Who Practices a Western Martial Art?

[Raynac]

I practice To-shin Do... I've been told thats a western art.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Enough so that the Wall Street Journal took notice of them from a business standpoint in a 2006 article. A year earlier they had written an article on the tactical knives business. (The articles themselves are now subscription-only.) I find it amazing that the WSJ thought they were worth covering--what I thought of as very much niche products! Can an article on selling rattan sticks for fun and profit be far behind?

And as for tactical flashlights....

http://www.flashlightcool.com/Magli...ell-Flashlight/6-D-Cell-Flashlight-Black.html

Daniel

 

[doc D]

Hello All !
I have for years , studied many martial arts, most of them of Asian roots although I have trained military hand to hand and had a background in western marksmanship /shooting, boxing,Wild West whip cracking, knife throwing/ tomahawk throwing and the most basic of fencing. My forte is Pencak silat and Kali.
I am American but have bloodlines that go back to Scotland and Ireland and I have a great respect and interest in the land and people from where my ancestors came and, as a martial artist, I have an abundant enthusiasm and reverence for the martial culture that has existed in those regions. So ,I now find myself exploring the Western arts in hopes of connecting with the Martial Culture of Europe . It is my hope, ultimately ,to explore the specific sword arts of Scotland and Ireland. I am starting with with the Schola Saint George in Lewisville ,Texas and also doing some Long Sword work with a gentleman in Arlington ,Texas ,who I found on Meetup .com. The Former teaches material based on work set forth by Fiore del Libere and the Latter teaches Longsword de los Aurelios.
I love the edged weapon and blade work I've studied from my Asian arts ( Pencak Silat ,Kali, Krabi Krabong, Kenjutsu, etc) but the Western work is quite fun and a refreshing approach to the subject of edged weapons.

Today I just got a copy of "Reclaiming the Blade" on DVD....I hope to review it later .

With Respect,
Doc D

 

[lklawson]

So ,I now find myself exploring the Western arts in hopes of connecting with the Martial Culture of Europe . It is my hope, ultimately ,to explore the specific sword arts of Scotland and Ireland.

Check out Chris Thompson's work on Scottish basket-hilted broadsword (aka "Highland Broadsword") and the Broadsword League.

Not much recorded about specific "Irish" sword arts. Most researchers (but not all) are fairly confident that the Irish sword systems were cut from the same cloth as those of the contemporary Scottish and English.

There has been a renaissance of sorts for all these cultural martial systems. For the Irish, it's been a renaissance of stick fighting, wrestling, and boxing. Scottish seems to be more broadsword, dagger, and wrestling. English seems to be more various sword systems, and boxing/wrestling.

This are gross over-generalizations, of course, but that seems to be the general trend.

And that's without getting into other European cultural systems. For instance Jogo do pau is really getting a lot of attention these days.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[PalmTree]

For about 2 years now I've practiced the Afro-Brazilian art of Capoeira Contemporânea.

 

[Em MacIntosh]

I've been going to savate class on wed just to keep in the game. Been doing it for almost a year now. I find parallels for almost everything (in savate) in kickboxing.

 

[Tensei85]

Did a stint of Boxing, Wrestling & Krav Maga. Not as much as I would like but I could definitely appreciate & take things away from a lot of the training I received.

 

[shihansmurf]

I boxed and trained in Han Foo Wa(Bill Shaw's Freestyle Martial Arts) which I think of as very westernized.

There is a definite argument that the Kenpo I trained in could be considered a western art, with as far removed from its Asian roots as Mr. Parker managed to get it.

Mark

 

[FierySquidFace]

Millitary CQC on Saturdays. :2pistols: Also, I didn't actually plan on taking it at first, but my school offers Ghost Dog Apache Knife Fighting course (under the direction of Ralph Redfeather). :duel: Awesome stuff, though somewhat of a departure from the other Arts taught at my school.

 

[Carol]

What is the training like? I've heard of Apache knife fighting but have no idea how they actually go about it.

 

[Hudson69]

My main system falls under "Other" with it being Police Combatives (Instructor). But I also put down western archery which I use to hunt large hoofed animals found throughout Colorado. I would like to look into Krav. I have a LEO manual for the system but have only browsed it.

 

[FierySquidFace]

What is the training like? I've heard of Apache knife fighting but have no idea how they actually go about it.

I'll let you know after my first actual class on fri.

 

[FierySquidFace]

the Apache knife fighting stuff was... not what i expected. lol. it was a cross between Apache knife, and Japanese tantojutsu... very interesting. very cool.

 

[grydth]

I added the American Cane System as of last Summer, though actually that has some Oriental roots. A good workout and some imaginative uses for a common walking aid.

 

[Darrin Cook]

My training is in the Filipino martial arts, but I decided to pursue an American path, to make the art American and contemporary, which for me means:

1. I speak English. I use English terms. Although I am fluent in Spanish, and know all of the Tagalog and Visayan terms, I have decided for the sake of clarity and accessibility to label everything in English.
2. I use American weapons. I have been in the Philippines and have seen people wearing machetes as casually as baseball caps, but here in the US machetes are a rarity. The same can be said for rattan sticks. I train with a baseball bat, and my techniques are intended to be implemented with a baseball bat. Someone else earlier in this thread mentioned flashlights -a heavy case flashlight is an example of a realistic, Western weapon.
3. I wear American clothes. No gi's. I wear tennis shoes. I don't go barefooted.
4. I believe in the scientific method. I'm tired of the old, “2,000 years ago, in the mist-enshrouded Himalayas, Sifu/Sensei/Guru Immortal ...” A technique is valid because it makes sense and because it can be proved to work, not because someone did it this way 200 years ago.
5. How many Filipino stylists have considered the implications of taking an art founded in a humid tropical climate and applying it in Michigan during the winter?

 

[ap Oweyn]

I've practiced a bit of boxing and about a year of Western fencing. Neither extensively. And both to inform my practice of FMA.


Stuart

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Never practiced it, but I would assume that Keysi is a WMA, given that its promoters claim that it began in Spain in the fifties.

Daniel

 

[Slav]

I'm taking savate classes. It's not as much as I would like to do but little by little I'm making progress. Great sport! I was impressed to box using not only hands but feet as well.

 

[Gruenewald]

Extremely proficient in Olympic & Greco-Roman Wrestling right now, looking into Krav Maga, Fencing, Boxing, Savate and Systema.

 

[Diabolik]

I practise Scandinavian Defendo. Basically it is mostly Bill Wolfe´s Modern Defendo, but for some reason the finnish insturctors who learned the system from Wolfe parted ways with him - so they started to teach under a new name. Well, not really completely western art (is there such thing anyway...) as there are some hapkido/ju-jutsu and a bit of muay thai too. On the other hand,one could say it is boxing/greco-roman wrestling filled with mean, filthy and dirty tricks that make it quite ideal for a real self-defence situation.

I would also like to do Savate some day, but unfortunately there are only couple of clubs in this whole country and they are way too far from where I live. Also would like to have the opportunity to someday train in old-style (bareknuckle) boxing but that´s probably non-existent in this country... Catch wrestling would be great too - there´s no single official club that does it really but I know that at least a few individuals are really very skillfull and knowledgeable at it actually...There´s no "mass interest" for it though, because when you talk about wrestling in Finland 99,9% of people think the greco-roman style automatically (probably don´t even know that other styles exist and brazilian jiu-jitsu (which is a cool, I have trained it a bit actually) is then again the thing what everyone associates with groundwork/grappling.