Pretty cool to hear an MMA guy mention a moment when he saw aikido work in the ring. Never thought I’d hear that.

I like how you respect every martial art, even those which you question their effectiveness.

I have Savate background, I ended up to live in Thailand, so I started Muay Thai… the Muay Thai kicks are not comparable to those in Savate, Savate is fine martial art, doesn’t teach you to be heavy, it teaches you to be light. ❤

I don't recall whether you mentioned it, but the whole point of savate was originally to use the shoe! as a weapon. Think about a heavy or a not that very heavy but still rigid shoe. The roundhouse kicks were done originally with the point of the shoe, more like a thrust, and the oblique kicks (like coup de pied bas) were with the edge of the shoe. A single kick to the ribs of stomach very easily KOs an opponent if executed in a rigid shoe, there is even a video on youtube where one of the competitor's forearm was broken with a light kick in a savate match. What they are also very good at is the continous moving and kicking from angles.

IM a savate fighter, i ve praticed muay thaï, Sanda and jjb. Savate help me à lot to improv my fighting style in every kick boxing sport. the Key of savate is to Moove ! Combinaison are great . I like the spirit too it's like à Martial arts with values. Savate defense is à good self défense sport too. Thanks for the vidéo.

FYI, a Dutch fighter using Savate made it to the finals of UFC 1. Although he lost to Royce Gracie in the last match, he still beat multiple other opponents in the Octagon under the limited rules of the 90s.

"Is savate any good for MMA?"Four basic kicks and four basic punches sounds good to me.

Savate is pretty much known through out the world.of martial arts as one of the most respected martial arts. Many legendary fighters like Ernesto boost, gerad gordou , and many other European world champions in K1 ...have been champions in savate ...before moving into k1 ..even now in the UFC fighters like Jon Jones use the savate stomp kick to the legs /knee. In street fights again..because savate kicks with boots on...so if anything its probably even more practical for the streets ( I'm an MMA coach and former pro kick boxer)

Moved to countryside France few weeks ago, and found a savate gym (I don’t know if it is a “pure” savate gym. I am a bit rusty atm, but coming from Thai boxing/kick boxing for mma. But the guys at this gym are pretty hardcore. Maybe I just got lucky, but I am learning a lot over there.

Savate is a decent style of kickboxing. It's an underappreciated European martial art with a decent kicking, especially with a shoes.

Bruce Lee adopted Savate kicks for JKD. Jun Fan JKD is essentially a synthesis of Wing Chun, savate and Boxing.

True about aikido. My aikido coach told me to train boxing for few months so I can improve my aikido skills. Basically no one will just come and grab my hand so I can throw him.

I've never trained savate but I had a fascination with it for years. One point I'd like to add is that before savant became a ring sport it developed as a street fighting art. As such work boots were worn. sometimes like today they may have metal reinforcement or wood reinforcement in the toe. Even in the ring sport today they wear shoes with rubber reinforced toes. Having such shoes on your feet limit the damage your foot can take during kicks. also since the toes are reinforced with hard material mean that you're hitting with a denser impact tool then your foot. so it protects your foot like a boxing glove would your hands but also hits harder like brass knuckles wood with a punch. given the rules of MMA do not allow for boots or shoes to be worn the technique of using your foot to kick becomes much more dangerous and potentially injuring to your foot. so for MMA the techniques might need to be modified somewhat but in the street if you're wearing stiff toe shoes, especially steel-toed boots, your feet become more of a weapon.

Savateurs fight with shoes which in my opinion prepares better for self defense since a shoe is a formidable weapon in its own right.

Man I love that I found this video. You are so easy to listen to, very well spoken and informed, calm, collected, composed, clear and polite. I like a smooth, detailed talk with lots of insight and a genuine attitude. You got a new fan, Mr Cool.

Savate has the devastating “chasse bas” kick to the knee. A person who receives a full-force chasse bas could be in pain for years. A girl at my run club swung her leg backward during a post-run stretch, and her heel smacked into my knee. It took me a year to recover. I can only imagine how badly she could have damaged my knee with an “intentional” chasse bas.

