As of late I have really started digging into the history of martial arts in the western world, specifically Boxing, Savate, and European folk styles of wrestling. So I thought I would post links to some resources on this kind of thing as I very rarely see western martial arts discussed at any length.
Without further ado...
Kirk Lawson's lulu storefront : [URL=" [url]
http://stores.lulu.com/lawson[/url] "] [/url]
http://stores.lulu.com/lawson
This guy does repubs of classical manuals on boxing, wrestling, and stick-fighting, the best part is that he makes pdfs of said repubs available for free.
Some of the books on boxing he has available go back to the early 1800's. Tons of good shit here.
Classical Pugilism Yahoo group :
http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/classicpugilism/
A lot of really good discussion on the history of boxing and the modern revival of it as it was in the pre-gloved and early gloved eras.
Google books: I doubt I really need to link this one. A quick search for Pugilism, Catch wrestling, Savate or the like usually turns up something to download as most of the books on the subject are out of copyright.
Defense dans la Rue :
http://defensedanslarue.wordpress.com/ This site has a lot of good material on early Savate and one of its off shoot arts Defense dans la Rue, a kind of early self defense oriented MMA.
The Linacre School of Defence :
http://www.sirwilliamhope.org
This is the site for some kind of school in England that teaches historical swordsmanship and classical boxing, the site's library has a wealth of good texts on everything from historical Fencing to classical Boxing.
That is all that I can think of off the top of my head, if I had to recommend one text in particular I would say if you're at all interested in this kind of thing look for Donald Walker's Defensive Exercises on Google books. It was written in 1840 and contains full sections on several styles of English folk wrestling, two different methods of boxing, general self defense, broadsword, stick-fighting, fencing, and military drill, the book is an excellent catalog of Martial arts in early 1800's England. Who knows if you practice a martial art you might just pick up a trick or two for sparring and at the least find some food for thought as to the development of martial arts in Europe. Anyway just thought I would share some info on a subject I'm interested in, as they say Read, Know, Do.
Comments
But if I want real self defense, I'd do jujutsu, and not that Brazilian crap.
Can't use my sword on the street for most purposes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartitsu