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Afrikan Martial Arts
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Train hard, fight easy
Nuba/Nubian wrestling
Nuba wrestler
KyokushinKarateMan
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KyokushinKarateMan
Train hard, fight easy
KyokushinKarateMan
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KyokushinKarateMan
Train hard, fight easy
From Beni Hassan the tombs of Khety and Baket.
KyokushinKarateMan
Train hard, fight easy
Fight Club… Nigerian style: The brutal West African martial arts tradition that has been a part of country’s culture for centuries
By ALEX FINNIS FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 08:32 EST, 17 September 2014 | UPDATED: 10:43 EST, 17 September 2014
A far cry from the relative safety of a modern boxing ring, these stunning photos show the brutal West African sport of Dambe, and look like something out of Fight Club.
The gloves are well and truly off here - instead, the contestants' stronger hands are wrapped in hard rope - which in the old days could even be dipped in resin and shards of broken glass.
That practice is now illegal, but the sport is dangerous enough without it - the aim is to strike your opponent with kicks and punches, trying to make them fall to the floor.
Scroll down for video
Brutal boxing: A fighter aims a high, right-footed kick at his opponent's head, who looks to duck away from the powerful attack
Eyes on the prize: One of the fighters pushes his opponent's lead arm away and goes to swing his rope-clad hand at his side
Clashing: Two older boys grapple, with one managing to land a painful uppercut to his opponent's exposed jaw
Hit where it hurts: A fighter clad in Chelsea FC shorts lands a left-handed punch to his unsuspecting opponent's forehead
Knocking someone down in Dambe is known as 'killing' - the sport is traditionally practised as training for war, and shares much of the same terminology.
Dambe belongs to the Hausa people. It is centuries old, but is still very popular in Nigeria, southern Niger and the south west of Chad.
The tradition is entrenched among butcher caste groups and is very heavily focussed on communities.The sport started from clans of butchers travelling to different villages at harvest and fighting those from the area as part of the festival entertainment.
Butchers come from a lower caste of Hausa society - they are the only ones who could ritually slaughter animals and handle meat. They would form teams from the village - known as armies - and challenge men from other butchers guilds, as well locals from the audience.
Stand off: Two fighters scout each other out, looking for an opening to make the first move and try and achieve a 'killing' - the name for a take-down
Clubbed: Two younger fighters battle it out in the sandy arena, as one is caught on the back by a swinging arm, but avoids a killer shot
Watching on: Dambe is a very popular spectator sport, and those who come to watch bet on the outcome and chant support or taunts at the fighters
Chowing down: A fighter is caught in the mouth by a flailing arm but has his opponent on the ropes and falling to the ground with a strong head-shot
West African Dambe Match
Nowadays, that sense of team is still very strong, and the sport is still dominated by the butchers caste, but competitors will often be very young - teenagers who train in gyms and yards - and will fight all year round.
Fighters join a professional community which travel to fight, often now in temporary rings, rather than just inside a circle of spectators as in the past. They fight for prize money - just as they did traditionally - as harvest was a time of wealth.
They wear shorts, rather than loincloths, and the pre-fight entertainment is more elaborate, and can even use sound systems.
The fights in these pictures, taken in Nigeria, took place inside a sand-filled arena, which can be found in larger towns and are also used for wrestling championships.
Team spirit: Dambe is traditionally a sport where fighters travel in teams, challenging people from other villages, and this is still the case today
Poised to strike: Two youngsters, one a left-hander, look to make the first move and get the upper hand in the bout
The gloves are off: The fighters do not wear gloves, but instead wrap their stronger hand with rope - which they once could dip in resin and shards of glass
Dambe used to include an element of wrestling, known as Kokawa, but is now essentially about punching and kicking.
Fights last three rounds - though these rounds are not timed - their end is signified either when there is a lull in the action, one of the contestants or an official calls a stop to it, or when someone is knocked down.
There are no official weight classes, though fighters are normally matched up with someone of a similar size.
The strapped up strong arm is knows as the 'spear', while the front hand is called the 'shield' - and must be held with the palm open and facing the opponent. As well as for protection, the shield can also be used to grab hold of an opponent.
Contestants can also kick with both legs - the lead leg can sometimes be wrapped with a chain and is also used for defence.
Spectators are a key part of the whole event - they create the atmosphere by chanting to support or taunt the competitors, while betting is also prevalent.
Other traditions include the use of amulets for supernatural protection, with some fighters wrapping them to their spear hand, while some of the fighting groups also ritually smoke marijuana before matches.
