Flok Arts and Outsidee the Salle D'armes?

[Steven Woods]

To All Concerned,
I am a young Museum professional looking to apply a few new things to the living history field. As most of our sites are military, I would like to develop in-depth programs on The Enlisted Man's Military Martial Arts of the 18th Century. I am having a few issues with this, and would like some advise or direction if possible.
First, the vast majority of the martial arts which the enlisted soldiers would have known on enlistment would have been folk-styles from their regions. These would include such things as Quarterstaff, Cane, Various types of Knife-combat, and some unarmed techniques as well. I am finding very little on these subjects. Is there somewhere I am not looking that should be obvious?
Literary sources point to these arts being learned across Europe, and being applied in civilian combat all the bloody time. However, no one describes the techniques in detail, as it seems everyone already knew them, and therefore didn't need the description.
Secondly, I am looking for the Soldier's Bag Of Dirty Tricks in regards to the three main weapons trained in by all armies at that time, notably Bayonet (fixed and alone), Hangar, and Small Sword.
I have manuals by Angelo, Blackwell, P.J.F. Girrard, and Parkyns (wrestling). I have literary sources from Menetra, and a host of others in the Gentleman's magazine, etc.
Further, I have a background in some Quarterstaff, and a solid understanding of Epee fencing in the modern tradition. I have also done some Asian martial arts in college, as well as some western grappling and throwing. Where do I go from here?

[RayMcCullough]

18th century is beyond the scope of ARMA's focus.

sorry

[Jaron Bernstein]

There are folks who research in something called bartitsu (or something similar) which is closer to your era. They may be able to refer you other resources. We pretty much end in the 1600's for our materials.

[Steven Woods]

Hello again.

There are a few reasons I chose ARMA to look for sources and advise: Bartitsu is fully 150 to 200 years too late for the time period I am looking at, and see the influx of many Eastern Styles which would not have been known in European armies earlier than the 1870s or so.

Secondly, the application of many folk-style martial arts and the simple basics required in any of these classifications do not change significantly over the span of time between the 1680s, where you leave off, and the 1730s-1750s which I am aiming at.

Are you sure there is nothing? Methods of Grappling with the Small Sword or other point-swords? Same with something more like a Cutlass? How about walking-Stick as an analogue for a sword, as referred to by Menetra and many others (the predecessor to La Canne)? More Ancient techniques with spears and staves translate quite well to Bayonet combat, Therefore, I can guess the earlier methods translate forward as well.

Literary evidence says they are using all these tricks, such as punching each other out with the hilts of their swords, throwing each other out windows using their un-fixed bayonets, breaking arms while grappling at the sword, etc. Is there a source from the 17th century Rapier I should look at for such things? Messer? Quarterstaff, or something like Baton Francais? The few disarms shown in Angelo and Girad are not the type of thing I'm looking for, as they are far too tame and "Gentrified."

Further, there is plenty of evidence pointing to unarmed men taking others' swords (not an easy feat), muskets (an easy feat), and even turning unfixed bayonets against their owner in a grapple. Is there anything in the earlier texts to support this, and show how it was done, or might be attempted?

Thank you in advance.

[Stacy Clifford]

Zachary Wylde published works on wrestling, quarterstaff and fencing in the early 1700s, so if you aren't already familiar with him then he might be a good source to start with.

[Allen Johnson]

Mr. Woods,
My personal favorite era is the early to mid 18th century, so I've spent a good amount of time working in that period. Feel free to PM me if you are still looking for info on this, so we don't clutter the boards with non-ARMA era studies.

In short, there is some interesting things going on, particularly in England and Scotland during this time period. The biggest thing to look at is the transition from local masters and "folk styles" as you refer to them, to the larger, more regimental and systematic method of training that was occurring the in the British empire at this time. But please contact me to continue this discussion.

[LafayetteCCurtis]

Hutton's Old Swordplay goes briefly over a couple of grappling techniques from an 18th-century German smallsword manual. You might want to check that out and track the whole thing back to the original source.

[LafayetteCCurtis]

I can't believe I forgot this post from J. Cristoph Amberger's blog--it has a (quite late) example of disarms and throws with the smallsword/epee:

http://fencingclassics.wordpress.com/20 ... #more-2168

There's also a similar post on fighting club- or cutlass-armed thugs on the road, but I seem to have mislaid the link for the moment.

[LafayetteCCurtis]

Finally found the post I was looking for, though alas the timeframe might be too late:

http://fencingclassics.wordpress.com/20 ... f-defence/