Kas-pin?

[Nathan Dexter]

Does anyone know anything about kas-pin?
Wikipedia says it has been passed down at least 30 generations in finland.

[Gene Tausk]

Does anyone know anything about kas-pin?
Wikipedia says it has been passed down at least 30 generations in finland.

Wow, another "lost" martial art surfacing in Scandanavia! Incredible. I wonder if the Stav people know about this?

I don't speak Finnish but I have enough contact with the language to be highly suspicious of a name like "Kas-Pin" in a concactive/Finno-Ugric language like Finnish. I certainly would like a linguist to look into this one.

30 generations old means something like 900 years old. So, this "lost" art goes back to the days of the Vikings! Of course, like "Stav" you will never hear of it in the Icelandic Sagas. Now, I know that Finnish culture and civilization is far removed from the rest of the Scandanavian countries, but I am suspicious that Viking traders and explorers, who made it all the way to Constantinople, never encountered this fierce art.

Even further amazing to me is that one never hears about this "art" in the great Finnish saga "Kalevala." The guy who collected the stories and legends to create the "Kalevala" never seems to have run across it. Strange, considering he devoted his life to re-discovering Finnish culture for a national reawakening in the 19th century. You would think something like this would be pure gold. Oh, wait, forgot it was "secret" until the 21st century rolled around and martial arts started pouring into the Western world. Especially those "rediscovered" ones that have been laying dormant since the time of the dinosaurs.

I wonder if the Finnish warriors were able to use this art when the country was under Russian domination and subject to intense Russification. I'll be sure to look in some Russian histories of Finland to find accounts of Russian soldiers and warriors forced to head for the hills after being attacked by Kas-pinites.

You know, come to think of it, the words "Kas-Pin" sounds like something Edgar Rice Burroughs (creator of Tarzan and John Carter of Mars) might have thought up. I wonder if the director of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., knows about this?

In case you haven't guessed it, Nathan, I am extremely skeptical of this. Pretty soon it's going to be a requirement for new members of the EU to prove that they have their own "undiscovered" martial art hiding in the hinterlands.

[Jaron Bernstein]

For a very long time, there wasn't much known of Icelandic mythology until someone found a really great book by Snori Sturleson that had been misfiled for some centuries in a library. I am also skeptical, but one never knows. The burden is on the exponents of this system to show some books. It they can, it would be very cool. Hell, look at our own efforts. If you tried to do this art in 1950 (what is a fechtbuch?), good luck to you. Say hello to sport fencing. But today due to the manuals coming to light it is a different story.

[Gene Tausk]

For a very long time, there wasn't much known of Icelandic mythology until someone found a really great book by Snori Sturleson that had been misfiled for some centuries in a library. I am also skeptical, but one never knows. The burden is on the exponents of this system to show some books. It they can, it would be very cool. Hell, look at our own efforts. If you tried to do this art in 1950 (what is a fechtbuch?), good luck to you. Say hello to sport fencing. But today due to the manuals coming to light it is a different story.

Sorry to differ, but the fechtbuchen we use and examine were always there; it was only when people tried to look at them seriously for use in reviving European combat arts did they become valuable to us for those reasons. Anyone in theory could have looked at them since the time they were written (although with the arrival of the information age, it certainly has become much easier). If someone in 1950 had the academic interest and the physical ability, he could have translated Talhoffer or any of the other fechtbuchen and gotten started. Some of the Victorians who tried to ressurect "Old Swordplay" took the first steps. John C wrote an article on this somewhere.

Likewise, the Icelandic Sagas have been around for centuries. Anyone, in theory, could have read them at any time since they were written.

Don't hold your breath waiting for a manual to come out on lost Finnish martial arts. First, I'm sure if you tracked down this person he will say that it is all an oral tradition, passed from father to son. Second, Finnish was not reduced to a written language until appx. 1550 and even then that was only for the New Testament. The first novel in the language was not published until the 19th century. So, hoping for a Mid/Renn Finnish fechtbuch is hoping for a bit much, although if one were found it would revolutionize Finnish linguistics. Third, once again to state the obvious, I find it amazing that after so many centuries in "isolation," these fantastic martial systems are coming to light in Finland. Where were these "systems" when they were needed, like when Finland was placed under Swedish and later Russian domination? People really needed to know how to defend themselves then. Thanx for nothing, Kaspin!

I don't know if a "lost" Finnish martial art exists. I don't know for certain either if Sylvia Brown has "psychic" powers (for which she charges dupes massive $$$ and gets to appear to dumbfounded hosts like Montel) or if Carlos Casteneda managed to hook up with some Indian mystic in a bus station who taught him the secrets of life. One cannot prove a negative. However, as the great Carl Sagan once said: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

I for one will not give lip service to something which smacks of a dubious claim. If the purveyors of Kaspin can come up with some credible evidence and have this evidence examined, then I await the day. The burden is theirs, however, not mine or ARMA's. Saying that "one never knows" is like saying "keep an open mind." "Keeping an open mind" is just another phrase for mental laziness. "Open" to what? Binge drinking? Nazism? Creationism? Scientology? Belief in the Flying Spaggetti Monster? (have YOU been touched by his noodly appendage?)

