Bøker av [translated] Matthew Lynch

Some time in the 1920s Salmson Creak wrote this instructional manual which reads like a rambling love affair with the art of Jiu-Jitsu. I think that this is something many of us can relate to in this day and age, as we recall the recent golden age of Jiu-Jitsu in the various MMA formats, and the sense among all martial artists that this form of grappling was indeed the last word in fighting, a holy grail of hand-to-hand combat. But Creak is advising the reader to replace his other self defense preferences with jiu-jitsu for the very reasons we once heard offered for using more modern grappling techniques in a street context: It allows for a force continuum, you can win a fight without ever appearing the aggressor or even leaving a mark on the adversary, it uses the other fellow's energy against him, etc. Whereas all of these things are true, there were then and there are now those who observe that ground-fighting is madness when multiple assailants are present and for the vast majority of practitioners it will always be a slower means to neutralize an aggressor than several well placed strikes. Duress will hamper technique for all but a very few, and a good punch to the face will hamper it further. Still, while reading this over you will definitely get the sense that Creak had field tested his product on various unfortunate goons, and his sadistic glee in the power to dislocate elbows and jaws is by turns infectious and off-putting. I leave it to the martial artist to decide if jiu-jitsu is indeed the top choice for things that go bump in the night.

"In order to unite his faithful, Satan will cause signs to appear in the air which they shall grasp the meaning of, or he will send a bat, a moth, and sometimes a sheep to remind them at home. Some of them arrive at the designated site on a broom handle, a vulgar parody of hyperborean Apollo's marvelous arrow which he presented to Abaris, and upon which this latter traversed the air. De Lancre tells us that, when one took off on this singular means of transport, it was necessary to recite the words EMEN ETAN several times in order to avoid tumbling down from among the clouds. In the Satanic slang the words simply mean HERE and THERE. Others rubbed themselves with magical unguents, or the venom spat by a toad that was frightened or irritated, and through the effect of these drugs alone they found themselves transported to the meeting place all at once. When the sorcerer wished to go to the Sabbath he would also at times strip bare and, having rubbed his armpits, elbows, fists, and the soles of his feet with a grease the ingredients of which will be given below, he climbed up the chimney and there at the very top he found a large horned man, hairy and black, who transported him with the speed of thought to the meeting place. This man, we may guess, was the devil, who would even go so far as to take the initiate for a ride on his shoulders. But this mode of transport was not without danger, for it often came to pass that the evil spirit, humiliated by his role, or simply taking a notion to do something malicious, would buck like a wild horse. The rider thus thrown would break his neck after plunging through the air, and would be discovered the next morning tangled in the treetops or lying bloody on the road wearing Sabbath garb. From this, says a Demonologist, comes the belief in human rain.

The historical European martial art of Savate as we know it today is a formidable style of French kickboxing encompassing a vast arsenal of kicks that require enormous skill to master and deploy. Like all martial arts Savate has undergone innumerable changes over time to adapt it to the needs of a given period. When used by the hardscrabble sailors of Toulon, Marseilles, Algiers and La Havre it took into a account the use of the ropes and rigging found on tall ships to aid in wild looping boot-strikes delivered with a cutlass in one hand. The bold highwaymen of the vast French interior adapted it to their own needs when plundering coaches with a knife and pistol at their side. Just before the turn of the 19th century in Paris it had become a polite exercise in gymnastics for the bourgeoisie and idle noblemen. But things had changed in the capital, and the members of the upper crust were no longer in command of the streets as desperate young men formed street gangs such as the "Apaches" to rob and terrorize the moneyed classes. J. Charlemont responded to the situation by restoring Savate to combat readiness. He stripped away the polite feats of gymnastics to restore what lay at the core of what was after all a martial art. Along with his stick fighting system called La Canne he armed the French gentleman (who always carried a cane after all for the purpose of chasing off dogs, knocking aside horse dung, pointing at things, and looking dapper while wielding this wooden specter of the once universal sword) with a curriculum that would, with the aid of a well made pair of boots, send a hooligan crashing to the cobblestones with a smashed ankle or dislocated patella. He would then give the poor fellow's accomplice a good cane-thrashing with a strokes to be found in the companion volume to the this one regarding La Canne.