercuts). It was great, until the fabric split and dropped dry peas all over the ground. I’ve heard of people using indian corn as a filling also, or mung beans in various kung fu striking targets, but split peas are the cheapest.
I recently got this thing called a headache bag from Century. Its like a slip ball but its shaped like a cylinder rather than a ball, and it has a bit more structure to it. So far its worked pretty good for straight punches, headbutts and slipping, ducking, swaying, bobing, etc. But one of the hooks broke a few minutes after I got it. After that I was reluctant to hit it hard with kicks, elbows, etc.Hmmm, the way you keep breaking your heavybags, maybe you should have been in the book! 😉
Yeah, it might be a joke, at least some of it (such as the bad breath thing and the deadly shout). The headbutt one was interesting, this guy could supposedly give something like seven headbutts in under a second, following some type of circular pattern with it.
And what about that death touch? He said he saw it work. But does it? Really? 😕 Anyway, I guess it wouldn’t be very practical in a self-defense situation, if your attacker suddenly dies three days after he’s beaten the crap out of you. But then again, it would make for good revenge! 😈
This was not a heavy bag- it was a homemade bag with a few pounds of beans in it. I was surprized it lasted as long as it did. They’re kind of cool targets because even though they’re light (compared to a heavy bag), the somewhat loose nature of all the beans lets your fist sink in and take the impact- like hitting a really fat person.
Death touch.. Bah! That guy should see my confusion touch- With a mere light touch on the shoulder, I can make a person think I am behind them, only to appear in front of them on the opposite side! Not for the faint of heart.
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