For today’s historical-combat exercise let’s
follow a weave of martial endeavor that moves from the American Frontier Rough
& Tumble strategy of “Attacking the Buckler” to a bit of Viking archeology,
to some “chicken or the egg” bragging rights for which came first between a
French martial art and one of the Emerald Isle, and end with what all this
historical and archaeological speculation has to do with modern day approaches
to self-protection.
Let’s start our journey in the wilds of the
American Frontier. A rough and tumble land that sparked a fighting style of the
same name. A fighting style that was all -encompassing and vicious in war, and
a bit more restrained [but still mighty vicious] for “friendly” competition.
The early days of frontier survival called for
ready skill with musket, tomahawk, and whatever else was close at hand. When
nothing was close at hand, the violence fell to the hands themselves plus other
natural weapons of the body.
The rough and tumble style was/is a hybrid of
boxing and wrestling styles from many lands in the melting pot frontier, but it
was also a bit more than that as necessity and exposure to different ways sparked
innovation. One such spark was the concept of “Attacking the Buckler.”
A buckler is a small shield worn over the forearm
of the off-weapon hand of a sword, pike, or ax wielding warrior. The lead hand
took care of the offense while the buckler arm took care of defense [although offense
with the bucker was not off the table.]
The buckler is held by sliding the forearm
through a rope loop or leather thong in the center of the buckler and then
gripping a second handhold towards the inside edge of the buckler. If one drops
a buckler and adopts a mock “holding a buckler’ stance with both arms you will
then be standing a very good approximation of a boxing stance.
When wielding a weapon vs. a buckler-wielding opponent
the buckler was not always ignored, striking the buckler with force could occupy
the opponent and/or upset balance/base for the next offensive strike not to the
buckler.
When things went empty handed, this same idea
of “attacking the buckler” remained. That is, rather than treat the empty-hand encounter
as modern sportive applications do where one must treat the defending arms
[twin bucklers] as obstacles to be surmounted or worked around, the rough and
tumble style saw them as viable and prime targets. [We cover specific tactics for attacking the buckler empty-handed in our Black Box material.]
Attacking the Buckler is a wise strategy well
worth reviving, as is the opposite strategy of “Ignoring the Buckler.”
Let’s talk Vikings. The sagas of these legendary
Norsemen are filled with battles and gore and if one is an ardent reader one
will come across more than a few amputations in the midst of battle. A fair
number of these amputations are of the legs or feet.
But the sagas are stories not history. Just
how accurately do the stories relate to what was occurring in Viking battle?
In 1905 on the island of Gotland near a town
called Visby, Oscar Wilhelm Wennersten and Nils Pettersson were the first to
begin archaeological digs that revealed the aftermath of the Battle of Visby
which was fought in 1361.
Approximately 2,000 bodies have been exhumed
in the ongoing study of Visby and an examination of the wounds on all
battle-age likely skeletons proves quite illuminating.
Wounds from cutting weapons [swords or
battle-axes] occur in 456 skeletons. Of these cutting wounds only 15% of the
total are wounds to the arms. One would presume that the use of shields and bucklers
keeps this total low,
With that 15% in mind does that mean that the head
wounds took the lead?
Not by a longshot.
Wounds to the lower extremities come in at 65%
of the total.
Although the sagas are rife with stories and tactics
of chopping shields and bucklers to bits as well as shield off-setting tactics,
it seems the effective and perhaps preferred method of attack was to “Ignore
the Buckler.”
“Ignoring the Buckler” can be taken to the unarmed
realm [or as an adjunct to the armed realm] if we look at low-line kicking in
combat, which is in essence an ignoring the buckler strategy, whether for better
balance, the pragmatics of battlefield terrain, or the on-the-nose- strategy of
choosing to avoid that which protects your opponent.
There are many references to low-line kicking
in American frontier rough and tumble but let’s keep this on the other side of
the pond for now as we follow that Viking migration.
As the Norsemen raided, and in many cases intermingled,
built allies, inter-married and settled down along the coasts of Ireland and Scotland
we also have an ignoring the buckler strategy seen among these various Celtic
tribes in both weapons play and the use of low-line kicking.
The Gaelic word, Speachoireacht [pronounce “spacker-okt” and you’ll come close] refers
to a method of low-line kicking that both targets the shin as in the purring kick
of Welsh and Cornish tradition, the oblique kick of Filipino Pananjakman, or
the coup de pied bas of savate, and also
uses the shin as the striking surface.
[Here’s the chicken or the egg portion of the
show. The mention or allusions to speachoireacht
stretch back to the Norse Invasions whereas savate literature begins its heyday
in the 18th-century. Whom borrowed from whom matters to many. Not to
my way of thinking. The wisdom of a wise borrow outweighs the dubious bragging
rights of “I was here first!”]
It is revealing that while there was/is a form
of speachoireacht that is practiced with
two participants only kicking, it was primarily used in conjunction with boxing
and wrestling and one can easily imagine in times of sword, ax and shielded battle
it coming into play.
It seems our bellicose historical ancestors on
both sides of the pond did not see bucklers or defending arms as puzzles to be
cracked, obstacles to be avoided, or thwarts to our attack. They pragmatically and
wisely chose to make a target of what was a defense or to go beneath the
defense altogether.
So, whether our influence be rough and tumble,
Viking ways, savate, speachoireacht,
Muay Thai, what have you. The historical lesson is not the how or what technique,
but the strategy of “Attacking and/or Avoiding the Buckler” that carries the combat
moral of the day.
Back to Rough n Tumble Kicking. Lowline kicking was a
mainstay in this early rowdy violence particularly in the Northern Territories
and stretching to the Pacific Northwest—Makes complete sense if one considers that
the settling population was primarily of Scandinavian lineage.
This population saw a wide variety of lowline kicking,
shoe/boot left on AND the added heft of, well,…let’s save that for another day
as tomorrow we release our latest Rough n Tumble Instructional which is a deep
dive into this world of Lowline Northern Territory Kicking.
One that calls for no shin conditioning. Just you, a shoe, a
boot and opponents with snapped fibulas and tibias.
Details tomorrow.
[For more on our Rough & Tumble Program see our Store, the truly serious may want
to consider The
Rough n Tumble Black Box Brotherhood.]
For information on our Viking Battleaxe
Material.
[For more on our Rough & Tumble Program see our Store and the Black Box Subscription Service.]
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