What is savate? - French boxing (boxe française)

What is savate? So many people have asked me this question since I started training savate 2010. I sometimes find it easier not to tell people about my hobbies to avoid this question but let's try to explain this very briefly.

Savate=French boxing=boxe française
Wikipedia says savate is a French martial art that uses the hands and feet as weapons combining elements of western boxing with graceful kicking techniques. So savate is one form of kick-boxing.

Savate takes its name from the French for "old shoe" (heavy footwear, especially the boots used by French military and sailors), and it's history is in the street fighting techniques of the early years of 19th century. Especially kicking techniques were popular in the Marseille harbour city thanks to strange legislation of those days. Fighting and hitting with closed fist lead to higher penalties under the local law than kicking. In this short presentation we can summarize that savate history starts from the port of Marseille and Paris's slums in the 19th century.

Very slowly savate shifted from brutal street fight to regulated sports. In the history of savate two persons have important role in developing save into a regulated moderns sports activity that is trained in several countries. Michel Casseux and his pupil Charles Lecour are mentioned in many sources as significant influencers in developing this sport.

Today most of the schools and boxing clubs that offer savate training use some (or very often many) of the approaches below:

• Savate training based on current rules of official savate competitions
• Savate defence training which is self-defence technique based on savate but uses some techniques not allowed in official savate rules
• Savate forme training is savate training with focus on cardio-training without targets to compete in savate
• Also some clubs offer re-constructed historical savate training

All these savate traingins include same techniques but the main difference is in the motivation and targets of the training:

• Savate forme is excellent sports for those who want to learn savate and get in the good shape. Savate forme is very effective training method.
• Savate defence is for those who want to learn self-defence but not compete in savate in the boxing ring.
• Savate (as it is competed) is good training but usually people who train this have some thoughts about competing in the ring some day.

Is savate dangerous?
The answer to the question, is savate dangerous, varies naturally depending on what form of savate you are planning to train. Savate forme is not dangerous at all. It has surprisingly low rates of accidents and I would say it doesn't have higher risks than any sport in general. Wrist and ankle problems are possible but not very likely and serious damages very rare. Savate at competition level isn't riskier than boxing in general and savate defence risks I would compare to judo or karate risk levels. I haven't competed in savate but trained it now for 6 years and I haven't had any serious accidents. After some first training sessions I had wrist pains but I very soon learned that learn the technique before you use power is the right training method in savate and problems were gone after that.

Is savate difficult?
Savate is difficult at competition level but what I like very much is the fact that you can reach a sufficient technique level needed for serious training pretty fast. It's possible to learn basic techniques in elementary training classes in few weeks or months. After these basic courses you are not pro but you master the techniques well enough to do serious training and develop yourself. This easy start makes for example savate forme very easy sport to start just to get in better shape. For example I started savate without any boxing background at 10 weeks (one hour twice a week) elementary training course and after that I was able to do all boxing techniques and all kicks at lower and medium levels. The higher level kicks are something you may need to practice longer.

This is savate very briefly. In my next postings I will explain the savate techniques both boxing and kicking.