Clarification: Savate is the old Street oriented martial art. What you see in the ring is Boxe Francaise.

I suggest everyone to watch the Savate episode of the "Fight Quest" TV show. Easy to find on youtube. It's really worth a watch to understand Savate!!

Love this dude's voice... lol. Has he ever thought about a career in broadcasting. Is it feigned? Why do I feel like I'm listening to a weather report.

Do not forget you train Savate with shoes on, you can put a great amount of force on a small spot. And also your feet are better protected. But a great comment again as usual

Don't forget - Savate has the coolest uniforms as well

Technically, the problem you had with hurting your foot is less about the technique and more the fact that Savate was originally made to be used while wearing relatively heavy shoes.

If you watch how Bas Rutten lands liver kicks, it typically is with foot pointed and thats because he had boots. Any sort of foot protection opens up crazy damage potential

I like your rational non biased opinions. I've noticed a good fighter can make most fighting styles work. If he understands positioning and has good timing.

Savate is an awsome martial art and well respected around the world by pro fighters... Many top fighters have trained and fought in it... Including Ernesto hoost who was a former world savate champion.. And he also said it was the hardest to master

Savate is awesome. I love love Savate.

Worth pointing out that Ueshiba did not teach anyone Aikido that did not already have a black belt in karate or jujitsu. It seems crazy that this fairly major point has been overlooked for so long. There have been some absolutely phenomenal judoka (Danny Da Costa comes to mind, who reached coral belt in it) that have gotten great value out of aikido much later.

i ve seen many of your videos and i have to say that i m impressed by your honesty and advices you seems to be a real legit fighter and you having a gym in China says it all . Me i am from france and judo has allways been my sport , i ve compete a lot and now my son continues the legacy , he is in south corea now training in a very high ranked judo school he is a second degree black belt only 21years old , the 2 degree he got it in corea against very good corean judokas . Thanks and i wil continue to follow your videos , i m a judoka but well aware about many other martial arts .

Always cool hearing of your 1st hand experiences with students, visitors & other instructors you come across. I enjoy these vids

I love this channel! Ramsey is so humble and down to earth. What an inspiration!!

Gene Labell has a self defense book with line drawings and cartoon rhymes printed in the 1970's I think (its like a cartoon book). One of the scenarios involve defense with a high taekwondo/savate round kick to the chest.

"the pursuit of truth" I think that is an excellent mandate, because it not only provides direction to the practitioner, it is also a means to retain integrity and be honest

It kinda make sense since aikido is just a pacified version of combat samurai arts you just need to de facify

Also the fact of shoes in savate, the attack with the point of the shoe is precise and dangerous.

Savate has great potential. Good movement and distance management. Not overcommitting on techniques = good for mma.

5:07 "Martial arts is about one thing and one thing only and that is the pursuit of the truth. And the truth is: Does your technique work or does it not. And we find out really really quick as soon as we get into the ring." I'am quote mining you. You should publish a book with those!

Hey Ramsey, I'm a new sub and I really enjoy your videos. Your down to earth, friendly, honest and informative style of presenting is refreshing. Very enjoyable and easy to listen to. Here's the but... lol I like how you talk about various martial arts and the differences between the them. Would it be too much to ask for you to include some demonstrations of Savate or Wing Chung (whatever) when doing these videos, just for us that have no idea what the difference is?

Such an interesting answer and anecdote. I will use the same from now on. Thanks!

Enjoyed your presentation and explanation about martial art, a great eye opener for one who doesn’t understand the finer points of fighting.

I really like the intro story… If you know how to fight it all can be useful… Definitely have seen guys like Tony Ferguson use Wing Chun in fight… You need to know the basics of how to throw and defend against a punch, how to grapple or take someone down. You could be great with Ju Jitsu but if you don’t know how to force someone to the ground or how to defend against a punch, you may get knocked out before you ever get a chance to use it

Very wise words! Illuminating! :)

Very glad to hear you say this. There's people who know how to fight and people who don't. Martial artists who know how to fight can demonstrate incredible practical skill where ever they are coming from. There's a bit of borg like group think these days that only MMA is and good then it comes to "really fighting" and all traditional styles are fake or lacking. Well done for articulating what those of us not simply bowing down and worshiping MMA have known all along. (Genuinely grateful!!)