Time to relax: A fighter spits water into the air and lets it fall back over his face to cool down after a brutal battle
By ALEX FINNIS FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 08:32 EST, 17 September 2014 | UPDATED: 10:43 EST, 17 September 2014
- Dambe is a West African form of boxing which originates from the butcher caste of the Hausa people
- Fights last for three rounds, and competitors aim to knock down their opponent using kicks and punches
- Fighters wrap their strong arm in rope, which they used to be allowed to dip in resin and broken glass
A far cry from the relative safety of a modern boxing ring, these stunning photos show the brutal West African sport of Dambe, and look like something out of Fight Club.
The gloves are well and truly off here - instead, the contestants' stronger hands are wrapped in hard rope - which in the old days could even be dipped in resin and shards of broken glass.
That practice is now illegal, but the sport is dangerous enough without it - the aim is to strike your opponent with kicks and punches, trying to make them fall to the floor.
Scroll down for video
Brutal boxing: A fighter aims a high, right-footed kick at his opponent's head, who looks to duck away from the powerful attack
Eyes on the prize: One of the fighters pushes his opponent's lead arm away and goes to swing his rope-clad hand at his side
Clashing: Two older boys grapple, with one managing to land a painful uppercut to his opponent's exposed jaw
Hit where it hurts: A fighter clad in Chelsea FC shorts lands a left-handed punch to his unsuspecting opponent's forehead
Knocking someone down in Dambe is known as 'killing' - the sport is traditionally practised as training for war, and shares much of the same terminology.
Dambe belongs to the Hausa people. It is centuries old, but is still very popular in Nigeria, southern Niger and the south west of Chad.
The tradition is entrenched among butcher caste groups and is very heavily focussed on communities.The sport started from clans of butchers travelling to different villages at harvest and fighting those from the area as part of the festival entertainment.
Butchers come from a lower caste of Hausa society - they are the only ones who could ritually slaughter animals and handle meat. They would form teams from the village - known as armies - and challenge men from other butchers guilds, as well locals from the audience.
Stand off: Two fighters scout each other out, looking for an opening to make the first move and try and achieve a 'killing' - the name for a take-down
Clubbed: Two younger fighters battle it out in the sandy arena, as one is caught on the back by a swinging arm, but avoids a killer shot
Watching on: Dambe is a very popular spectator sport, and those who come to watch bet on the outcome and chant support or taunts at the fighters
Chowing down: A fighter is caught in the mouth by a flailing arm but has his opponent on the ropes and falling to the ground with a strong head-shot
West African Dambe Match
Nowadays, that sense of team is still very strong, and the sport is still dominated by the butchers caste, but competitors will often be very young - teenagers who train in gyms and yards - and will fight all year round.
Fighters join a professional community which travel to fight, often now in temporary rings, rather than just inside a circle of spectators as in the past. They fight for prize money - just as they did traditionally - as harvest was a time of wealth.
They wear shorts, rather than loincloths, and the pre-fight entertainment is more elaborate, and can even use sound systems.
The fights in these pictures, taken in Nigeria, took place inside a sand-filled arena, which can be found in larger towns and are also used for wrestling championships.
Team spirit: Dambe is traditionally a sport where fighters travel in teams, challenging people from other villages, and this is still the case today
Poised to strike: Two youngsters, one a left-hander, look to make the first move and get the upper hand in the bout
The gloves are off: The fighters do not wear gloves, but instead wrap their stronger hand with rope - which they once could dip in resin and shards of glass
Dambe used to include an element of wrestling, known as Kokawa, but is now essentially about punching and kicking.
Fights last three rounds - though these rounds are not timed - their end is signified either when there is a lull in the action, one of the contestants or an official calls a stop to it, or when someone is knocked down.
There are no official weight classes, though fighters are normally matched up with someone of a similar size.
The strapped up strong arm is knows as the 'spear', while the front hand is called the 'shield' - and must be held with the palm open and facing the opponent. As well as for protection, the shield can also be used to grab hold of an opponent.
Contestants can also kick with both legs - the lead leg can sometimes be wrapped with a chain and is also used for defence.
Spectators are a key part of the whole event - they create the atmosphere by chanting to support or taunt the competitors, while betting is also prevalent.
Other traditions include the use of amulets for supernatural protection, with some fighters wrapping them to their spear hand, while some of the fighting groups also ritually smoke marijuana before matches.