Let's instead try and keep an objective mind. To quote Ayn Rand: An objective mind is open in a very important sense. It is open to all facts, and their connection using logic. In other words, it is open to the use of reason but closed to the use of anything else-unjustified feelings, faith, "divine revelation," hunches, or cultural heritage.

Since the "Kaspins" here are arguing a cultural heritage, we can safely close our minds on this one. When they get some objective evidence for this "system," we can examine it. Don't hold your breath. The Stav people haven't gotten around to getting any objective evidence for what they claim; why should the Kaspin people be any different?

Looking back I realize this post may be kind of harsh and no insult was intended. However, I am sick and tired of these "lost" martial systems cropping up like mushrooms with no supporting evidence.

[Jaron Bernstein]

If it is just "oral tradition", with no manuals, iconographic evidence, some other period records, or the like I would be a bit skeptical as well.

[Bengt Abrahamsson]

This has been discussed a lot in Scandinavian martial arts forums.
Take a look at the videos.
Personally I would put it in the Stav category.
Bengt
EHCG

http://www.kaspin.net/Videot.html

[Risto Rautiainen]

Whoa, never knew that kaspin would have reached this far...

Okay, as being a finn, I can maybe shed some light to this matter... ...or not.

Kaspin has been and is a topic of a lot of controversy here in Finland. I could write a whole page about kaspin, but lets see how much I really bother. Lets start with the name. There are different explanations to the name, but none of them are really good. Not even the father of the present head man Kaarlo Valkonen knew where it came from.

As you suspected there is no hard evidence as in martial art books/iconography/other bibliographical refenrences. And you will not find any. Only circumstantial evidence.

The family Valkonen has a strong military history. Recorded are, starting from the beginning of 17th century, at least seven generations of "rusthollare" who are farmers who provided soldiers with lodging and horse in return for reduction of taxes. There are some more in the other lines of the family. There are some very experienced people, who have seen a lot of this world and it's martial art's, that think kaspin is the real deal. This they base on the thing that they clam that kaspin has the means of dealing and relieving the psychological stresses that come from killing/hurting people. You can find a lot of these wooden dummies used for training with the finnish knife 'puukko' around the Valkonen farm. These seem to be a lot older than Mr.Valkonen. The 'old military man' is very different from any other sticks used for fighting and can be used in many ingenious ways. Finland has been fought over a lot of times and held the swedish and the russians at bay before the crusades, so there have been a lot of warriors here too. So finns have been in a lot of wars. There was a strong tradition in using the puukko in fights in the 19th century, by people called "puukkojunkkari" or "häjy" of which the former was first a word for roadbandits that were the leftouts of the Great Northertn War (1700-1721) and was later broadened to mean all troublemakers. Their techniques notably favored the slicing and humiliating the opponent as opposed to straight forward killing as this could get you a speed ticket to siberia.

Why has it been so secret? The reason that is represented is that knowing this killing stuff was not very socially acceptable. At some point here in Finland even the veterans were not held in very high esteem. It has also been suggested that not all of the family's men fared the narrow path. And during the russian regime this sort of thing could get you sent to siberia. Not a lot of the veterans even today like to talk about these things as a lot of shame is involved.

How does this proof that Kaspin is the real thing? It doesn't. Kaarlos family probably has had some sort of own training having a trick or two of their own. They claim to have been training in china right at the beginning of the 20th century. This is said to have something to do with the chinese slave labourers that were building trenches and battlements in Finland in the late 1800. Kaarlo has been also training various martial arts for a long time and traveled a lot doing this. So it is believed that he has sort of gathered stuff from here and there. But that the whole art is of finnish origin, I really doubt it.

The thing that makes the whole kaspin dubious is that the head man tells a lot of ridiculous stories with no (generally accepted) base in reality. And there are a lot of other things that raise suspicions.

I could write a lot more but I think that quite covers it. For the people who train this, the history doesn't matter, just as long as they get what they want.

BTW. Gene you know a lot about Finland.

[Jonathan Waller]

Slightly vering off topic
Gene Tausk wrote

Sorry to differ, but the fechtbuchen we use and examine were always there; it was only when people tried to look at them seriously for use in reviving European combat arts did they become valuable to us for those reasons. Anyone in theory could have looked at them since the time they were written (although with the arrival of the information age, it certainly has become much easier). If someone in 1950 had the academic interest and the physical ability, he could have translated Talhoffer or any of the other fechtbuchen and gotten started. Some of the Victorians who tried to ressurect "Old Swordplay" took the first steps. John C wrote an article on this somewhere.

The thing also is accessability. In the early 1960s when my father started to look at historical combat, it was hard to find out about the manuals and MS and even if you knew of them getting hold of a copy was not easy and or expensive! Now things are
easier to see. get hold of, for example, the whole of the colour Talhoffer in the Royal Library in Denmark was avaialble to view on line.
This development certainly aids in the area of research. After all we can't study something that you can't get access to!

Best
JW