Savate I believe become way deadlier if you add a steel cap shoes into the mix. I have a steel cap shoes (a tough but fairly light shoes) I use it to practice a few savate moves against a metal pole. Yes that shoes will crack a human skull even at 50% power. The pole is starting to develop huge dents and is bending.

It's not that in Savate you are allowed to kick with the foot. It's more that we use the shoes as striking weapon. They are hard shoes, so the delivery of connecting kick is quite painful. It also change the kicking distance. That being said, now, there is a new set of rules called savate pro which allows, to a certain extend, to kick with the shins too. The sad part of modern Savate is that it lost a all its grappling and wrestling components, and the weapon part, with a stick or a staff, is taught separately too. Savate was what MMA is today. It's like a MMA with hard shoes. How could would it be to add this component to MMA? Pretty cool, I think.

My brother in law, who runs a martial art gym in Taiwan, had a theory about the more esoteric martial arts. He said the idea that these spread because people were gullable is ridiculous. Square wheels don't exist, a combat style had to survive due to its effectiveness especially when death by ax was a very likely scenario. His idea is that most chinese kung fu is useless because its like a kid who never learned basic math doing algebra. Stuff like Aikido, Wing Chun, tai chi, bagua are probably advance systems that you learned after you learned the fundementals of actual fighting. He thinks there must have been an original style that you would learn before learning these other fist styles. Deeper into his elaboration he thinks it was a style similar to muay boran/bokator which most likely came from india and that was the system that Bhodidhama probably had taught the shaolin monks so many years ago. I'm not sure, he's probably wrong but I thought it made a lot of sense.

I have heard Savate described as fencing with your feet.

this is spot on. every martial art pretty much operates with similar principles .. controlling ranges, striking efficiently, controlling your breathing and balance etc etc therefore the vast majority of techniques will have some merit in actual fights... but it requires u to know how to fight. how to stay calm, how to time, how to balance, knowing ranges, knowing where to strike, reading the situation and environment and so on

Well said and thank you.

the savate is a very good one to start with and then evolve on another martial style. It gives a very solid foundation. The savate + muay-Thai complement each other very well.

Yeah one the biggest problem Aikidokas would face is the fact many are ignorant about what realistic attacking or fighting actually looks like.

He talks about the kicks but hardly any mention of training methods and footwork. If you already do Muay Thai for MMA, training Savate will insanely improve striking. Elusiveness, timing and range are a big part of Savate training which Muay Thai generally lacks (when training in the western world). Find a Savate club, go train there and see the difference in your sparring after using their training drills for a few months.

The thing about Ikido that people don't get is that it's a technique designed to use the attackers power against themselves so if you combine it with Judo or Kickboxing it works wonders in a fight, but i hear Savate is not only a defence technique it's a fighting style

I was taught a neat little known, technique by Salem Assli but I'm not sure if it was a savate move or from another style we worked on because it was a JKD academy. Has anyone ever seen the knife shield move where you quickly sna snap your leg back and get your shoe on your hand in one quick motion that way you have a shield on your hand so the knife can't cut it and possibly could get stuck in it. If not from savate does anybody know where this came from? Thank you very much. I love this page

Ouch I've done that before too here's what my old instructor taught me. The instep is for sport taekwondo but it's also a good way to break your foot. The ball of the foot is the traditional method used for front kicks and turning kicks just have to make sure you pull your toes back properly and angle it in correctly.

Hey Ramsey if I follow my JKD creed and absorb what is useful to me should I be training for high kicks and getting my legs more flexible one of my guros is Mike Krause and he is a former tkd championship fighter he always tries to get us to push our limits of range of kick but should I go for it when my main art is Silat.