Time to relax: A fighter spits water into the air and lets it fall back over his face to cool down after a brutal battle
KyokushinKarateMan
Train hard, fight easy
THE STYLES OF AFRICAN MARTIAL ARTS
FIGHTLAND BLOG
By Pedro Olavarria
When we say the word martial arts, most people imagine shaolin monks, ninjas, Bruce Lee and now MMA. Almost never do people think of Africa; I know I don’t.
One of the best and only documentaries I have ever seen on African martial arts was a Vice.com documentary on Laamb wrestling. Almost every culture on the planet has developed some form of hand to hand or weapons based fighting technique.
With the advent of guns, these techniques became systematized in the form of sport, dance, self-defense systems or they died out. Africa is no exception. In this piece we will look at several martial arts that come from the cradle of humanity.
They represent the wide range of martial expression, in combat sport, dancing and weapons. In many ways, African martial arts are just like the martial arts of Asia, Europe and the Americas; this can be accounted for by our shared humanity. However, African martial arts also have features that are unique to themselves.
In some parts of Senegal, Laamb wrestling has become more popular than soccer. The sport is also courting big name, international sponsorships as it gets televised. In Laamb, which in the Wolof language means “to fight”, wrestlers compete to score take downs. In professional Laamb matches, punches are allowed to the body and face.
The matches are colorful, preceded by dancing and shamanic ritual, with fighters wearing loin clothes and magic talismans. Laamb even has participants who are from outside of Africa. One of the sport’s stars is a Spaniard, Juan Espino, El Leon Blanco, who before competing in Laamb was a practitioner of Lucha Canaria, the indigenous wrestling style of the Canary Islands.
Even though Laamb has thus far remained an African sport, some of the top ranked Laamb wrestlers can make as much as $200,000 per fight, with as many as 50,000 spectators gathering in stadiums, and millions over television.
When we compare Laamb wrestling to MMA or boxing in the USA, both have pageantry in common. In Laamb, the prefight dancing and shamanic ritual is an integral part of the sport. As Westerners, we look at this as something exotic but we do similar things.
Entrance music, flag waving and displays of religiosity, prayer and the sign of the cross, are ubiquitous among Western fighters.
African wrestling styles are similar to the folk wrestling styles of other cultures. Japanese Sumo, EnglishShin Kicking, Spanish Lucha Canaria, Icelandic Glima, Mongolian wrestling and Korean Ssireum all share, with Laamb and Evala, the fact of being jacket/belt wrestling styles, or at least styles which focus on takedowns, without ground grappling.
Take down only styles of wrestling make for relatively simple styles that can be easily passed on and understood by casual fans and participants, serving their function as recreation and entertainment at festivals. However, in the case of Evala, wrestling in some parts of Africa, though competitive is actually part of initiation into manhood.
Among the Kabye people of Togo, older boys must wrestle in the Evala festival in order to become men. To become a Kabye man, one must undergo circumcision and climb three mountains. Like the agoge of ancient Sparta, the initiates are also segregated from their families, in grass huts where they undergo intense physical training.
This training begins a week prior to the Evala festival and initiates take it very seriously for although losing at Evala doesn’t disqualify one from initiation, losing can bring embarrassment to one’s family.
Another West African combat sport is Dambe, the boxing style of the Hausa people. When one looks atDambe, one gets the feeling that it developed from spear fighting. In Dambe, one hand is called a “spear” and is tightly wrapped in twine or covered with a boxing glove.
The other hand, called a “shield”, is left bare and is used for defense. Matches are divided into three rounds and kicking is allowed. The goal of Dambe is to score a “kill” by knocking your opponent to the ground, which can be difficult when you are limited to using only one hand.
Dambe’s derivation from spear fighting is similar to the development of Escrima empty hand techniques, which were derived from the system’s weapons techniques. Gunting, defanging the snake, is the strategy of disabling your enemy’s weapon holding hand in order to disarm him.
This strategy makes perfect sense in fencing but Escrima takes it a step further by applying it to unarmed combat as well. Another example of blade-to-hand derivation is Bruce Lee’s Jeet June Do, where he is said to have borrowed the foot work of western fencing.
However, Dambe seems unique in that it’s not a simply a blade-to-hand style but rather a blade and shield-to-hand style. Alongside Africa's striking and wrestling styles are its weapon systems, most particularly, stick fighting.
From Egypt comes Tahtib, a form of stick fighting, comparable to capoeira in that it exists primarily as a form of dancing. Tahtib is thought by some to have its origins in Pharonic Egypt.
This stick fighting dance is accompanied by music and is often performed at weddings, Ramadan and other festivals. Far south of the Nile is Ethiopia, home to the aggressive stick fighting art of the Suri people.
