The Foundation of all Fighting

When I was growing up in London in the 1980s, my Grandad Giuseppe told me the best form of self-defence was wrestling. Half a millennia earlier in 1480s Milan, fencing maestro Pietro Monte, described wrestling as “the foundation of all fighting”, both armed or unarmed.

He wasn’t the only fencing master to think so either. Grappling — abrazare in Italian and kampfringen in German — was inseparable from fencing from the C15th to C18th. All the famous Italian masters: Fiore dei Liberi, Lippo Bartolomeo Dardi, Guido Antonio di Luca, Fillipo Vadi, Antonio Manciolino, Achille Marozzo, Giovanni dall’Agocchie, Camillo Agrippa, Salvator Fabris, Ridolfo Capoferro and Francesco Ferdinando Alfieri taught grappling techniques as part of their fencing. Wrestling was no less popular with the German fencing masters, Johannes Liechtenauer and his student Ott Jud (the Jewish wrestler) are credited with developing Kampfringen, which was also taught by Peter von Danzig, Hans Talhoffer, Paulus Kal, Fabian von Auerswald, Johannes Lecküchner, Albrecht Duerer, Hans Wurm, Jorg Wilhalm, Paulus Hector Mair, Joachim Meyer and Johann Georg Passchen.

In the C15th there were distinct differences between Italian abrazare and German kampfringen. In abrazare the emphasis was on standing binds, disarms, elbow dislocations and takedowns, Pietro Monte was very critical of the German method of  ”unterhalten” (holding down). But there was a good reason for the unterhalten, a lot of recorded duels of the time ended with wrestling on the ground with daggers. There is an obvious advantage in pinning your opponent, which is a tactic my great grandfather used when he served in the Arditi during the Great War.

The Arditi were initially taught dagger fighting from the Flos Duellatorum, which they soon abandoned in favour of their own scherma di pugnale militare (military dagger fighting), which was better suited to their tactics of throwing grenades at enemy then stabbing to death any of the survivors before they had a chance to react. They trained in ground wrestling and knee wrestling — with and without their daggers — because so many of their fights ended on the ground. They were also adept at wrestling with soldiers armed with rifles and pistols.

My Grandad also had no problem taking a fight to the ground but he didn’t rate joint locks at all. his view was: why struggle with an arm or wrist lock, when he could end a fight with a Greco Roman throw? A souplesse on tarmac resolves many a Socratic debate on a Friday night.

16th Century Italian Polearms

The Italian Renaissance has no definitive start or finish date, but the Italian renaissance in warfare does, it can be firmly attached to the Italian wars of the C16th, or more precisely the Italian wars of 1494 to 1559. It was during the C16th that Italian polearms reached their zenith both in warfare and single combat. In the early C16th, Niccolò Machiavelli wrote about the use of the pike in warfare in Dell’arte della guerra, and Achille Marozzo wrote about the use of polearms in single combat in Opera Nova dell’Arte delle Armi, as did the Anonimo Bolognese in the L’Arte della Spada.

C16th Italian halberd

The reasons that the polearm became the primary infantry weapon during the Italian wars of the C16th was because of the advancements in armour technology and the reason they fell into decline in the C17th was due to advancements in firearms. The Italian wars of the C16th were initially dominated by pike and halberd but then came to be dominated by pike and shot. The heavily armoured gendarmes gave way to the partially armoured corazzieri.

C16 Italian Partisan

C16th Italian polearms were not the weapons of peasants, they were the weapons of the professional condottiero. Probably the most formidable was the Italian Roncone. Although it looks impressive, it enjoyed less success on the battlefield than the pike, halberd, partisan and polehammer but was lethal in single combat.

Unarmed Knife Defences

17th Century Stiletto

In previous post, Rob said, and I agree, that most unarmed knife defences taught by martial arts instructors don’t work in the real world. During the Renaissance period, stilettos weren’t just carried by professional soldiers they were also carried by ordinary civilians for personal defence, even girls carried them for protection against would-be rapists when anti-rape defences were designed to be fatal to the attacker of to at least remove his capacity to rape – permanently! So most knife defences taught by fencing schools at this time were dagger on dagger.

But unarmed knife defences were also used in Renaissance and Baroque fencing. These techniques were only effective because they were designed to be used against a triangular stiletto blade, which wouldn’t cut the defender if they grabbed or were struck with the edge of the blade.

Extrema Ratio "Col Moshin"

They wouldn’t be very effective against a modern single or double edged dagger that could slice through flesh and sever an artery, like the famous Pugnale da paracadutista assaltatore Mod. 1939, “Col Moshin” Knife, 39 09, Nemesis, Milano stiletto, or Bowie knife.