Savate is a pretty special martial art, in a way that we have different rules. The main difference is that you fight with shoes, due to the fact that savate was originaly created in street fight. Shoes allowe you to hit with the point of the (pretty damn efficient if I you want my opinion). Another difference with practically all other martial art is that you can hit the back of your opponent. Another thing is that the tireur (a french boxer) is really fast, if you watch a professionnal savate match you will see that the tireurs are not massive in term of muscle because they are too fast in combat

I think savate (which means shoes in french) was developped as a self defence system. In the street, you have few protection but your feet are heavily protected so use your boots (XIXth century leather shoes) like a weapon.

I love that mindset! "If you know how to fight things can work" you have to have a base in MMA and to actually lay leather.

Great analysis. I believe the most important is the fighter and not the style of any martial art.

About the sore foot syndrome for roundhouses... I've often trained by kicking one of those sand/water bag stands without the bag on it. The bag gives with the force of the kick, so it's not as bad as it seems. It works for feet and shins! :)

This was a brilliant answer!

i think a good philosophy is to incorporate what works for you.. the example you gave is spot on, considering the amount of trash people talk about aikido. similarly, if i am not mistaken, bruce lee incorporated a lot of savate in jeet kune do.. and fencing, so you can pretty much get inspiration anywhere. some martial arts even incorporate animal movements, so i would say savate is definitely something that can be effectively incorporated in mma =)

Savateur Francois Pennachio beat Ramon Dekkers in Kickboxing

Thanks man

Do you think kicking with the ball of the foot when doing roundhouse kicks is a realistic means of striking??? I visited a taekwondo school that practices a style more reminiscent of karate (and according to them, it's not tang so do) and I noticed that they taught their students to perform the strike that way. Just curious on what you think

I usually kick with the ball of the foot, never had a problem landing it, but i wonder if it may cause an injury some day :/

The advantage of Savage in the street comes into p,at when you are using hard soles shoes. It was designed with that in mind- and if you kick someone with the hard toe of a shoe, or the hard sole, it’s much more effective than your fare foot. For me, who usually wears ankle boots, it’s a great system of kicking. Not sure it’s great if you customarily wear sneakers, though.

Remember folks.....savate was done with a hard leather shoe, or a military boot......so inside step kicks, or even better checking a kick with the arch of the foot, takes on a whole other level .

Christopher in kenichi ova anime uses savate and his comrades uses blades in their shoes with the savate martial arts It’s a deadly martial arts for sure and anyone that can defend against it is legendary good

Dude your voice is exquisite.....I swear if you did voice work for commercial ads , television or a Matrix cartoon series as Morpheus, you would absolutely rock!!!!!!!

Many of Karate kicks that we known today are addopted from Savate. And many Tae Kwon Do kicks are develop from Karate's kicking techniques as General Choi ((one of) the founding father of Tae Kwon Do) was once a student of Gichin Funakoshi (the founder of Shotokan Karate). So, as a man who're practice both I can say, as long as you train it well and never skip the strenght training, I believe it really works. At least it works for me.

It is then up to the individual and how much training, dedication, and athleticism to make their style of martial arts work.

I absolutely adore any form of Kickboxing, so I have a soft spot for Le Savate, in spite of the French reputation for weakness. In truth, France has seen many, many violent periods and incredibly destructive conflicts throughout its history. And if there’s one thing that history teaches us, it’s that violent times and areas are a breeding ground for fighting styles. Le Savate was born when the French government outlawed the use of the human fist as a means to try and deter street fighting. Sailors and military men soon adapted with their feet and with open handed slaps, often using the ropes on their ships to sustain balance. The term Savate comes from the word meaning “Old Shoe”, from the boots men would wear at sea. Today, it’s practiced all over and is comprised of three levels of official competition: Assaut, Pre-Combat and Combat. Lastly, unlike other styles which use belts to denote rank, Savateurs use colored gloves with Blue being the lowest and Silver being the highest.

Love that last line bout finding out the truth

savate training at least the warmup done by instructors on youtube, was really helpful for fitness and recovery, I enjoyed it, and it can be combined with kickboxing.

