Savate

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Savate

Savate (pronounced ), also known as boxe française, French boxing, French Kickboxing or French Footfighting, is a French

France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
martial art which uses both the hands and feet as weapons and combines elements of western boxing

Boxing

Boxing is a combat sport where two participants, generally of similar human weight, fight each other with their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee and is typically engaged in during a series of one to three-minute intervals called rounds....
with graceful kick

Kick

In martial arts, combat sports or violence, a kick is a strike using the foot, Human leg, or knee . This attack is often used in hand-to-hand combat, especially in stand-up fighting....
ing techniques. Only foot

Foot

The foot is an anatomical structure found in many animals. It is the terminal portion of a limb which bears weight and allows locomotion. In many animals with feet, the foot is a separate organ at the terminal part of the leg made up of one or more segments or bones, generally including claws or nails....
kicks are allowed, unlike some systems, such as Muay Thai

Muay Thai

Muay Thai is a form of hard martial art practiced in large parts of the world, including Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries. The art is similar to others in Southeast Asian such as: pradal Serey in Cambodia, lethwei in Myanmar, tomoi in Malaysia, and Lao boxing in Laos....
and Silat

Silat

Silat is an umbrella term for a number of martial art forms originating from the countries of the Malay Archipelago. This art is widely known in Indonesia and Malaysia but can also be found in varying degrees among the Malay-affiliated communities in Brunei, Singapore, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand and Cambodia....
, which allow the use of the knees or shins

Tibia

The tibia, shinbone, or shankbone is the larger and stronger of the two bones in the leg below the knee in vertebrates and connects the knee with the ankle bones....
.

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Encyclopedia

Savate (pronounced ), also known as boxe française, French boxing, French Kickboxing or French Footfighting, is a French

France

Boxing

Kick

Foot

Muay Thai

Silat

Tibia

The tibia, shinbone, or shankbone is the larger and stronger of the two bones in the leg below the knee in vertebrates and connects the knee with the ankle bones....
. Savate is perhaps the only style of kickboxing in which the fighters habitually wear shoes (savate being a French word for "old shoe

Shoe

A shoe is an item of footwear evolved at first to protect the human foot and later, additionally, as an item of decoration in itself. The foot contains more bones than any other single part of the human body, and has human evolution over hundreds of thousands of years in relation to vastly varied terrain and climate....
"). A practitioner of savate is called a savateur (male) or savateuse (female).

History

Savate takes its name from the French for "old boot" (heavy footwear that used to be worn during fights). The modern formalized form is mainly an amalgam of French street fighting

Street fighting

Street fighting is a term used to denote unsanctioned, usually illegal, hand-to-hand fighting in public places, between individuals or groups of people....
techniques from the beginning of the 19th century. Savate was then a type of street fighting common in Paris

Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
and northern France

France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
. In the south, especially in the port of Marseille

Marseille

"Marseille" is the second-largest city of France and forms the third-largest aire urbaine, after those of Paris and Lyon, with a population recorded to be 1,516,340 at the 1999 census and estimated to be 1,605,000 in 2007....
, sailors developed a fighting style involving high kicks and open-handed slaps. It is conjectured that this kicking style was developed in this way to allow the fighter to use a hand to hold onto something for balance on a rocking ship's deck, and that the kicks and slaps were used on land to avoid the legal penalties for using a closed fist, which was considered a deadly weapon

Deadly weapon

A deadly weapon, sometimes dangerous weapon, is a statute listing certain items which can inflict mortal or great bodily harm. In addition, deadly weapon statutes often contain "catch all" provisions which describe abilities used to designate other implements as deadly weapons....
under the law. It was known as jeu marseillais ("game from Marseille"), and was later renamed chausson ("slipper

Slipper

A slipper, also called a houseshoe, is a soft and lightweight indoor type of casual footwear....
", after the type of shoes the sailors wore). In contrast, at this time in England

England

Boxing

Marquess of Queensberry rules

The Marquess of Queensberry rules is a code of generally accepted rules in the sport of boxing. They were named so because the John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry publicly endorsed the code....
), kicking was seen as unsportsmanlike. Traditional savate or chausson was at this time also developed in the ports of North-West Italy and North-Eastern Spain.

