How common, another Asainophile post based on a personal viewpoints and not any research on the subject.
The history and art of personal combat did NOT START NOR END in the orient. The martial disciplines of the West are vast and in most Western European cases very well codified in combat training manuels of the time, something the East can not vouch for as the same.
Occidental fighting strategems both combative sport and pure martial are still practiced to this day, it is a great legacy of fighting heritage for those who wish to pursue it on either a practical or academic level, left down not from some ? monk 3,000 years ago who always comes with the standard bogus mythos invented by those wanting something greater than themselves, but by a line directly connected to reality without the needed storytelling, a line fussed in real use.
IMHO the art form of Renaissance classical swordplay is leaps and bounds above anything that the Asian world can toss its way in terms of material depth and skill. The French, Italian, Spanish, German and Elizabethan dualling schools of fencing should not be confused with want you see at your local community college sport fencing class.
Sword and dagger, sword and cloak, sword and buckler, dagger, grappling, unarmed combat, polearms, they taught it all, and not in a pretty by-rote form either, all of it codified and past down from one teacher to the next, Camillo Agrippa, Achille Marozzo, Viggiani, Di grassi, Talhoffer, the Spanish master Hieronimo de Caranza was the creator of the infamous “La Destreza” mystery school of sword combat, a method that has been passed down for over 300 years and is as close to a science as anything involving a bladed weapon with its use of geometry and advanced mathematics.
The spanish blade culture also has the Navaja, a folding dagger used in the 19th century, one of the gypsy methods is codified in the Manuel del Baratero, I have met and spoken to people where this has been passed down from grandfather to father, from father to son, contemporay books have been written about these lethal methods, methods which a number of bowie fighters and bowie dualling schools in early America also used, as well as a number of other western systems based on the user, his heritage and personal background, the spanish system of knifefighting can also be seen in the WWII American military knife system of Styers in his training book “Cold Steel”, the Sicilians also have the switchblade/stellitto method of duelling which has been passed down from father to son, the Native American Indians are also fierce knife fighters, with there own armed and unarmed combat systems, we even have a member of this board who has been trained in Inoui knife fighting methods, the Basque knife system of Makila which uses a hawk bill shaped balde, not to mention the countless other countries with their own approaches.
There are many baton/stick/cane arts like La Canne and the french Canne de Combat, Irish Faction Stick Fighting, Canary Island stick fighting, Engilsh quater staff and 19th century Engilsh walking stick methods self defense , bayonet and a zillion other polearms and impact methods.
For unarmed combat we have the forrunner to modern boxing, the old methods of bare knuckle pugilism, Danse de Rue Savate which is the street combat system where the combat sport of Box Francaise-Savate comes from, Lutte Parisiene french street fighting, French Chausson-still practiced to this day and may of influenced Caporia by the saliors who practiced it on the ships, the Basque system of Zipota which may of created Savate, there is the Hawiiwan bone-breaking art of Lua, a VERY indepth unarmed and armed style which greatly influenced Danzan-Ryu Ju Jitsu and Small Circle Ju Jitsu, we have native Russian family martial arts and there sport/military runners like Sambo, we have British Purring/Cuttlegging a system used by coalminers who fought with metal toed shoes to settle disputes, tons and tons and tons of wrestling systems, everything from Folkstyle, Freestyle, Greco-Roman, Scottish Backhold, Irish Collar and Elbow, Cumberland, Devonshire, American Catch as Catch Can to Native American wrestling methods, we have numerous military cqc methods of combat, I would also consider Ed Parkers Kenpo to be a American martial art and BJJ as a western art.
Plus we have firearms, a whole martial art onto itself, with a depth of civilan, law enforcement and military tactical training viewpoints, method after method, WWII point shooting, Vietnam Recondo Quick Kill shooting, Weaver, Colonel Copper, hundreds of years of material.
This is just a very small post on all of the fighting arts of the west, so don’t be so narrow minded in your viewpoints, get educated on the subject, on what you THINK is martial or a complete system or whatever nonsense you want to base you vote off of.
no problem man, it was a moment of clarity in my mostly delusional world…