Purling & Sabo

Hi Dave, when you did the last seminar at Steve's place you showed us some kicks from Purling & Sabo that you use.

How many different kicks are there, and how many do you find the most effective and therefore teach.

I have a strong kicking background, of the jap slap pyjama variety, and want to hard wire these kicks into my muscles instead.

Also can you cover this again in your next seminar please..

Thanks mate

Nige.

Hi Nige

Nice to hear from you

The terms are actually PURRING (Old English kicking art) and either SABOT (meaning BOOT) or SAVAUX (meaning CLOG) and these are Old French styles

altogether there are about 20 kicks of which I find the following the most useful

In no special order

The Shin Kick
The Stabbing Kick
The Jamming Kick
The Cross Jamming Kick
The Side Stomp
The LONG Rotational Kick

Others that are OK, but I PERSONALLY cant do well are (some of my students can do them very well.. especially Karl Blackwell!!!)

The Rear Stomp
The SHORT Rotational Kick

The others I find less effective..

BUt YES ask Steve whnen I am booked to come down again and anything people ask for that I am capable of teaching I will do so

thanks for the question
The Shin

The Long Round Kick

Hi Dave
Can you give a description these kicks Please?


The Shin Kick
The Stabbing Kick
The Jamming Kick
The Cross Jamming Kick
The Side Stomp
The LONG Rotational Kick

tc

T

well I'll try .. not easy without the 'visual'

but here goes

1.The Shin kick is a bit like 'passing a football' you kick HIS shin with your instep or toe if you have heavy shoes/boots on ... you kick the SAME leg to get the insides of the Tibia .. imagine your REAR leg is your right leg and his front leg is HIS right leg .. keeping the foot low .. swing kick his right tibia

2. The stab or stabbing kick is a bit like a cross between a front kick and a round kick, but done closer in and with a slight 'lean'.. the old timers used to fasten knife blades to the toes of their shoes and give you a free vasectomy .. on the usual approach, you step forard and off to one side (slightly) .. his left, your right and very sharply 'stab' with the toes of your left leg into his groin area.. ist a very snappy kick

3. The jam or jamming kick is using your rear leg to the leg facing it, whether front or rear .. you turn your foot outwards and jam the heel area into the thigh of your opponent.. very very effective

4. Cross Jam is the same but you attack the opposite leg i.e. right to right not right to left as in the previous one

5. side stomp is a cross between low side kick and back kick and the main target is the CALF muscle, ...best done after you have turned or passed your opponent ... you use the flat of the foot or heel to stomp the calf muscle of your opponent.. causes cramping pain

6. not easy to describe this one.. imagine doing something like a THAI round kick with no return but full follow through.. squatting ever so slightly, using the shin on the INSIDES of the opponents thigh, not the outside like the Thai kick.. you almost 'swivel' as you really turn the kick

hope those descriptions dont confuse you mate Ha Ha

Do these kicks originate from Savate/DDLR, Dave?

The kicks are 'european' in origin.. some are from Purring, the rest are from Middle Ages through to Georgian combat against sword weilding and often armour clad opponents

My contacts at the Royal Armouries in Leeds, have allowed me access to many manuscripts and ancient texts revealing something I aleady knew but had confirmed anyway.

In an ancient style battle facing 'knights in armour'. if you lost your weapon. then the only way to deal with a sword wielding armour clad opponent was either kicks or grappling

many of the older english/european close quarter combat styles I researched used many kicking and grappling methods against such warriors

lets face it, there's no use trying to punch a guy wearing a helmet, but grappling and kicking was often very succesfful

many of the grappling methods were devised tp 'wrestle' your opponent's sword off HIM so you could use it back
others were for dumping him HARD on the ground.. not easy to get back up when in armour, and there were some dumps that were designed to 'crumple' or collapse the armour making it hard to breath and move

the kicks were mainy to the hips and down.. again a high roundhouse to the head would result in a broken foot and death....
so they were kept low attacking legs and hips mainly

The resulting methods became styles such as Purring, Crayling, etc in the UK and Sabot/Savaux on the continent..

these are just a few of the many reasons that over the past nearly 50 years involved I have come further away from the Oriental methods and more into the european ones.. especially the kicks

Dave,

Not sure I understand why. The kicks were developed to deal with an armour clad, sword weilding adversary...how many of them are around today?

I think they went the way of the dinosaur because the reason for their need went the same way. Yes, no?

Nick

indeed you are right Nick... a BIG Yes on that comment ...
but the adaptations and main principles can still be applied successfully mate.. as indeed do many methods from all over the world...

because these methods WERE against (as you rightly say) Sword wielding armour clad opponents, the kicks and grappling methods HAD to be very successful very quickly...they didnt often get a second chance
so some of the leg attacking kicks were and still are very useful, as are the training methods
the applications of the techniques/methods on the battle field as opposed to todays 'battle fields' have naturally altered

some methods didnt really need a great deal of adaptation, such as some of the knife defences
after all there's not that much difference between being stabbed by a bronze age knife 3000 years ago and a shop bought knife today.. the intent and 'action' will be almost identical

but your point is correct and I make just that point in my teachings..

thank you Nick ... you are usually my main 'proof reader' mate Ha Ha