The two key historical figures in the history of the shift from street-fighting to the modern sport of savate are Michel Casseux (also known as le Pisseux) (1794–1869), a French pharmacist, and Charles Lecour (1808–1894). Casseux opened the first establishment in 1825 for practicing and promoting a regulated version of chausson and savate (disallowing head butting, eye gouging, grappling, etc). However the sport had not shaken its reputation as a street-fighting technique. Casseux's pupil Charles LeCour was exposed to the English art of boxing when he was defeated in a friendly sparring match by British pugilist Owen Swift around 1830 and felt that he was at a disadvantage, only using his hands to bat his opponent's fists away, rather than to punch. He trained in boxing for two years before, in 1832, combining boxing with chausson and savate to create the sport of savate (or boxe française, as we know it today). At some point la canne

Canne de combat

Canne de combat is a France martial arts weapon. It uses a cane or canne designed for fighting. Canne de combat was standardized in the 1970s for sporting competition by Maurice Sarry....
and le baton

Bâton français

The B?ton fran?ais, French for "French staff", also known as French stick fighting, is a European historical fencing discipline which uses a staff about 1.2 m long ....
stick fighting
Stick fighting

Stick fighting is a generic term for martial arts which utilize simple long slender, blunt, hand-held, generally wooden 'sticks' for fighting such as a staff, cane, walking stick, baton or similar....
were added, and some form of stick-fencing, such as la canne, is commonly part of savate training. Those who train purely for competition may omit this. Savate was developed professionally by LeCour's student Joseph Charlemont and then his son Charles Charlemont.

Savate was later codified under a Committee National de Boxe Francaise under Charles Charlemont's student Count Pierre Baruzy (dit Barrozzi). The Count is seen as the father of modern savate and was 11-times Champion of France and its colonies, his first ring combat and title prior to World War One. Savate de Defense, Defense Savate, Savate de Rue ("de rue" means: "of the street") is the name given to those methods of fighting excluded from savate competition.

Perhaps the ultimate recognition of the respectability of savate came in 1924 when it was included as a demonstration sport
Demonstration sport

A demonstration sport is a sport which is played in order to promote itself, most commonly during the Olympic Games, but also at other sporting events....
in the Olympic Games
Olympic Games

The Olympic Games are an international multi-sport event established for both summer and winter sports. There have been two generations of the Olympic Games; the first were the Ancient Olympic Games held at Olympia, Greece, Greece....
in Paris
Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
. In 2008, Savate was recognised by the International University Sports Federation
International University Sports Federation

The F?d?ration Internationale du Sport Universitaire , based in Brussels, Belgium coordinates the activities of over 100 national university sport federations and organizes the Winter and the Summer Universiades in uneven years and World University Championships in even years....
(FISU) - this recognition allows Savate to hold official University World Championships, the first will be held in Nantes, France in 2010.

Despite its roots, savate is a relatively safe sport to learn. According to USA Savate , "savate ranks lower in number of injuries
Injury

Injury or bodily injury is damage or harm caused to the structure or Purpose of the body caused by an outside wiktionary:agent or force, which may be physical or chemical....
when compared to American football
American football

American football, known in the United States and Canada simply as football, is a competitive team sport known for mixing strategy with physical play....
, hockey
Ice hockey

Ice hockey, often referred to simply as hockey, is a team sport played on ice. It is a fast paced and physical sport. Ice hockey is most popular in areas that are sufficiently cold for natural reliable seasonal ice cover such as Canada, the northern United States, Scandinavia and Russia, though with the advent of indoor artificial ice r...
, football
Football (soccer)

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of eleven players, and is widely considered to be the most popular sport in the world....
, gymnastics
Gymnastics

Gymnastics is a sport involving performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility and coordination. Artistic Gymnastics is the best known and most popular of the gymnastics sports governed by the F?d?ration Internationale de Gymnastique ....
, basketball
Basketball

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five active players each try to score points against one another by propelling a basketball through a 10 feet high hoop under organized rules....
, baseball
Baseball

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport of nine players each. The goal of baseball is to score run by hitting a thrown Baseball with a baseball bat and touching a series of four markers called base arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot square, or diamond. Players on one team take turns hitting against...
and inline skating".

Today, savate is practiced all over the world by amateurs: from Australia
Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the Australia of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania, and numerous list of islands of Australia in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans....
to the USA
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
and from Finland
Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland , is a Nordic countries situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. It borders Sweden on the west, Russia on the east, and Norway on the north, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland....
to Britain
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
. Many countries (including the United States) have national federations devoted to promoting savate. Savate was also featured in the first
UFC 1

The Ultimate Fighting Championship was the first mixed martial arts event held by the Ultimate Fighting Championship, occurring at the McNichols Sports Arena in Denver, Colorado on November 12, 1993....
Ultimate Fighting Championship
Ultimate Fighting Championship

Ultimate Fighting Championship is a United States-based mixed martial arts organization, currently recognized as the largest MMA promotion in the world....
tournament, where Dutch savate champion Gerard Gordeau
Gerard Gordeau