Donga is the name for the long stick Suri tribesman use to herd and defend their cattle. The only rule in Suri stick fighting is: don’t kill your opponent. In this south Ethiopian sport, bloodshed is common and many fighters compete naked, which is impressive given that strikes are coming at full force.
Donga matches are volatile affairs, with 20 to 30 participants on each side, each waiting for their turn to fight. When one compares this violent form of stick fighting to the dance of Tahtib, one gets the feeling that there is only one way to effectively fight with a long and skinny stick, as both styles seem to have independently developed similar techniques.
Whereas Donga only utilizes one stick, the Zulu style of Nguni uses two. Nguni fighting is the traditional Zulu stick fighting style, attributed by some to Shaka Zulu.
Nguni fighters use two sticks, one for defense and one for attacking. The hand holding the defense stick is also covered by a small cow hide shield. A Nguni fight is won when one of the two combatants bleeds, is knocked down or surrenders.
Image via Flickr user Dietmar Temps
The American answer to Donga and Nguni are the Dog Bros. Named after a fictional tribe from Conan the Barbarian comic books, the Dog Bros. have combined Filipino martial arts with Brazilian Jujitsu, making for a very realistic form of weapons training.
Curiously, the Dog Bros invoke a throwback to the tribal warrior ethos, something that the Suri and Zulu have not totally abandoned. At Dog Bros “tribal gatherings”, the participants are told to view their sessions as if they were all part of a tribe and were fighting for the purpose of making each other better warriors, so that they can defend their people from an invasion.
This idea helps ensure that the fights are hard and realistic but not unnecessarily brutal. The participants of these gatherings are not competing for honor, money, trophies or fame but for the sake of martial art, to test themselves and have fun.
Whenever one comparatively studies different martial arts, it seems that there are only so many different ways to punch, kick, throw or hit someone with a stick. The things that distinguish different martial arts are the techniques they limit themselves to in training or sport.
As Jack Slack has said “The future is not with innovators, the guys who are inventing techniques, but with the early adopters in MMA who can take a strategy from somewhere else and apply it to mixed martial arts.” Do Laamb or Dambe have strategies to offer MMA fighters? Do Donga or Nguni have something to teach the Dog Bros? That’s not for me to say but I suspect that they do.
FIGHTLAND BLOG
By Pedro Olavarria
When we say the word martial arts, most people imagine shaolin monks, ninjas, Bruce Lee and now MMA. Almost never do people think of Africa; I know I don’t.
One of the best and only documentaries I have ever seen on African martial arts was a Vice.com documentary on Laamb wrestling. Almost every culture on the planet has developed some form of hand to hand or weapons based fighting technique.
With the advent of guns, these techniques became systematized in the form of sport, dance, self-defense systems or they died out. Africa is no exception. In this piece we will look at several martial arts that come from the cradle of humanity.
They represent the wide range of martial expression, in combat sport, dancing and weapons. In many ways, African martial arts are just like the martial arts of Asia, Europe and the Americas; this can be accounted for by our shared humanity. However, African martial arts also have features that are unique to themselves.
In some parts of Senegal, Laamb wrestling has become more popular than soccer. The sport is also courting big name, international sponsorships as it gets televised. In Laamb, which in the Wolof language means “to fight”, wrestlers compete to score take downs. In professional Laamb matches, punches are allowed to the body and face.
The matches are colorful, preceded by dancing and shamanic ritual, with fighters wearing loin clothes and magic talismans. Laamb even has participants who are from outside of Africa. One of the sport’s stars is a Spaniard, Juan Espino, El Leon Blanco, who before competing in Laamb was a practitioner of Lucha Canaria, the indigenous wrestling style of the Canary Islands.
Even though Laamb has thus far remained an African sport, some of the top ranked Laamb wrestlers can make as much as $200,000 per fight, with as many as 50,000 spectators gathering in stadiums, and millions over television.
When we compare Laamb wrestling to MMA or boxing in the USA, both have pageantry in common. In Laamb, the prefight dancing and shamanic ritual is an integral part of the sport. As Westerners, we look at this as something exotic but we do similar things.
Entrance music, flag waving and displays of religiosity, prayer and the sign of the cross, are ubiquitous among Western fighters.
African wrestling styles are similar to the folk wrestling styles of other cultures. Japanese Sumo, EnglishShin Kicking, Spanish Lucha Canaria, Icelandic Glima, Mongolian wrestling and Korean Ssireum all share, with Laamb and Evala, the fact of being jacket/belt wrestling styles, or at least styles which focus on takedowns, without ground grappling.
