So far there is a notion in pop culture that until East Asian martial arts were brought over Post WWII and the Bruce Lee craze, Western martial arts never never used any leg techniques such as the triangle choke and in particular kicks.
Anyone who began studying martial arts in depth will eventually come across HEMA and other local regional styles in Europe such as Viking Wrestling, Savate, and Pankration that emphasizes using leg techniques like sweeps and kicks to the point such techniques are essential to using such local European styles.
However these styles never became big in the West as popular fighting sports. In fact its starting in the 1700s many popular western fighting sports like boxing and collegiate wrestling style began to develop into their modern forms; prior the older variations were almost like earlier incarnations of MMA with bare knuckle boxing allowing open hand strikes, grappling, and even kicks and stomping and old school wrestling pretty much being No Holds Barred minus striking.
As they became their popular sports form, eventually associations develop rules to focus entirely on arm-based techniques and eliminate legs other than for footwork and movement to launch throws and punches.
It'd take a over a century for the concept of "kicks", leg chokes and take downs, stomping and other leg techniques to begin to be as acceptable in mainstream fighing sports with East TMAs and Bruce Lee inspiring new sports like kick boxing and MMA in the West.
Its precisely because of the transition of boxing and college wrestling into banning kicks, stomps, sweeps, and other leg based techniques that came the notion that kicking is a uniquely Asian thing and Westerners prefer fighting with their hands only.
Anyone who studies Asian martial arts in depth would realize a lot of styles like Karate and TKD were actually dumbed down even in their home country to eliminate dangerous moves and thus forms are more like sports emphasizing flashiness
Despite the huge dumbing down and sportification fo Asian martial arts, in Asia using leg techniques like triangle choke, sweeps, and especially chokes were never eliminated from mainstream martial arts and fighting sports and indeed in many Asian countries like Thailand and Mongolia its kickboxing and No Holds Barred Wrestling styles that are among the MOST popular sports.
Even in countries where "traditional Western fighting sports" like boxing became huge in such as Japan and Korea, the popularity pales in comparison to traditional martial arts sports emphasizing kicks and leg based takedowns and grappling. I mean for how big boxin is in Korea, the amount of TKD dojos outnumber them by a huge margin.
However in the West, its the opposite where martial arts sports utilizing kicks and sweeps like Zipota, Sambo, Savate and Pankration and many no holds barred local wrestling styles are practically obscure and waaayy out of the mainstream's radar. Even in European countries that pride themselves in keeping their local martial arts and wrestling styles alive like Russia and North Europe, boxing and collegiate wrestling and other arm-based sports remain DOMINANT as far as as popularity goes.
I am curious why is there such a huge contrast in the transitioning of martial arts into their sportified forms between Asia and the West? Why do kickboxing and No Holds wrestling styles like Icelandic wrestling and Savate that were developed indigenous to Europe were left as UNDERGROUND things and never got the mass appeal the way TKD, Judo, and Karate got in Asian countries?
Bonus question: In the west why did fighting sports restricting techniques to arm usage quickly outpaced local styles utilizing bodies such as Pankration in popularity (especially boxing)?
I mean even older schools of boxing once utilized leg movements to pin an enemy from escaping as you pummel him in the ring while both you and your enemy are standing up. There was even a point when pugilism had sweeps and kicks. Go a few centuries earlier and British boxing resemble a far more brutal incarnation of MMA in which everything goes from choking an enemy to stomping them on the ground to gouging their eyes and the only thing preventign it from being real street violence was the lack of weapons and the existence of a referee to decide the winner and help the loser get up so he could go to the nearest hospital.
Anyone who began studying martial arts in depth will eventually come across HEMA and other local regional styles in Europe such as Viking Wrestling, Savate, and Pankration that emphasizes using leg techniques like sweeps and kicks to the point such techniques are essential to using such local European styles.
However these styles never became big in the West as popular fighting sports. In fact its starting in the 1700s many popular western fighting sports like boxing and collegiate wrestling style began to develop into their modern forms; prior the older variations were almost like earlier incarnations of MMA with bare knuckle boxing allowing open hand strikes, grappling, and even kicks and stomping and old school wrestling pretty much being No Holds Barred minus striking.
As they became their popular sports form, eventually associations develop rules to focus entirely on arm-based techniques and eliminate legs other than for footwork and movement to launch throws and punches.
It'd take a over a century for the concept of "kicks", leg chokes and take downs, stomping and other leg techniques to begin to be as acceptable in mainstream fighing sports with East TMAs and Bruce Lee inspiring new sports like kick boxing and MMA in the West.
Its precisely because of the transition of boxing and college wrestling into banning kicks, stomps, sweeps, and other leg based techniques that came the notion that kicking is a uniquely Asian thing and Westerners prefer fighting with their hands only.
Anyone who studies Asian martial arts in depth would realize a lot of styles like Karate and TKD were actually dumbed down even in their home country to eliminate dangerous moves and thus forms are more like sports emphasizing flashiness
Despite the huge dumbing down and sportification fo Asian martial arts, in Asia using leg techniques like triangle choke, sweeps, and especially chokes were never eliminated from mainstream martial arts and fighting sports and indeed in many Asian countries like Thailand and Mongolia its kickboxing and No Holds Barred Wrestling styles that are among the MOST popular sports.
Even in countries where "traditional Western fighting sports" like boxing became huge in such as Japan and Korea, the popularity pales in comparison to traditional martial arts sports emphasizing kicks and leg based takedowns and grappling. I mean for how big boxin is in Korea, the amount of TKD dojos outnumber them by a huge margin.
However in the West, its the opposite where martial arts sports utilizing kicks and sweeps like Zipota, Sambo, Savate and Pankration and many no holds barred local wrestling styles are practically obscure and waaayy out of the mainstream's radar. Even in European countries that pride themselves in keeping their local martial arts and wrestling styles alive like Russia and North Europe, boxing and collegiate wrestling and other arm-based sports remain DOMINANT as far as as popularity goes.
I am curious why is there such a huge contrast in the transitioning of martial arts into their sportified forms between Asia and the West? Why do kickboxing and No Holds wrestling styles like Icelandic wrestling and Savate that were developed indigenous to Europe were left as UNDERGROUND things and never got the mass appeal the way TKD, Judo, and Karate got in Asian countries?
Bonus question: In the west why did fighting sports restricting techniques to arm usage quickly outpaced local styles utilizing bodies such as Pankration in popularity (especially boxing)?
I mean even older schools of boxing once utilized leg movements to pin an enemy from escaping as you pummel him in the ring while both you and your enemy are standing up. There was even a point when pugilism had sweeps and kicks. Go a few centuries earlier and British boxing resemble a far more brutal incarnation of MMA in which everything goes from choking an enemy to stomping them on the ground to gouging their eyes and the only thing preventign it from being real street violence was the lack of weapons and the existence of a referee to decide the winner and help the loser get up so he could go to the nearest hospital.