Kancho Gerard Gordeau is a mixed martial arts fighter from The Hague, The Netherlands who competed against Teila Tuli in the first televised UFC fight....
beat a sumo

Sumo

is a competitive contact sport where a wrestler attempts to force another wrestler out of a circular ring or to touch the ground with anything other than the soles of the feet....
wrestler and an American kickboxer. In fiction, savate has been employed by the Captain America
Captain America

Captain America is a Character that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character First appearance in Captain America Comics #1 , from Marvel Comics' 1940s predecessor, Timely Comics, and was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby....
foe Batroc the Leaper
Batroc the Leaper

Batroc the Leaper is a fictional villain from Marvel Comics. His first appearance was in Tales of Suspense #75....
and by Professor Calculus
Professor Calculus

Professor Cuthbert Calculus is a fictional character in the series The Adventures of Tintin. He is a distracted, hard-of-hearing professor, who invents many sophisticated devices used in the series, such as a one-person shark-shaped submarine, the Moon rocket and an ultrasound weapon....
in the Tintin comic strip.

Modern codified savate provides for three levels of competition: assaut, pre-combat and combat. Assaut requires the competitors to focus on their technique while still making contact; referees assign penalties for the use of excessive force. Pre-combat allows for full-strength fighting so long as the fighters wear protective gear such as helmets and shinguards. Combat, the most intense level, is the same as pre-combat, but protective gear other than groin protection and mouthguards is prohibited.

Many martial arts provide ranking systems, such as belt colors. Savate uses glove colors to indicate a fighter's level of proficiency (unlike arts such as karate, which assign new belts at each promotion, moving to a higher color rank in savate does not necessarily entail a change in the color of one's actual gloves, and a given fighter may continue using the same pair of gloves through multiple promotions). Novices begin at no color. Promotion tests allow the fighter to graduate successively to blue, green, red, white and yellow. Competition is restricted to yellow glove rank and above, fighters at white glove rank are considered to be instructors in training, and yellow gloves are required to teach what they know to others and can attend a combat competition. Silver gloves are the highest regular rank in savate. Golden gloves are honor ranks awarded to savate pioneers and leading exponents by their national committees. White gloves and lower ranks can be attributed through teacher's examination but for the higher ranks, the fighter must take a International federation (FIS) or French federation committee exam.

Techniques
In competitive or competition savate which includes Assault, Pre-Combat, and Combat types, there are only four kinds of kicks allowed along with four kinds of punches allowed: .

Kick
Kick

In martial arts, combat sports or violence, a kick is a strike using the foot, Human leg, or knee . This attack is often used in hand-to-hand combat, especially in stand-up fighting....
s:

fouetté (literally "whip", roundhouse kick making contact with the instep), high (figure), medium (median) or low (bas)
chassé (side or front piston-action kick), high (figure), medium (median) or low (bas)
revers (frontal or lateral "reverse" or hooking kick making contact with the sole of the shoe), high (figure), medium (median), or low (bas)
coup de pied bas ("low kick", a front or sweep kick to the shin making contact with the inner edge of the shoe, performed with a characteristic backwards lean) low only

Punch
Punch

Punch can refer to:...
es:

direct bras avant (jab
Jab

A jab is one of the four main punches used in boxing. Several variations of the jab exist, but every jab shares these characteristics: while in a boxing, the lead fist is thrown straight ahead and the arm is fully extended....
, lead hand)
direct bras arrière (cross
Cross (boxing)

In boxing, a cross is a power-punch like the uppercut and hook . Compubox, a Computer punch scoring system, counts the cross as a power-punch....
, rear hand)
crochet (hook
Hook (boxing)

A hook is a punch in boxing. It is performed by turning the core muscles and back, thereby swinging the arm, which is bent at an angle near or at 90 degrees, in a horizontal arc into the opponent....
, bent arm with either hand)
uppercut (either hand)

Savate did not begin as a sport, but as a form of self-defence and fought on the streets of Paris
Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
and Marseille
Marseille

"Marseille" is the second-largest city of France and forms the third-largest aire urbaine, after those of Paris and Lyon, with a population recorded to be 1,516,340 at the 1999 census and estimated to be 1,605,000 in 2007....
. This type of Savate was known as Savate de Rue. In addition to kicks and punches, training in Savate de Rue (Savate Defense) includes knee, shin and elbow strikes along with locks, sweeps, throws, headbutts, and takedowns. The concept is that whole body IS a weapon. It is a reality-based fighting system..

