[Stephen Zeringue]

Hello ALL, I was wondering about the unarmed systems of fighting

Was unarmed combat pan-european in the middle ages?

How did modern euro systems develope (like boxing,greco roman, catch wrestling, savate) and why are they diffrent from whats in the historacle manuals?

I hope to hear responses THANKS.

[Doug Lester]

Unarmed combat was world wide. It was the basis of all fighting; the first thing you learned. People spared with each other and found certain techniques that worked better than others. Because the human body is basically the same for everyone, people in different cultures developed pretty much the same techniques. I used to study Jujitsu and many of the moves that I learned in it I see in many of the Utube videos showing techniques illustrated in the European fighting manuals.

[David E. Farrell]

actually, your second question Stephen is a bit of a tough one.

So lets deal with the first: Yes, there was some aspect of unarmed combat in the medieval combat systems that folks can document. And there certainly was wrestling.


The second is tough to answer in general. Depending on what you are comparing to, there are historical techniques that resemble modern sport and unarmed combative techniques (even from different continents and cultures) very closely - because the human body only bends so many ways as Doug pointed out.

Now one easy reason for why some of the nastier techniques from historical combat manuscripts don't appear in sport wrestling/grappling is because it is (and was) generally frowned upon to kill or paralyze your opponent in a sporting contest.

Another reason is simply that as the rules changed, so to did the sport.

Interestingly, modern Greco-Roman wrestling apparently has more in common with Saxon wrestling styles than those of the Greeks or Romans. And American Catch Wrestling is a conglomeration of a number of sport styles from all over Europe, brought together in the melting pot of the early US as immigrants brought these things with them and interacted.

[Steven H]

Hello,

The ARMA has done some good research on unarmed techniques. Check out these articles:
Unarmed Combat
Getting Punchy

Was the system Pan-European? That's harder to tell. Their is less material on unarmed combat and it's all from a few places. So we don't know if they taught the same methods in, for instance, England and Hungary.

Cheers,
Steven

[Alan McGee]

[James R.Fox]

Sir,I was going to recommen ARMA as well. I used to wresrle ( Judo) the human body only does so much. Being on the ground scrabbling for the last dropped weapon, must have been commpn in Any school of fighting.At least the ones that win. The point of was in not to dife for your country, It's it's to make the orher poor bastard die for his.

[Stephen Zeringue]

I heard that the Glasgow museum has alot of fighting manuals. does anyone know more about this as it relates to unarmed combat?