Extrema Ratio "39 09"

Extrema Ratio "Nemesis"

Milano stiletto

Bowie knife

Even though Italian knife fencing was popular very popular in Italy during the 19th Century, few fencing styles taught unarmed defences because knives had changed and the old disarms could no longer be done without being cut to ribbons. So why do so many modern self-defence “experts” advocate unarmed knife defences that haven’t got a hope in hell of working?

Italian Stick Fighting

Italy was famous the battagliole (mock battles) that probably date back to the 12th century but the earliest written records of the guerra di canne (war with sticks) is in 1369 and it continued to around 1600, when it was replaced by guerre di pugni (war with fists). These mass stick fights took place in every city and town in Italy during the Renaissance period but they are most associated with the cities of Vienna and Florence. In Vienna the Castellani (from Castello) and the Nicolotti (from San Nicolò dei Medicoli) would fight each other for control of the bridge.

The guerra di canne is the origin of Italy’s stick fighting arts, including Scherma di veneziana cornoler. The Venetian cornoler can be used with a buckler but it was more often used with the caffettano a long knee length cloak wrapped around the arm. The cornoler is like a long tooth pick and it is deadly, combatants were frequently killed in the guerra di canne. Another popular weapon was the bastone corto (or short staff).

Scherma di bastone corto

Jogo do Pau

English quarterstaff fighting in the 1880s had no self-defence or combat value, but Jogo do Pau, the Portuguese staff fighting art does. Like Sicilian Paranza, it’s a practical shepherd and partisans art that was still in use during the early 20th Century and was more than a recreational pastime; it was designed to be used in potentially mortal combat against knive or staff wielding bandits. 

Although it’s past it’s sell by date as a form of self-defence — sheep rustling can’t be that prolific in Portugal — the system still retains it’s combat efficacy,

It’s was also usable against multiple attackers, which quarterstaff fighting isn’t because of the linear footwork.  

And interestingly they train to recover from the ground, which most European staff fighting arts don’t.  

And apparently the techniques of Jogo do Pau were taught in bayonet practice to Portuguese soldiers during WWI.

Juego del Palo Canario

Juego del Palo Canario is the staff fighting art of the Canary Islands. It’s quick, light, has an amazing number of parries and is beautiful to watch.

But it’s also an ancient form of self defence that has it’s origins in the warfare methods of the Guanches, the indigenous Canarians. They used fire hardened wooden swords, sticks, staffs and javelins very successfully against the Castilian conquistadors when they were invaded in 1402. It wasn’t until 1495 that the Guanches resistance was defeated.

The English Quarterstaff

Staves would have been used as weapons in Britain by country bumpkins and highwaymen long before Hadrian thought about Scottish devolution, but there is no evidence that indicates that the quarterstaff was practised as an art form in England until the 16th Century and the art of the quarterstaff as practised today date back to the late Victorian age. The techniques in the video below are taken from  Sgt. Thomas McCarthy’s “Quarter-staff: A Practical Manual”, published in 1883.

 

I very much doubt it was the same system Jimmy Figg used in The Boarded House in the Bear Garden, in Marleybone Fields on Oxford Street or was taugh at his Amphitheatre in the Tottenham Court Road district during the 1720s, because he’d probably been booed off the stage but unlike Figg, McCarthy didn’t claim to be a “master of the noble science of defence”.  He wasn’t trying to teach an effective combat art —  which is just as well — because it’s not.

McCarthy was attempting to turn staff fighting into a popular Victorian sport using an ash or bamboo staff  of 8′ to 9′ 6″ length and 4″ to 5″ circumference with crickets pads, gloves and a fencing helmet for men and boys to cowardly to box. He acknowledged that quarterstaff practice has “become almost obsolete” by the time he wrote his book. Even the famous legend of Robin Hood and Little John fighting with quarterstaves didn’t even appear in print until 1888. But McCarthy method has appeared on the silver screen often enough.       

The only evidence we have of the 16th Century English art of the quarterstaff comes from George Silver, in his 1599,  ”Paradoxes of Defence”. He is the first Englishman to write a treaties on fencing but unfortunately Silver is neither fencing master nor soldier and doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He rants as much about Italians as he does Italian fencing which has been taught at court from 1570 onwards. But the only Italian fencing tract he is familiar with is Giacomo di Grassi, whose Ragione di adoprar sicuramente l’Arme, si da offesa come da difesa which was translated into English in 1594.  Silver argues there are more things in his hack and slash than are dreamt of in the Italian philosophy… but there isn’t.  

He favours the backsword over the rapier at the turn of the 17th Century — the halfwit was tilting at widmills there — and advocates cut and thrust and no use of footwork, nearly half a century after Camillo Agrippa wrote his masterpiece Trattato Di Scientia d’ Arme, con un Dialogo di Filosofia, published in 1553, which advanced that theory that the rapier should be held with forehand in four guards and used as a thrust only weapon, and that  geometry should be used in swordplay along with offensive and defensive circular footwork. Agrippa is still regarded as one of the most important writers on fencing and Silver’s work was obsolete before it was written.

