Italian martial arts. The only Italian arts that I know of are sword fencing and stick fencing. My grandfather had taught me calabrian stick fencing since I was really young.
It’s simple to think it,is possible that european didn’t produce any form of martial art in medieval,reinassence period? When they use swords,stiks ,axes and their arms and feet for make war Is possible they didn’t sviluppe a real fighting method?
The martial tradition arrive us trough oral tradition,tecniques that passes by fathers to sons ,and trough ancient Books like :“Fols Duellatorum” .
The european martial tradition has got a lot of unarmed fighting sport ,they called “celtic fightings” like “S’istrumpa” in Sardinia Island and a ancient form of unarmed fighting method ,It’s called “Abracar” It’s look like a kind of rude Krav Maga,there’s non space for philosophi,It’s only REAL fight!!!
here You can find a lot of titles of ancient book about scrimia abracar and the art of european duelling :
http://www.novascrimia.com/ita/index.php
I trained with some of the senior Nova Scrimia guys in Italy a few years ago - they are very good!
On the general topic of Italian martial arts, there are basically two categories - historical systems of swordfighting, etc. that are being revived through research and pressure testing, and traditional styles of knife, stick and unarmed combat that have been practiced for so long no-one remembers where they came from.
Last year I trained with Maestro Antonio Merendoni in Piobbico and studied some of the basics of stiletto and stick (cane) fighting. One point he kept making was that, in the traditional Italian styles, “how you train is not how you fight” - meaning that the training is quite ritualistic and is understood to teach some of the skills required in a real combat (duel, self defense) but not to fully simulate the real thing.
Also, the region and social class of the fighting style has a great impact on the way it’s taught. For example, the practice of assigning numbers to particular cuts and parries is characteristic of the middle-class fencing schools, but is not found in the schools of knife fighting/dueling developed in rural areas or by the urban criminal classes.
Here’s a link to the sites www.novascrimia.com
Kool!
I’ve not heard of this but it does make sense though. The site asserts “The strength of the Italian Art and Creativity lies in this very miscellany. In this forge of human felling developed the Art of “Scarmir in arme e senca”(fence with or without arms), which we can name indifferently Schirm, Scrima, Scrimia,Schermo, Scherma or Italian Martial Art.”