What is Savate?

Savate is known as a kickboxing fighting art using shoes and gloves. It is practiced throughout the world by women, men, and children. Savate has developed in the 19th century as a system of self defense including three specific ranges: 

• A stick fighting range named “La Canne de Combat” using a short one-handed walking stick  made out of chestnut which has evolved as a competitive sport wearing protective gear and a longer stick fighting range known as “Le Baton” using striking techniques using both hands while holding.
• A closer striking range known as Boxe Francaise using hand techniques purely from English boxing mixed with  kicking techniques using both feet protected by shoes striking with the legs fully extended. 
• A self defense system joining Greco-roman wrestling moves to counter the different punches and kicks.

Why train in Savate?

Savate benefits can be found in a multitude of areas deriving from its effective fighting form. Savate is designed to use the shoes as striking weapons using a wide variety of kicks executed with the legs being fully extended and mixed with punching combinations. Speed, explosiveness, and power are necessary elements for effective striking combinations. Savate is known for its elusiveness and the wide variety of combinations, while subtle and efficient footwork stresses angles and rapid adjustments between long kicking striking range and shorter punching distance.

Some of Savate most well known fighters are George Carpentier, Richard Sylla, Francois Pennachio, Bertrand Soncourt, Amri Madani, and Anissa Meksen. World kickboxing legends such as Ernesto Hoost and Lucia Rijker have also earn Savate titles in their careers.

History of Savate?

Savate is a French Kickboxing style that takes its name from the French for “old shoe” (heavy footwear, especially the boots used by French military and sailors). The modern formalized form is an amalgam of French street fighting techniques from the beginning of the 19th century mixed with boxing techniques.  There are also many types of Savate rules. Savate was then a type of street fighting common in Paris and northern France. 

In the south, especially in the port of Marseille, sailors developed a fighting style involving high kicks and open-handed slaps. It is conjectured that this kicking style was developed in this way to allow the fighters to use hand to hold onto something for balance on a rocking ship’s deck, and that kicks and slaps were used on land to avoid the legal penalties for using a closet fist, which was considered a deadly weapon under the law. It was known as a jeu marseillais (game from Marseille), and was later renamed chausson (slipper, after the type of shoes the sailor wore).

Traditional Savate was a northern French development, especially in Paris’ slums, and always used heavy shoes and boots derived from its potential military origins. Street fighting Savate, unlike chausson, kept the kicks low, almost never targeted above the groin, and were delivered with vicious, bone-breaking intent. Parisian Savate also featured open hand blows, in thrusting or smashing palm strikes (le baffe) or in stunning slaps targeted to facial nerves, Techniques of Savate or chausson were at this time also developed in the ports of northwest Italy and northeastern Spain- hence one Savate kick named “Chasse Italiane”. 

Some of the most instrumental Savate masters who helped develop the art as a comprehensive fighting system were  Charles Lecourt who was the first to introduce and integrate  English Boxing techniques with the traditional kicking arsenal in 1822. Finally, Joseph Charlemont, and later his son Charles, fully developed the hands and feet striking system most commonly known as Boxe Francaise in his book first published in 1878.