I do kyokushin. I've noticed savate stuff online and looks interesting in terms of jump kicks for distance. So I've been wondering if there technique works, in terms of their jump kicks and stepping. I wonder if their jump and stepping kicks could be good for distance attacks.

In Savate you have shoes. Instep low kicks are used (fouette bas). Especially with the front foot and due to the mechanical properties of Savate kicks in general they can also be kicked so fast that it would be much more difficult to check them.

Savate uses boots with hard rubber toes to kick with. Yes barefoot these techniques could damage your foot. The shin works well if barefoot. But if you wear steel toe boots then Savate techniques become vastly more damaging than shin kicks. But I personally believe one should train with all kinds of footwear & barefoot so if in the street or wherever if you have boots, shoes, or nothing you know what to do

As far as using Savate kicks in the streat I would say footwear would make a difference.Kicking with a nice sturdy boot would keep you from breaking your foot but take someone who is wearing sneakers tennis shoes or a pair of slides and you might mess up your foot.I actually stubbed my toe on a portion messed up sidewalk and I learn that if you stub your toe while wearing slides you might as well be wearing no shoes at all.

I use Savate everytime in my during sparring session. Sparring partners can't never get pass my oblique kick the shins and knees.

I would like to know your opinion about capoeira (PS: I'm from Brazil)

Savate was an originally street fighting techniques.

IDK much about Savate. But If only They allowed you to wearing shoes on the MMA match. It might more useful. (As I see Savate kick like a Wracking ball crane and the shoes have a same duty as a Wracking Ball. Like a glove for boxer. )

Some systems are secondary systems. Nothing wrong with that.

yep, I've always said that about aikido. look at its founder, he had a lot of fighting and martial arts experience, then boiled it down to something different that worked for him and his philosophy. modern practitioners may have the aikido training, but not the journey it took Ueshiba to get there. I think the same could be said about JKD.

I have read savators wear a specially designed shoes, for landing with the point of the toe, is this true? If so, his do savators adjust their kicking techniques when not wear the savate shoes?

I like the look of Savate, albeit I'm 50 and don't think I can perform some of the higher roundhouse kicks these days. Savate trains to kick with boots/shoes on so some of the kicks like Fouetté I think are to put the toe of the shoe into the ribs. It might be why they can use the instep to kick areas that some other arts would use the shin. I used the instep instead of a shin kick once on a kick pad and I couldn't walk properly for a week!

Hit the nail on the head here

What a great guy, you got a sub

I'd rank Savate up there in the top ranks with any striking arts

My dad don't practice any martial art I know of..but with his height of 6'7 and the strength he has in his legs..he's got a mean piston kick that you don't wanna get hit by. I've seen him use that kick on a heavy bag and send it pretty far on a decently heavy bag that me and my little brother couldn't match doing that same kick even if we pulled it off at the exact same time and hit it together with all our strength.

I like this video. one thing that I don't understand in variety of martial arts is why do they limit them so much. especially if you take three fighting styles that all involve similar attack. (I know that they are still different but they have certain similarity as well) I see no reason why one shouldn't combine several styles and simply take what is best from each. I know in MMA this is what its all about however honestly I would like to see something that allows all the things allowed in MMA but the fighters also wear shoes like they do in savate. also I can understand why they don't count points in savate if someone lands with their shin on the opponent rather than with a shoe. but I cannot understand why they deduce the points. on the other hand while it is important to learn how to fight bare foot first so that you don't have to rely on shoes if you don't have them. there should be a type of fighting that allows variety of martial arts yet allows for fighters to have shoes as well. considering that the whole idea of Mixed Martial arts is to use variety of martial arts. how effective savate is depends in large on a footwear you have if you fight bare foot some of the things in it would be helpful but others would be bad idea. if you are wearing steel toe shoes it would probably be one of the best if not the best martial arts to use. if you simply have sturdy shoes it would be quite useful in my opinion especially because savate fighters are very good at judging distance but honestly I would like there to be a system which combines all of different kicking styles and takes best from variety of punching as well. and the truth is that all of the stand up systems have things that work really well and things that would not work at all if opponent would add another dimension to a fight (I don't mean just in martial arts as a whole but specifically in a stand up game) and taking the best of each would make the best fighter overall.

