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Savate

Savate-boxe française
France championship 2013 Elite A
France championship 2013 Elite A
Also known as French footfighting, French boxing, French kickboxing
Focus Striking
Hardness Full contact
Country of origin France
Creator Michel Casseux
Famous practitioners Michel Casseux, Joseph Charlemont, Gerard Gordeau, Ernesto Hoost, Cheick Kongo, Alain Ngalani, Charles Lecour, Christian M'Pumbu, Ludovic Millet, Fred Royers, Paolo Biotti, Pierre Vigny, Max Greco
Parenthood English Boxing, French Footfighting, Wrestling, Street Fighting, Chausson Marseillais
Olympic sport only the 1924 Summer Olympics

Savate (French pronunciation: ​[saˈvat]), also known as boxe française, French boxing, French kickboxing or French footfighting, is a French martial art that uses the hands and feet as weapons combining elements of western boxing with graceful kicking techniques.

Only foot kicks are allowed unlike some systems such as Muay Thai, Silat and Yaw-Yan, which allow the use of the knees or shins. Savate is a French word for "old shoe". Savate is one of the few styles of kickboxing in which the fighters habitually wear shoes. A male practitioner of savate is called a tireur while a female is called a tireuse.

Savate takes its name from the French for "old shoe" (heavy footwear, especially the boots used by French military and sailors) (cf. French-English loanwords sabot and sabotage and Spanish cognate zapato). The modern formalized form is mainly an amalgam of French street fighting techniques from the beginning of the 19th century. 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 fighter to use a hand to hold onto something for balance on a rocking ship's deck, and that the kicks and slaps were used on land to avoid the legal penalties for using a closed fist, which was considered a deadly weapon under the law. It was known as jeu marseillais (game from Marseille), and was later renamed chausson (slipper, after the type of shoes the sailors wore). In contrast, at this time in England (the home of boxing and the Queensberry rules), kicking was seen as unsportsmanlike.


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