There are six basic kinds of kicks, and four kinds of punches for Savate de Rue:

Kick
Kick

In martial arts, combat sports or violence, a kick is a strike using the foot, Human leg, or knee . This attack is often used in hand-to-hand combat, especially in stand-up fighting....
s:

fouetté (literally "whip", roundhouse kick making contact with the toe), high (figure), medium (median) or low (bas)
chassé (side or front piston-action kick), high (figure), medium (median) or low (bas)
chassé italien (aimed at the opponent's inner thigh, with the toe pointed at the opponent's groin. Contrast the chassé bas lateral, which targets the front of the thigh.)
revers (frontal or lateral "reverse" or hooking kick making contact with the sole of the shoe), high (figure), medium (median), or low (bas)
coup de pied bas ("low kick", a front or sweep kick to the shin making contact with the inner edge of the shoe, performed with a characteristic backwards lean) low only, designed to break the shin bone.
coup de pied bas de frappe (coup de pied bas which is used to strike the opponent's lead leg).

Punch
Punch

Punch can refer to:...
es:

direct bras avant (jab
Jab

A jab is one of the four main punches used in boxing. Several variations of the jab exist, but every jab shares these characteristics: while in a boxing, the lead fist is thrown straight ahead and the arm is fully extended....
, lead hand)
direct bras arrière (cross
Cross (boxing)

In boxing, a cross is a power-punch like the uppercut and hook . Compubox, a Computer punch scoring system, counts the cross as a power-punch....
, rear hand)
crochet (hook
Hook (boxing)

A hook is a punch in boxing. It is performed by turning the core muscles and back, thereby swinging the arm, which is bent at an angle near or at 90 degrees, in a horizontal arc into the opponent....
, bent arm with either hand)
uppercut (either hand).

Other meanings
Chausson (soft shoe) was the term first used. "Savate" is an old, harder type of shoe. Nowadays "chaussure" is the most common French word for "shoe". The slang equivalent of "chaussure" is "godasse". Savate is now just a term meaning Boxe-Française Savate. In 1970s the term "Savate" was rarely used in France, people mostly used the term Boxe-Française Savate, B.F, B.F.S. or simply Boxe-Française. The term savate remains in use mostly outside France or when speaking a language other than French.

See also

La canne (or Canne de combat
Canne de combat

Canne de combat is a France martial arts weapon. It uses a cane or canne designed for fighting. Canne de combat was standardized in the 1970s for sporting competition by Maurice Sarry....
) and Bâton français
Bâton français

The B?ton fran?ais, French for "French staff", also known as French stick fighting, is a European historical fencing discipline which uses a staff about 1.2 m long ....
, two related martial arts which use a walking stick and a quarterstaff
Quarterstaff

A quarterstaff is a Middle Ages England weapon, consisting of a shaft of wood, sometimes with metal-reinforced tips. The name is also used for the fighting staves of other cultures, such as the Japanese bo , China gun , or France b?ton fran?ais....
, respectively.

Bibliography

Description de la Savate à partir de ses formes techniques de base par Amoros (Manuel d'éducation Physique Tome 1, page 414).
Défense et illustration de la boxe française. Savate, canne, chausson, Bernard Plasait, 1972, Paris, Sedirep
L'art de la savate, Michel Casseux.
Théorique et pratique de la boxe française, Joseph Charlemont, 1878.
La Boxe Française, historique et biographique, souvenirs, notes, impressions, anecdotes, Joseph Charlemont, 1899.

Sources and External links

for information on international and world championships, photos, videos & articles on Savate, La Canne, and Defence
SAVATE BLOG in English
A daily blog about Savate and martial arts.
**
- has pictures of modern savateurs in action.

for example and in the ring
Boxing ring

A boxing ring is the space in which a boxing match occurs. A modern ring, which is set on a raised platform, is square with a post at each corner to which four parallel rows of ropes are attached with a turnbuckle....

good photos of modern savate
informative essay on the roots of savate
Larousse, undated French encyclopaedia, early 20th century
rules, history, videos, and some stuff about "savate defense" and "la canne"
contains some excellent transcriptions of historical Savate books and essays
Private club in Slovenia
Contains a lot of information in [ENG] and [SLO] language
(French terms used and their English translations)
Refreshed daily
contains lots of information pertaining to savate
article
- numerous Savate videos, including a few newsreels of pre-WWII matches and exhibitions.
Savate & cane fighting in Montreal QC Canada
ARSIC-International
- Website of the official Fédération Internationale de Savate representative in the USA.
- Website of the official Iran Savate Association
- Laredo, Texas Savate Academy
- Official