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The Day Savate Died in Hoxton by Mark Hatmaker

  [Best consumed along with the companion piece essay “ The Day Jiu-Jitsu Died in Paris. ”] First —As with the companion piece regarding jiu-jitsu this is not an argument regarding the superiority of Boxing over Savate/Kickboxing or vice versa. I have no interest in that, and the wise readers out there don’t either. Rather we are looking at the hazards of what mathematicians and engineers know all too well, the hazard of a Binding Constraint . We’ll come back to this. Second —This is also not merely a Boxer vs. Kickboxer story. The records are rife with such matches, what fascinates here, is less the stylistic match-up than it is the relaxation of the Binding Constraint. Again, we’ll come back to that as it is the crux. For now, on to the history. Location London, May 1906. The Britannia Theater in Hoxton. Our Protagonists . The Boxer: Pedlar Palmer. A canny bantamweight, his father a bare-knuckle champion of Essex. Palmer had a fleet style and a wide repertoire. ...
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An Indigenous Combat Solo Drill Freebie Video

An indigenous combat solo drill for explosiveness, agility & ready weapon access. More such Drills in our store: http://www.extremeselfprotection.com
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Historical Solo Combat Training: 1 by Mark Hatmaker

  Warriors of yore and down thru the ages have sought ways to maximize skills via solo drills, be it the Roman Legionnaire at work “at his post” using his gladius , the Apache nawoɬkaadi with his array of stamina drills, to the dry-fire poker chip draws of the Western gunman. Combat athletes of yore and thru today’s modern sportive fighters have been no less creative in finding ways to optimize solo training be it the use of halteres by the Ancient Hellene pankratiast , the heavy bag of the boxer, the countless mobility/agility drills of the grappler. The Men on the Margin of yore [read that as badmen, malefactors, convicts, criminals and sundry personages] has likewise devised ingenious methods to whet their violence inducing ability be it cross-thumb cocking “games” with the straight razor of the Yellow Henry Gang of New Orleans, the   balancer les jambes of the Parisienne Apache, to the staggeringly inventive “bat flips” and like training concoctions of the incarcera...
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Sights Along the Trail by Mark Hatmaker

 [All excerpts taken from  Over the Chihuahua and Santa Fe trails, 1847-1848: George Rutledge Gibson's Journal George Rutledge was born in Virginia around 1810. He later studied law and opened a law office in Vincennes, Indiana, in 1834. During the early 1840s he moved his practice to Weston, Missouri. He also tried his hand at journalism, that is, publishing his own newspapers, both of these ventures failed, perhaps so for his law practice as well for when the Mexican War started, Gibson volunteered and was elected a second lieutenant. He was part of Colonel Stephen Watts Kearny's Army of the West, which left Fort Leavenworth for the occupation of New Mexico in 1846. He later became assistant quartermaster and commissary and accompanied Colonel Alexander Doniphan's forces to El Paso and Chihuahua, seeing action at the Battle of Brazito on 25 December 1846 and the Battle of Sacramento on 28 February 1847. The first section of Gibson's journal begins when he left C...
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Logger’s Smallpox: Kick Him When He’s Down by Mark Hatmaker

  [The following is an extract from the well-researched 1979 novel, The Holdouts by William Decker. It discusses a topic we discussed at length in last week’s offering The Lumberjack/Mining Camp Caulk-Kick . You can read that piece here. Or better yet, snag our instructional on this godawful viciousness here .] With his size and strength Red had always been a formidable fist fighter, but he tried to avoid fighting. Sam remembered how disturbed Red had been when an old logger had given them advice on how to fight. They had been at a dance when a fight broke out in the parking lot and a crowd gathered to watch two men slug it out in a clearing among the cars and pickups. No rowdiness or drinking was allowed inside the community dance hall, so it all took place out in the parking lot, and this was the third fight that night. It ended when one of the men went down and did not rise again. Sam had been awed by the solid blows the men exchanged. The sight of grown men battling was so m...
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The Lumberjack/Mining Camp Caulk-Kick by Mark Hatmaker

  Our brand-spankin’ new instructional video deals with all permutations of this kick that was devised to not merely injure but to snap tibias and fibulas. For historical background see the Link For a preview of the Instructional Outline, see below. [The Program comes with the Complete Outline for inclusion in your Training Notebooks.] To snag your Instructional Journy into Cripple Town—Here’s the Product ! Pronunciation & Origin The Environment ·         Bar Rails ·         Lumberjack Smallpox Training Surfaces ·         Banana Bag ·         BOB ·         Wall Bag ·         A Good Ol’ Tree Training Gear ·         You ·         Shoes [Boots for Authenticity] ·  ...
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At the Movies with The Old Man: Jim Kelly, Quiet Cool by Mark Hatmaker

  [Taken from our book Frontier Fisticuffs: Brawls, Dustups & Mysterious Strangers--The Martial Arts Western on Film . To see another extract from the book, this time a delightful and accurate early Jonn Wayne film, hit the link. The behind the scenes scufflin’ is worth the read alone.] Take a Hard Ride [1975] This 1975 Italian-American coproduction was an attempt to blend the then popular Blaxploitation and Spaghetti Western trends. It was also the 2nd of three films starring the trio of Jim Brown, Fred Williamson, and our main man of interest here, Jim Kelly. [ Three the Hard Way & One Down, Two to Go being the other two films.] The director, credited as Anthony Dawson was the sometime screen name of Antonio Margheriti, a veteran of Italian exploitation cinema with Peplum, Spaghetti Westerns and cannibal films to his credit. As per usual with Italian “Westerns” the film was shot nowhere near the American West, here, the Canary Islands stands in for the Southwe...
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