Right, here's a forgotten gem of a story – French boxing, or savate. Ever heard of it? Probably not, and that is a crying shame. This book tells the tale of how a rough-as-nails street fighting style, born in the back alleys and docks of 18th-century Marseille where sailors and scoundrels settled disputes with brutal bare-knuckle brawls and hard-soled kicks, somehow transformed into one of the most elegant and sophisticated martial arts the world has ever seen. Imagine sailors, drunk and angry, kicking each other with heavy boots – that was the start of it. Then came visionaries like Michel Casseux, who opened the first training academy, and Charles Lecour, a bloke who watched English boxers and thought "right, I will add their punches to our kicks" – genius, really. By the 19th century, savate had gone from street brawling to gentlemanly combat, practised in Parisian salons by the upper class, used in duels of honour, and even taught to the French military. Kicks like the fouetté (a whipping roundhouse), the chassé bas (a nasty low side kick to the knee), and the revers fouetté (a spinning hook kick that looked amazing) became its trademarks. But then English boxing took over, the wars came, and savate nearly disappeared – a forgotten craft, a relic of a bygone France. Yet somehow, thanks to a few stubborn practitioners and the formation of the Fédération Française de Savate in the 1980s, it survived. Today, savate is still out there – influencing MMA (yes, those leg kicks and precise footwork came from somewhere), practised across Europe, America, and even Asia, and carried by passionate fighters who refuse to let it die. This book covers the whole lot – the sailors, the duels, the golden age, the near-extinction, the revival, and where French boxing stands today against Muay Thai, karate, and taekwondo. If you love martial arts history, underdog stories, or just want to know about the elegant French fighting style that time almost forgot, grab this. Savate is not just a martial art – it is a piece of French soul, one kick at a time.
Right, here's a forgotten gem of a story – French boxing, or savate. Ever heard of it? Probably not, and that is a crying shame. This book tells the tale of how a rough-as-nails street fighting style, born in the back alleys and docks of 18th-century Marseille where sailors and scoundrels settled...
