Martial Arts Of The World - Webs

522 Savate
developed the glove system to rank his students. Colored sashes or colored
cuffs on the gloves were used. Panache was taught only to silver gloves as a
final polish reserved for the highest ranks. His son, Charles Charlemont, became
perhaps the greatest savateur of the time. Charles Charlemont fought
and defeated the boxer Joe Driscoll in a bout called “the Fight of the Century”
in 1899. This victory led to the exportation of savate to other countries,
like the United States and the United Kingdom, where it was taught to
the armed forces as “Automatic Defense.” Even cartoon and fictional characters
such as Batman and Mrs. Peel of The Avengers television series and
1998 motion pictures have used savate in their martial arts arsenals.
The period of the two world wars was as devastating to savate as the
preceding times were beneficial. By the end of World War II, it is estimated
that 40 percent of France’s men had been killed in combat. Because of savate’s
popularity in the military and police forces, the percentage of savateurs
killed was even greater. After World War II, one of Charlemont’s senior
students, Comte Pierre Baruzy, could only find thirty-three silver
gloves remaining from the over 100,000 savateurs known before World
War I. This remnant led to the rebirth of savate in the modern world. However,
the social conditions in Europe led to an increased emphasis on the
sporting forms. Two organizations were formed after World War II, a Savate
and a Boxe-Française Federation. Originally, jûdô was also one of the
arts affiliated with these federations. As savate spread to other countries
with similar martial traditions, an International Federation formed. In the
1970s, the two French Federations merged, and the dominance of the sport
form within the association began. In the late 1970s, Lutte Parisienne was
removed from the normal course of study. In 1982, a special committee for
la canne and the other weapon arts was formed. While many instructors,
including Comte Baruzy, opposed this and continued to teach the entire
system, savate was being broken into individual disciplines with little overlap.
This fragmentation continued until the 1990s when the la Canne et Baton
practitioners finally developed their own organizations separate from
the Savate–Boxe Française Federation. During this time, savate as a complete
combat art was still taught in isolated salles like that of Maitre Jean-
Paul Viviane and in the police and military clubs like that of Maitre Robert
Paturel. In 1994, a young American professeur (senior rank instructor),
Paul-Raymond Buitron III, was charged by his maitres with developing a
curriculum that requires mastery of all of the disciplines of savate as well
as the formation of the International Guild of Savate Danse de Rue.
Buitron was already trained in zipota when he studied savate in France,
and he became the first American to earn his silver glove in France as well
as the first American licensed to teach savate’s disciplines. Maitre Buitron
III reintegrated the disciplines and developed a series of training sets to