Then I must have an outdated understanding of the rules, I guess I have some reading to do, thanks for the fyi. Thinking about it now, there's a good chance some of the more self-defense focused Savate I've done bled into my general understanding of the art. I'll amend this in the future.

@@Dr-Grayson I'm not really much of a "ring rules" guy, but I also have trained a fair bit of Thai boxing and I like to keep the approaches separate in my head so I can understand why they do things the way they do. The Savate guy I train with on line always pulls out the rules book to answer a lot of my questions. But the world of rules can be a pretty strange place some times. For example, Throwing the Fouette (roundhouse) kick, with the foot bent at 90 degrees to the leg is against the rules. Yet it is a classic part of savate and a unique aspect of the art that allows you to pin point targets by finding small holes in the garde (including the kidneys in the back ..lol). He then asks around to judges and finds that none would call that a foul...lol. So we have something that is completely illegal but that no ref will call. Im not sure what to think of that, and don't really care- I think that kind of kick is one of the things that exemplifies savate/BF- but for me it makes it clear that there must be "an art" that comes first and the sport must be always be second to that.

I definitely agree when it comes to training these arts the individual details are extremely important. For instance the ruling on kicks up the middle and how you can't snap your knee for chasse frontal but rather have to make sure you're knee is properly chambered. The way I look at things and the way I've trained for most of my life is arts in context of each other. Martial arts don't exist in a void and must then always exist alongside other martial arts. So there definitely comes a point where the nitty gritty of competitive rules becomes less important. Though especially in cases like Savate where not only do you have the differentiation between Boxe-Francaise and Savate Defense, but multiple forms of contact competition which all have their own adjusted rules.

Thanks again for the ruling, went back and edited the video so things are appropriate. Honestly probably gonna make a little discussion video about this cause it got some other ideas rolling.

i've always been told that kicking someone in the back was perfectly okay and done so in competitions without ever getting as little as a comment from the ref telling me to mind it. i even was encouraged to push off-distance kicks to land a chassé on his back. However i've heard a ton of remarks about kicking with your own back turned, so if the first part is true, it definitely isn't taught or applied in competitions, even at a national level