The English playwright, William Shakespeare satirises the debate (and perhaps even Silver) in Romeo and Juliet his adaption of Luigi da Porto’s Historia novellamente ritrovata di due nobili amanti. When Tybalt, who represents the Italian style, kills Mercutio, who represents the English style  (act 3,  scene 1), Mercutio says:  

Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a 
cat, to scratch a man to death! a braggart, a 
rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of 
arithmetic!

Silver’s no more of an expert on the quarterstaff: he thinks it is “the best weapon of all other”, which might have been true if he was writing in the stone age… but at the turn of the 17th century?!! If quaterstaves really were superior weapons to pikes, halberds, and bills, they would have been used in 16th Century warfare but they weren’t. 

 Another often overlooked point is that there was no class of professional soldier in England. When the militia was established for the defence of realm in the 16th century, only 10% of those eligible for militia duty, the so-called Trayned Bandes (trained bands), received any military training and they were never used. There was no standing army until 1645 and there wasn’t even a police force until 1829. The Company of Masters of the Science of Defence was only set up during the mid-16th Century and prior to that there is no records of an English style of fencing. So whatever else it was, 16th Century quarterstaff fighting wasn’t an art of war.

Contemporary European Knife Fighting

Knife carrying is common place in Europe and whereas in America you’re over five times more likely to be killed with a gun than a knife, knives are more likely than a gun to be used during homicides, robberies, assaults and rapes in Europe. You’re also far more likely to be the victim of a knife crime on the streets of Europe than you are on the streets of America (over three times as likely in the UK). So if America has a gun culture; Europe has a knife culture.

Knife fighting is an everyday reality on the streets of most major European cities. London, which proudly boast to be the knife fighting capital of Europe, has several comtempory knife fighting systems. Most of these systems are basic and don’t have names and learned on the streets where they were developed  but they’re still a lot more effective than the Asian knife fighting martial arts popular in America.

The Stanley knife was the trademark tool of football hooligans and Skinheads during the 80s because it was non-lethal but it has virtually disappeared from the streets of London. Now the knives of choice are combat knives or folding knives and the number of fatal knife fights have risen as a result.

Black street gangs although usually most associated with knife fighting in London are nowhere near as proficent as the Turkish, Kurdish and Albanian gangsters and are also less successful gangsters. They cheap bastards carry kitchen knives and tend to attack toe-to-toe, trying to grab or hold off the adversaries attack arm or lean against them and stab upwards to the groin, stomache or under the arm or laterally in the side, arse, leg or back.

Although, there are some quite effective knife fighting styles in London, in my expirence, you get a better class of knife fight in Rome,  Barcelona, and Palermu. Knife carrying has been part of Italian culture since the times of the Julius Caesar’s assassination and the use of the dagger was taught in Italian fencing schools throughout the Renaissance. Both Fiore Furlano de’ Liberi da Premariacco’s fencing treatise, Flos Duellatorum, written in 1409, and in Achille Marozzo’s fencing treatise, Opera Nova, written in 1536, have sections on stiletto fighting.  But it wasn’t until the 18th Century when public sword carrying became unfashionable that the stiletto became the weapon of choice on the streets of Italy. In the Opera Nova, Marozzo recommends the spada e targe (sword and square convex buckler) as a practical weapon for defence on the street, if you’re carrying a sword and buckler, you’re not going to be pulling a knife on someone.

There are many contemporary Italian knife fighting systems, as well as the classical styles. La scherma di pugnale siciliano (Sicilian dagger fighting), which I learned as a boy, is widely known in all nine provinces of Sicily; it is designed for both duelling and street combat and is at least 200 years old. The video below gives a slow enactment of a Sicilian stiletto fight.

The video below gives a dramatic demonstration of the Sarausa style but the techniques are the same as the ones used in Caltanissetta.

I was also taught the arditi scherma di pugnale militare (military dagger fencing) as a boy by my other Grandad and then the Paracadutisti system at SMiPar (CeAPar), when I served in the 186° Reggimento Paracadutisti “Folgore”.  The Italian military dagger fighting system was developed during WWI from existing Italian systems and the refined for war. It was used by the Arditi, the first modern special force, and was used and refined again during WWII, where it was especially associated with the Folgore and the 1939 model pugnale da paracadutista assaltatore. The Italian Comando Operativo Forze Speciali still uses a version of the knife: the Extrema Ratio 39 09 knife. The the Arditi, (the 9º Battaglione d’Assalto Paracadutisti) now known as Il Nono or “Col Moschin”, are still extensively trained in knife fighting and use the Col Moschin knife, which is supposedly the best fighting knife in the world… and is defintely the most fucking expensive.

The system is simpler to learn that the Sicilian one because it is less sophisticated but it is still effective. The basic fighting stance is a crouch, with the blade hand forward.