European Martial Arts

European martial arts are derived from a thoroughly war-torn European history, and the peoples that survive have brought with them highly effective and intriging martial training arts.

However, these european martial arts mostly adapted to changing technology, so that while their descendants still exist, they are focused on things like flying helicopters and infantry tactics for riflemen.

Some traditional european martial training arts have been preserved in one form or another. For example, fencing was preserved by being made into a sport; of course this has changed the practice significantly.

Some historical fencing has survived, and some groups have attempted to reconstruct old european martial arts from a few surviving combat manuals.

Some of the oldest written and illustrated material on the subject of european martial arts dates from the 15th and 16th centuries, and was written by notable teachers like Hans Talhoffer, Fiore dei Liberi and George Silver.

Some transcripts of yet older texts have survived, the oldest being a manuscript going by the name of I.33 and dating from the late 13th century.

Fighting manuals such as those listed above have served as guides for attempted reconstructions of european martial arts. Another example of such historical martial arts reconstruction is Pankration, which comes from the Greek (pan, meaning all, kratos, meaning power or strength).

Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to record the essential parts of a martial art in written form (or in fact in any form except the training of a body of master students) so these efforts are very difficult and require the practitioners to borrow techniques from living martial arts to fill in the gaps.

European unarmed martial arts that have survived in active form include English boxing, Olympic wrestling, and French savate.

Many other european martial arts were made into sports that we no longer recognize as combative, such as some kinds of gymnastics, where the pommel horse is called a horse because it simulates a horse: the art comes from the necessity of acavalryman to be able to change positions and fight effectively from a the back of a horse.

Similar origins also exist for the shot put and the javelin throw.

The Academy of European Medieval Martial Arts