Schiaffi e calci (slaps and kicks) or schiafferia co’ i cauci in Pugliese is a traditional southern Italian martial art that goes back to the late 18th Century. You can only kick below the waist and you wear normal shoes. Above the waist you can slap because old the old penal code striking with a fist was illegal but it was okay to slap the crap out of someone. But it’s nothing like karate or kick-boxing. You fight in a clinch.
When you’re in a clinch you use trips, kicks, back heels and stamps to their legs, and upperbody wrestling, and slaps and testata (head-butting) to the head. You want to try and knock them down. It goes on until someone gives up. But if you was using it in self-defence you’re supposed to stamp on them before they get up or in the old days use your spurs on them.
Amica…
That sounds pretty deadly to me, no?
Wow, there are so many Italian martial arts, huh? If they were using it for self-defense did they punch or did they still slap. Punching has got to be more effective, no? Do Italian girls learn that art or is just for guys?
Anyone who slaps harder than they punch, can’t punch. If you want to spark someone out, standing an arm and a half away, a punch is better than a bitch slap ‘em. But if you’re in a clinch, chinning them ain’t always possible, and in that sort of situation you’re better off slapping them round the back of the head or neck, so you can hurt them and latch on to them at the same time. In my opinion, grappling is more effective in self-defence than punching, but a decent right-hander can end a fight before it’s begun.
Do you do that style Rob?
Heather,
Now and again but it’s not something I do often.
Heather,
They avoided punching because they didn’t want the legal hassle of striking with a closed fist. They could just as easily put the other geezer on his arse and give him a right old leathering, without it all coming on top.
Rob…
See this makes no sense to me, why were they allowed to kick but not punch? Kicking can be more lethal, no?
Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me either but that was the law. Personally, I would have used my fist and lied and said it was an open hand, the geezer you sparked out ain’t going to be able to prove you’re lying.
Rob…
LMBO
Who knew?
Hey guys, are you back yet? What’s going on?
How is Schiaffi e calci differnt than Pugno? I’ve heard about using the spurs but never seen it. To me it seems like Schiaffi e calci is a cousin to French Savate and both an offspring of Roman Pankration. It seems logical to me the slaps referr to open hand, palm heel strikes; Rob is right most guys would just punch the crap out of you, and screw it. Did they apply the no punching law differntly in differnt regions of Italy?
Alexander the Great took Pankration to India, and Bodhidharma (Ta Mo) took it to China and the Shaolin Temple, it is the father of Asian Martial Arts. It has been my experience that Kick Boxing, Savate, Dirty Boxing usually beat most Asian forms of Kung fu, Karate etc.
@ Mike — Ones boxing and the other is slapping and kicking. Pancratium is Roman, Pankration is Greek. Schiaffi e calci bears no connection to either beaning a sport developed in the Napoleonic era but it’s related to savate. The law was applied throughout Italy, where bare knuckle boxing was popular. There are no palm strikes, just slaps, cuffs kicks below the waist, headbutts and throws. It’s not popular in Southern Italy and it’s not a great style of fighting unless you’re wearing spurs, then it’s lethal.
@ Rob: I figured that Savate coming from Marseilles (once a Roman city) there was a connection with the Roman fighting arts, wouldn’t be surprised if the Roman fighting art remained alive. So Schiaffi e calci wasn’t popular in Southern Italy, I’d thought it was a variation of Pugno to meet the law with some wrestling thrown in. Pugno uses open handed palm heel strikes, back heeling, hip throws, forearm & elbow strikes. In Italy nothing is lost if it works well, stuff is passed down.