Pirates

[Orange...?]

Is there a martial art for pirates; the sword fight, the foot work... I don't think it's fencing. Does anybody know the name or information about pirate fighting art? Please post if you do.
Thanks.

[Trent Tiemeyer]

"If there were a school for pirates, I think one of the courses should be laughing, then jumping off something."

-Jack Handey.

[Saz]

I think Savate may have been developed by French Sailors if thats any help. I know little about it, so maybe someone else can fill you in on that. Not sure about specfic Pirate arts though.

[Orange...?]

Originally posted by 1ONEfighting
"If there were a school for pirates, I think one of the courses should be laughing, then jumping off something."

-Jack Handey.

lol

[Nathanj]

It would still be fencing, only you would normally use a cutlass instead of a rapier, so the footwork and bladework would be more focused on slashing than stabbing.

[KickChick]

.. all I know is I'm in love with Johnny Depp !! :love:
http://pirates.movies.go.com/


http://www.unc.edu/~mpascoe/inls102/sylvestergif.GIF

Definitely fencing.... sabre, epee and foil

[Saz]

Is it just me, or did Johnny Depp, come across as incredibly camp in Pirates of the Caribbean?

[KickChick]

Originally posted by Kgirl
Is it just me, or did Johnny Depp, come across as incredibly camp in Pirates of the Caribbean?


yeah he did but I wouldn't mind "camping" with him anyway ;) ....

[YODA]

Originally posted by Kgirl
Is it just me, or did Johnny Depp, come across as incredibly camp in Pirates of the Caribbean?

Camp as a field of tents!

[Saz]

Camp as Butlins :D

[surgingshark]

Apparently, he was doing a Keith Richards impression the whole time...

[KenpoDavid]

Keith Richards and Pepe LePew, he said in an interview...

I do know how Pirates maintained tehir strength and stamina on those long voyages...

they did Pirates!

edit: OK I just realized this joke doesn't work unless you can hear me mis-pronounce "pilates". :rolleyes:

[Orange...?]

So it's kind of fencing...
Thanks
That ends my wondering. :p

[Cudgel]

it would be sabre or broad/back sword fencing as opposed to rapier or small sword fencing.
I mean historcally but for the movies it was modern sabre crossed with hollywood choreography.

technicly all MA is a type of fencing. :D
AS its short for Art of Defence

And not all of them were using cutlasses I saw a few cavelry/officer sabres and some backswords.

[Syd]

Your in luck lads, this is my area of expertise! ;)

There was a Piratic style of martial arts called Ooh Argghh Do which was fought with a parrot on the shoulder. As you moved in close to your opponent the parrot would peck at their eye's whilst you fired any number of blunderbuss (stuffed into the various parts of yer pants and jackets) into their lubberly guts at point blank range!

Seriously now... while the above sounds stupid some of it is true. Well to be more specific the bit about firing a pistol at point blank range is very true. Here's the deal then. Most Pirates were not educated men but rather men who had been either pressed into service and had escaped or who were men who signed on with no prior skills in fighting generally.

When two ships went to broadsides and would grapple for a landing to fight for prize here's what most if not all Pirates, Privateers, Buccaneers, Corsairs and Freebooters would do. Pistols were always single shot so they would stuff as many loaded pistols into their belts or hung them from string around their necks as they could carry and fire them one after the other at point blank range during a battle.

Because the pistols were fired into the enemy at point blank as the powder exploded it more often than not, not only shot the victim but also set them on fire. This was generally followed up by being stabbed with a dagger of some sort if the pistols were all spent and then usually a cutlass, rarely a rapier and sometimes to bludgeon your victim with a belaying pin. Think of a skinny bowling pin made of hard wood!

There was no formal fighting style for Pirate but for the above techniques of have at it and hack, shoot and bludgeon to death anything that got in the way.

Some interesting facts ...