Take down only styles of wrestling make for relatively simple styles that can be easily passed on and understood by casual fans and participants, serving their function as recreation and entertainment at festivals. However, in the case of Evala, wrestling in some parts of Africa, though competitive is actually part of initiation into manhood.
Among the Kabye people of Togo, older boys must wrestle in the Evala festival in order to become men. To become a Kabye man, one must undergo circumcision and climb three mountains. Like the agoge of ancient Sparta, the initiates are also segregated from their families, in grass huts where they undergo intense physical training.
This training begins a week prior to the Evala festival and initiates take it very seriously for although losing at Evala doesn’t disqualify one from initiation, losing can bring embarrassment to one’s family.
Another West African combat sport is Dambe, the boxing style of the Hausa people. When one looks atDambe, one gets the feeling that it developed from spear fighting. In Dambe, one hand is called a “spear” and is tightly wrapped in twine or covered with a boxing glove.
The other hand, called a “shield”, is left bare and is used for defense. Matches are divided into three rounds and kicking is allowed. The goal of Dambe is to score a “kill” by knocking your opponent to the ground, which can be difficult when you are limited to using only one hand.
Dambe’s derivation from spear fighting is similar to the development of Escrima empty hand techniques, which were derived from the system’s weapons techniques. Gunting, defanging the snake, is the strategy of disabling your enemy’s weapon holding hand in order to disarm him.
This strategy makes perfect sense in fencing but Escrima takes it a step further by applying it to unarmed combat as well. Another example of blade-to-hand derivation is Bruce Lee’s Jeet June Do, where he is said to have borrowed the foot work of western fencing.
However, Dambe seems unique in that it’s not a simply a blade-to-hand style but rather a blade and shield-to-hand style. Alongside Africa's striking and wrestling styles are its weapon systems, most particularly, stick fighting.
From Egypt comes Tahtib, a form of stick fighting, comparable to capoeira in that it exists primarily as a form of dancing. Tahtib is thought by some to have its origins in Pharonic Egypt.
This stick fighting dance is accompanied by music and is often performed at weddings, Ramadan and other festivals. Far south of the Nile is Ethiopia, home to the aggressive stick fighting art of the Suri people.
Donga is the name for the long stick Suri tribesman use to herd and defend their cattle. The only rule in Suri stick fighting is: don’t kill your opponent. In this south Ethiopian sport, bloodshed is common and many fighters compete naked, which is impressive given that strikes are coming at full force.
Donga matches are volatile affairs, with 20 to 30 participants on each side, each waiting for their turn to fight. When one compares this violent form of stick fighting to the dance of Tahtib, one gets the feeling that there is only one way to effectively fight with a long and skinny stick, as both styles seem to have independently developed similar techniques.
Whereas Donga only utilizes one stick, the Zulu style of Nguni uses two. Nguni fighting is the traditional Zulu stick fighting style, attributed by some to Shaka Zulu.
Nguni fighters use two sticks, one for defense and one for attacking. The hand holding the defense stick is also covered by a small cow hide shield. A Nguni fight is won when one of the two combatants bleeds, is knocked down or surrenders.
Image via Flickr user Dietmar Temps
The American answer to Donga and Nguni are the Dog Bros. Named after a fictional tribe from Conan the Barbarian comic books, the Dog Bros. have combined Filipino martial arts with Brazilian Jujitsu, making for a very realistic form of weapons training.
Curiously, the Dog Bros invoke a throwback to the tribal warrior ethos, something that the Suri and Zulu have not totally abandoned. At Dog Bros “tribal gatherings”, the participants are told to view their sessions as if they were all part of a tribe and were fighting for the purpose of making each other better warriors, so that they can defend their people from an invasion.
This idea helps ensure that the fights are hard and realistic but not unnecessarily brutal. The participants of these gatherings are not competing for honor, money, trophies or fame but for the sake of martial art, to test themselves and have fun.
Whenever one comparatively studies different martial arts, it seems that there are only so many different ways to punch, kick, throw or hit someone with a stick. The things that distinguish different martial arts are the techniques they limit themselves to in training or sport.
As Jack Slack has said “The future is not with innovators, the guys who are inventing techniques, but with the early adopters in MMA who can take a strategy from somewhere else and apply it to mixed martial arts.” Do Laamb or Dambe have strategies to offer MMA fighters? Do Donga or Nguni have something to teach the Dog Bros? That’s not for me to say but I suspect that they do.
KyokushinKarateMan
Train hard, fight easy
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