Each week sports reporter ROBERT CARRY tries out martial arts from around the world. This week it’s the French fighting art of Savate
French really is a beautiful language. Our ever-stylish continental cousins created a top-drawer martial art and sullied it with a name that translates as ‘old boot’ but somehow, when spoken in the prettiest of the daughters of Latin, it still sounds cool.
‘Savate’ is an amalgamation of two fighting traditions – European-style boxing, and a form of fighting used by French sailors which relied exclusively on kicks. The pugilist tradition was well established in Europe by the start of the 19th century, when savate was being developed, but the origins of the characteristic foot-fighting aspect borrowed from local mariners is more contested.
One side of the debate claims that sailors visited parts of Asia where they witnessed the continent’s long-established martial traditions, which leaned heavily on kicking. The sailors liked them and decided to bring them home (the techniques, not practitioners). Another school of thought holds that the sailors themselves came up with foot-fighting as a means of settling their on-deck disputes about who lost the map to the buried treasure or who owned whose parrot, with the rolling seas forcing them to hold on to ropes, hand rails or even the deck itself, leaving only the feet free to strike with.
One point that isn’t disputed, however, is that the fighters opted to leave their boot on during bouts, which – rather unimaginatively – gave the form its name.
Modern savate began to develop from its street-orientated original form when a student of the emerging discipline, Charles LeCour, was beaten by a UK boxer in 1832. He adopted some of the moves of which he was on the receiving end, as well as the trappings of Western boxing such as rings, gloves, and rounds – and modern ring-style savate was born.
Savate gathered momentum in France and its colonies in the decades after its invention, and when the Olympic Games were held in Paris in 1924 it was presented as a demonstration sport. From there it spread around the world – although without ever coming close to the British relation it borrowed its hand work from.
The form itself looks like a mixture between kickboxing and Muay Thai, though knees, elbows and kicking with the shin are all disallowed, making it quite distinct from Thailand’s art of the eight limbs. But kicks to the legs are allowed, and this means that stance, movement and the focus of the bouts are quite similar. However, even though striking someone’s legs is generally disallowed in kickboxing, savate’s elegant, stylish foot-strikes bring the celeb’s favourite immediately to mind.
Savate sounded right up my street so I bundled my belongings into a red spotted handkerchief, tied it to the end of a long stick, slung it over my shoulder and headed out to search for a gym where I might be able to try it.
Sadly, after months of trawling Ireland’s towns, villages, hills and valleys, I was forced to admit defeat and head home. I tried dropping hints around the office to the effect that my martial arts column would be much better if I was flown out to the countries of origin of the various forms I wrote about, but without any joy.
Savate is among the best one-on-one fighting forms, earning its place at the top table by demonstrating in mixed martial arts (MMA) tournaments that its moves are viable. In the first ever Ultimate Fighting Championships event – an MMA competition originally characterised by the diversity of disciplines represented by its competitors, as opposed to the streamlined specific style of today – a Dutch savate champion named Gerard Gordeau went all the way to the final round, beating an American kickboxer and a sumo wrestler on the way, before finally being taken down and submitted by Brazilian Jiu-Jistu legend (and recent drug cheat) Royce Gracie.
Many practitioners of non-ring martial arts argue that for safety reasons competitions have to restrict the moves fighters can break out in a ring (eye-gouging, biting and moves designed to break necks, etc) and that these constraints strip their form of too much of what it is about, leaving them at a huge disadvantage. It is also argued that by training someone in a form of fighting which omits certain techniques, you are leaving them at a disadvantage in real life self-defence situations.
Savate, however, is a ready-made counter argument to this line of reasoning. First of all, a savateur (male) or savateuse (female) in training for a competition, like those who compete for all the other full-contact martial arts, will have to be extremely fit and strong if they are to have a hope of winning their fight. You have to live, eat and breathe your art, because that’s what your opponent is going to be doing.
Also, if a competitive fighter has a couple of bouts under their belt they will also be well used to being hit. Many people who diligently attend self-defence classes, equipping themselves with a host of techniques designed to fend off an attacker, will have never been struck in the face before. Someone can be equipped with all the defence skills in the world but the shock of being hit for the first time will leave them dazed, on the back foot and probably on the verge of tears.
Ring fights also leave competitors accustomed to being confronted by an individual itching to do them harm. This unique set of circumstances, which often has the added pressure of a baying crowd, is an excellent way for someone to prepare themselves for the stress of a real-life situation.
And yet another point is that savate has both a competitive aspect and a separate, more gruesome self-defence variety – and this, to me, looks like the right way to go for all martial arts.
Ireland seems to be something of an anomaly in that while there is a huge range of martial arts available for people looking to practice them, savate just hasn’t caught on. And it’s a real shame, because France’s premier mixed martial art is a genuine cracker.