The term Buccaneer is from the French for pig eater. In the Caribbean days of Piracy there were Privateers of the French persuasion who lived on various islands in autonimous communities. These guys hunted wild pigs with their dogs and lived on these pigs pretty much wholeheartedly. The term in French was Boucanier meaning pig eater from which the English anglicized it into Buccaneer.

The term Jolly Roger from which we get the famous black flag or Piracy with the skull and bones was another anglicized version of the French word, Jolie Rouge... or Happy Red. In the early days of Piracy in the early 1700's there was a famous French Pirate whose flag was bright red with various symbols of a hand with a dagger with blood dripping from it and a severed head. This flag was generally raised to alert other ships that if they did not give themselves over as a prize that they would meet the fate expressed on the flag. Thus from this Jolie Rouge we got the Jolly Roger, which interestingly enough only came into use as the black flag with white skull and bones by English Pirates in the 1800's, quite a long time later. By this time however the term Jolly Roger had come to mean
any flag of Piracy generally.

I'm a sailor you see and a man of the sea and take a great interest in elements of my heritage, Piracy being one of my favourites. ;)

Best, Syd

[Cudgel]

I always wondered why it was called a Jolly Roger.

[47Ronin]

Swashbuckling.

[shonuff]

Johny Depp was cheesy in Pirates of the Carribean.

Sailors were often in great shape. They often suffered of malnutrition, scurvey, and such. They had tons of exercise. They had to swab decks, reel in sails, pull up sails, climb the mast, pull of anchors, make repairs, etc. Sailing is hard.

[ns_oni]

i always thought syd was a pirate :P

[ap Oweyn]

Originally posted by KenpoDavid
Keith Richards and Pepe LePew, he said in an interview...

I do know how Pirates maintained tehir strength and stamina on those long voyages...

they did Pirates!

edit: OK I just realized this joke doesn't work unless you can hear me mis-pronounce "pilates". :rolleyes:

If it makes you feel any better, I laughed out loud when you explained it.

[nzric]

Considering the fact that navy 'recruitment' at the time was waiting outside the pubs after closing time, knocking the drunks over the head and hauling them out to sea, and the fact that many pirates were sailors gone bad/captured by the pirates and working their way up the ranks... the fighting styles would've been diverse as the individuals.

It's probably like asking if there is a "prison" fighting style. I suppose all styles in prisons, and pirate ships, shared a similar vein (focused on attack and overkill, and bludgeoning), but apart from that there wouldn't be a typical style. It's hard to imagine ole' Johnny Blacktooth and his men in neat lines practicing fencing drills up and down the ship. It was more like the biggest, ugliest ones on the ship tended to lead the attacks and it was every man for himself.

[khafra]

Originally posted by nzric
Considering the fact that navy 'recruitment' at the time was waiting outside the pubs after closing time, knocking the drunks over the head and hauling them out to sea, and the fact that many pirates were sailors gone bad/captured by the pirates and working their way up the ranks... the fighting styles would've been diverse as the individuals.

It's probably like asking if there is a "prison" fighting style. I suppose all styles in prisons, and pirate ships, shared a similar vein (focused on attack and overkill, and bludgeoning), but apart from that there wouldn't be a typical style. It's hard to imagine ole' Johnny Blacktooth and his men in neat lines practicing fencing drills up and down the ship. It was more like the biggest, ugliest ones on the ship tended to lead the attacks and it was every man for himself.

Actually, the style known as "52 blocks" or "jailhouse rock" is widely used throughout prisons, although its particulars vary widely by institution. Its distinguishing characteristics are showy moves and dirty tricks. Stickgrappler's got a great section on it at http://stickgrappler.tripod.com/52/52.html and it looks like it'd be kinda fun to learn one could do it without getting too involved with persons of weak moral fiber. </offtopic>

[shonuff]

This got me thinking about fighting games. Watch 52 blocks show up in Tekken, Dead or Alive, or Virtua Fighter. Ghetto beat downs.

[Syd]

Thinking of Prison fighting I can hear it now, two guys face off in the yard...

"I've got ya now Chopper, your no match for my 5 province rusty shiv set!"