Boxe Française
Savate (pronounced s{-"v{t, SAMPA), also known as boxe française (French boxing) or French kickboxing, is a French martial art which uses both the hands and feet as weapons and contains elements of western boxing, grappling and graceful kicking techniques (only foot kick, no knee, no tibia). Practitioners of savate are called savateurs (men), and savateuses (women).
Savate takes its name from the French for old boot (heavy footwear used to be worn during fights) and is actually an amalgam of French street fighting techniques from the beginning of the 19th century. At that time, savate was a type of street fighting common in Paris and the north of France. And in the south, especially in the port of Marseille, sailors had developed a form of fighting involving high kicks, which was known as jeu marseillais (game from Marseille), which was later renamed chausson (slipper, after the type of shoes sailors wore). In contrast, at this time in England (the home of boxing and the Queensbury rules), kicking was seen as unsportsmanlike or as something that only cowards would resort to.
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 Michel Pisseux) (1794-1869), 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, gouging etc). However the sport had not yet managed to shake off its reputation as a street fighting technique. A pupil of Casseux's, Charles Lecour was exposed to the English art of boxing around 1830 and felt that he was at a disadvantage, only using his hands to bat his opponent's feet away, rather than punching. He trained in boxing for two years before, in 1832, combining boxing with chausson and savate to create the sport of savate boxe française as we know it today.
In competitive savate, there are four allowed kinds of kicks, and three kinds of punches [1].
- Kicks:
- fouette (whip kick), high, medium or low
- chasse (piston-action kick), high, medium or low
- reverse (sole of the shoe makes contact), side or front
- coup de bas (sweeping kick), low
- Punches
- jab (lead hand)
- cross (rear hand)
- hook (bent arm)
Perhaps the ultimate recognition of the respectability of savate came in 1924 when it was included as a demonstration sport in the Olympic Games in Paris. Despite it's roots, savate is a relatively safe sport to learn. According to USA Savate [2], "savate ranks lower in number of injuries when compared to football, hockey, soccer, gymnastics, basketball, baseball and inline skating".
Today, savate is played all over the world by amateurs: from Australia to the USA and Finland to Britain.
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