Kicking in the Wild West by Mark Hatmaker

The American Frontier was an ever-expanding loose boundary of westward expansion that began with the coastal exploration along the Atlantic and then made inroads into the thick forests of the east. It is tough to imagine now, but, at one time, practically the entire Appalachian and Ohio valleys were so thick with woodland single-track traces [trails] through thick forest was about all that could be managed. 


Once the Mississippi was crossed The Great American Desert [The Great Plains] with perspective skewing grasslands stretching from horizon to horizon was encountered. And, of course, the vast fastnesses of the Rockies, Sierra Madres, boiling deserts from the Sonoran to the Mojave, unforgiving lands from the Malpais to the Llano Estacado [Staked Plains] saw remarkably different terrains and environments from territory to territory.


Within these varying terrains isolated by the natural features themselves entire cultures and traditions would spring up, and all cultures have their own version of combat approaches. Whether these be of American Indian devise or the pockets of immigrant communities with their own isolated variant of a fighting art from back home as we see with the Basque shepherds or the raft of isolated Scandinavian enclaves in the North.


Add to this mix the influx of influences in port cities such as New York, New Orleans, and San Francisco’s Barbary Coast, and the huge Russian influence in Alaska and what would become the Northwest United States.


We know that English Boxing and Wrestling as well as Continental variants made their way as intrepid practitioners likely prone to risk chose to move west rather than sit pat in Eastern cities or villages. These originally somewhat “pure” styles morphed into a blend that came to be loosely termed “Rough and Tumble” or “rough and ready play” or sometimes just “scufflin’.” Often the striking and grappling was blended and less than savory tactics were not outliers, but part and parcel of the mix. It was a time when the pancratium of Ancient Greece would be made to look tame-ish. 


If you doubt the “all-in” nature of Frontier All-In, ponder this—bitten off noses and ears and gouged out eyes were considered “in” in many of the matches that had so-called “rules.” When it was a no-rules game, well, you many not even want to know.


The English Boxing and wrestling influence is so significant that often the kicking aspect is either underplayed or forgotten entirely. This is a mistake, there are copious refences to kicking within this rough and tumble tradition. We must not forget that the French influence in New Orleans and Canada was significant and it seems that savate or a forerunner of savate was part of this rough and tumble repertoire.


Author Les Savage, Jr., who wrote fiction of the Yukon and Northwest Territories in the 1940s-50s, made it a habit to study the journals and newspaper accounts of the time and he makes references to savate in both high and lowline kicking in his works as an authentic detail.


Journalist, historian, and novelist Paul I. Wellman also references Cajun savate in an offhand manner as if “Yeah, this was common stuff” in his book  The Iron Mistress.


“These peoples—nom du chien—too much talk, bah! Lots of time Cajun fight—sometime with gun—sometime with feet-la savate-sometime with knife. Like this—” He indicated his scarred visage. “August Cabet—he give me that one. Good frien’, Auguste.”


Most historians include in the definition of The Wild West the wild and wooly time of the Depression Era Gangsters, John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson and their disreputable ilk.


Texas Ranger, Frank Hamer, the man who brought down Bonnie & Clyde was notorious for using his feet in a fight. So much so that one fellow Ranger remarked that “He usually put a quick end to a scuffle with a quick mule kick to an opponent’s groin.”


His friend, Bill Sterling on Hamer’s kicking prowess: “From the way he performed I thought some adventure-seeking Frenchman had drifted into the Pecos country and shown him how it was done in France. His answer was that he had never taken any lessons other than those given by experience. In youthful fights, when older boys ganged up on him, he discovered that his feet could be turned into high-powered weapons.”


Hamer himself on his kicking: “My feet were always loaded.”


Wild West kicking does not begin and end with French influence or “guesses at what the French were doing.”


We have a large Chinese and Japanese population entering from the Pacific Coast and the migration of native arts with these Asian immigrants Kwai Chang Caine style as in the TV show Kung Fu or Shanghai Knights films has more than two or three kernels of truth to it. 


There are incidents of Western boxing and wrestling influencing these immigrants and vice versa which gives us yet again hybridized kicking in the rough and tumble tradition.


In the numerous American Indian combat methods, there are many references to kicking from Inuit akratcheak to Comanche suanir’u, to the kicking “games” of the Cheyenne which has a few legends regarding deaths resulting from the practice.


Kicking in combat, it seems, is not limited to this or that combat discipline. What makes it intriguing [to this author at least] is that in this big melting pot of daring and often violent westward expansion that the combat laboratory co-mingled so many disparate ideas, often with little to no-regard for safety even in the sportive versions. 


Modern day hybrid arts make much ado about the mixing of disciplines, and it is creditable to do so. But with a historical perspective we see that this “keep what works, kills, or maims, drop what don’t” was part and parcel of thought in this amalgamated American laboratory of hurt.


[For more Rough& Tumble history, Indigenous Ability hacks, and for pragmatic applications of old school tactics historically accurate and viciously verified see our RAW Subscription Service.]