Those savate fighters got some nasty kicks it's not like a Muay Thai kick but they roundhouse kick with the ball of the foot

amazing video

They should have that ad for those super comfy steel toe sneakers on every savate video. Think about it

I trained Savate and fought matches in Belgium, France and Holland i'm dutch b.t.w., you're right, if you don't have the balls to fight full contact nothing wil help you against someone who has! But some of the best Dutch Fighters Like Ernesto Hoost (4 times k1 winner and many titles in several disciplines, Lucia Rijker multiple world titles in several disciplines( stars in million dollar baby) Ivan Hypolite several world titles in several disciplines, and a few more have all trained in Savate before they went for muay thai, their trainer Johan Vos made them, because of the timing, distance, and technique you can see it in their style of fighting ( Ernesto isn't called Mister perfect for nothing) there was more money in thai boxing because the dutch (ignorant) public liked it more because of the k.o.'s, and the(in their opinion) ballet looking integrale Savate suits, little did they know about the technique and precision of Savate and of course the hard shoe's (you don't here the impact, but you certainly feel it) eventualy they also got bored by the cliching in muay thai which can look like hugging you're opponent and softly stroking him with your knee (little do they know indeed) and elbows to the face where seen like barbaric by the dutch upper class, that's why in holland they developed a style of kickboxing without the elbows and without clinching just to comply to the public's demand. that's how Savate went down the drain in Holland, because of ignorant public. The money was bigger in thai/ kickboxing, but the fighters that were trained in Savate and after that went for kick/ thai boxing were superior in technique, and yes Gerard Gordeau lost to Royce Gracie in the final of the first UFC challenge..but in his defence he fought with a broken hand and had a tooth removed out of his foot from Teila Tuli, UFC was much more dangerous in those times because there were not a lot of rules. Savate is great! even one of my favorite fighters "Diamond Ramon Dekkers" lost to Francois Pennacchio in a fight ( can be found on youtube) were he just couldn't make the right contact( no combo's just single kicks) with him because he danced around the ring so much. Holland has had a lot of great fighters (legends) for such a small country, and most of my favorites have trained Savate! Not just throwing and hoping you connect before you're opponent does, but tactical fighting, with more speed, distance control and superior technique! Salut! to add..a savate fighter can easily adjust and fight in multiple ring disciplines, a thai fighter can not because they kick with the shin and only have a few kicks to choose from they get disqualified a lot! And just cannot get into the right distance form they're opponent to really make their combo's when they fight a savate fighter on savate rules. I've seen it many times, ofcourse there is a flipside to this, when a savate fighter is kicked a few times with the shin on the thigh it will have a devastating effect on them to,( on who it wouldn't?;-))the choice of kicks in Savate is much larger and they train them all, while most thai/ kickboxing fighters only use round house (low, mid, high) and front push kicks Here's a link to a European title win in Savate by a young Ernesto Hoost. don't get me wrong, not saying one is better than the other! i respect all martial arts and you can learn from all of them! best way is a good standing discipline with a good grappling one...but in all cases, the situation decides..;-) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/m5tnbN2ftKmol6M.html

I'm from Greece too!

Your last little bit 'the truth is does you technique work or not? And we find that out very quickly' got me thinking about some judo techniques like seoinage, hane goshi, haraigoshi and big throws like those that you'd think would never work in any kind of live combat scenerio. And yet they're very much good technique. So how do you distinguish between what is a good technique and what is a risky technique that just requires precision?

I practice traditional Savate, which requires two toned button boots and a cravat to be effective. It doesn't work in the streets, but is devastating on a docked wooden sailing vessel.

There is also a pro savate discipline where you can use shin to kick and block. Plus reinforced shoes. But to compete in savate pro, you need to win any medal in major amateur championship