native american martial arts

[mook jong man]

Hello from Australia i remember reading in some m.a. magazine years ago about a native american indian fighting art. I cant remember the name of the bloke that was teaching it but i remember he had a strange coloured gi on. Is there really native american indian martial arts and what are they like. Would any American people know anything about it at all? thanks

 

[Deaf Smith]

Not exactly and "American Indian Martial Art" but...

http://www.nativekenpo.com/GrandMaster.htm

Adrian Roman is his name. Kenpo is what he teaches.

Deaf

 

[masherdong]

Check this thread out for more info about GM Adrian Roman:

http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21835&highlight=adrian+roman

 

[chinto]

to the best of my knowledge none of the traditional native american combat systems were preserved. If any tribe would have preserved anything it would have been the Apache and I do not think they managed to preserve their "foot fighting" and wrestling systems. they had a system I understand of grappling and blows and use of feet. but as far as I know it was lost along with most of the old skills in favor of guns and things and then just not needed after they were on the reservation.
in the late 1970's I knew some white mountain cloud members, and they had some small knife skills, but no unarmed that I know of.

 

[mook jong man]

Thanks for the info fellas it was very interesting.

 

[thesandman]

My tribe, Cherokee, did manage to preserve some of their fighting styles and principles. I have found a few people willing to teach these things (even a video course if you can believe it) but found that it was more an exercise in learning a culture and hystory more than a distinct fighting style.

Not to say it doesn't have enourmous value. I learned alot training with my brothers and sisters. Not only about how my people fought, but how they lived and trained. That aspect of my training was by far the most spiritual experinces I've ever had training in any martial art.

 

[chinto]

My tribe, Cherokee, did manage to preserve some of their fighting styles and principles. I have found a few people willing to teach these things (even a video course if you can believe it) but found that it was more an exercise in learning a culture and hystory more than a distinct fighting style.

Not to say it doesn't have enourmous value. I learned alot training with my brothers and sisters. Not only about how my people fought, but how they lived and trained. That aspect of my training was by far the most spiritual experinces I've ever had training in any martial art.

ok are we talking about specific weapons and unarmed techniques for combat? or that they used these weapons provably kinda along these lines and culturally we did war this way till the time of Andrew Jackson's presidency, when we tried to use some of the European folks weapons and such?

I do know for instance that counting coup was a thing that many of the plains tribes did to show bravery in battle... they found it didn't work well against the US Army's troops as they were soldiers, not warriors. So the tribes over time abandon that practice by and large. I do not know of any of the planes tribes having kept any of their traditional training in the lance and knife or what have you, but I admit I am not very much into most paleolithic cultures myself. My interest is mainly from the early iron age on though todays technological levels of advancement. so I may be in error as to some one having kept some of that training from their paleolithic roots after the modern methods and technology became available to them in from the American Europeans contact starting even in the late 17th century on, depending on what tribe you are talking about.

 

[Langenschwert]

For your perusal... a thread on Okichitaw:

http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=62410

Best regards,

-Mark

 

[elder999]

And there was a pretty good thread on Native American Martial Arts
Here

 

[punisher73]

If you use the search engine you will find several threads. There are also a number of threads on "apache knife fighting".

 

[Steel Tiger]

Hello from Australia i remember reading in some m.a. magazine years ago about a native american indian fighting art. I cant remember the name of the bloke that was teaching it but i remember he had a strange coloured gi on. Is there really native american indian martial arts and what are they like. Would any American people know anything about it at all? thanks

It all depends what you class as Native American. Would you consider Aztecs and Mayans as Native American? Anthropologists and archaeologists do. And once you include them you have access to a society that was essentially a military meritocracy with full time professional warriors and fighting orders. Veterans trained young warriors and appear to have used systematic methods to do so.

But if you are talking exclusively north or the Rio Grande then the situation is as thesandman and Chinto have pointed out. Most indigenously developed techniques fell by the wayside in favour of the new weapons provided by iron working technology, especially the knife, tomahawk, and gun.