Banjos and Broadswords @floatablejester - Tumblr Blog

Japanese wakizashi, 19th century

from Czerny's

I wanna share something different but that is very personal to me here. I won’t go on about the details of my life, but I was adopted as child, and my adoptive father comes from Reunion Island, a French island in the Indian Ocean that was home to slaves brought from Mozambique and later to several different populations (mostly Chinese and Indian). Reunion has a very vibrant local culture, most notably a very typical cuisine between chinese, indian & créole (grew up on that stuff it’s DELICIOUS), prominent music styles called sega and maloya (the latter being unique to the island)… and martial arts !!

Réunion has two prominent martial arts : La Croche, a form of folk wrestling that exists only on the island (and that is similar to most wrestling styles found around the world), and the subject of this video : Moringue. Moringue is incredibly similar to Capoeira, and some modern Moringue group actually linked it to Capoeira Angola, but it’s something completely unique to Reunion. It’s half dance and half actual fighting, mostly with kicks, that look like an incredible crossover of usual front kicks / side kicks and acrobatic, capoeira-like kicks. Actual full contact competition exist, from the video it looks like the goal is to get your opponents out of bounds through kicks. Kicks are mostly used because, similarly to Capoeira, Reunionese slaves wore chains on their hands and had to use their legs to do anything. In this video (where people speak a mix of Reunionese creole and french), the guy sitting behind drums with his hair tied explains he is a scientist who is working on Moringue and its history, and mentions concepts like Afro-descendence, something relating to the common cultural heritage of former slaves that explains how places that are as remote as Brazil and Reunion end up having similar traditions. He mentions Moringue evolved from the original slaves, included Chinese and Hindu influence (probably kung fu and kalaripayattu, some of the kicks look A LOT like kalaripayattu) and later more European influences. Reunion moringue is done exclusively to the rhythm of maloya, the one typical musical style of Reunion, which participates to its unique character (Moringue has similar styles in Madagascar and the surrounding islands, but the Reunion one is unique). It is a fascinating art on so many aspects. Another testimony of African culture that was passed down from former slaves. My adoptive father was a maloya musician, playing a kayamb, that he had brought from his island and kept like one of his most treasured possessions. It sat on the walls of the house for years. I’m estranged from him now but I can absolutely picture him playing to moringue and i’m pretty sure he did, and that’s where his fascination for martial arts started.

The town I live now has a HUGE Reunionese population. Hell, three of my most regular musical collegues are Creole. I wonder if some of them brought Moringue to the mainland ? I’m gonna look into this when I have time.

In any case, I wanted to talk about that on Budoblr. Please look up Moringue.

sifu-kisu

manwithoutborders

Experimenting. Shotokan has “no weapons forms”. It’s also said that the secrets of karate are hidden in the kata. So…

I took Jitte and tried it out as a staff form… Apologies for some obvious mistakes but I was trying to do ultra low stances and I have a bad knee.

Point is, think outside the box… Every form you have can be applied to a weapon and cover training of weapons. No doubt that I had to study a lot of kung fu to figure out what the techniques could be, but the journey is rewarding.

theanticool

I have a lot of critiques of MMA media, specifically the ones who rely on access (ie pressers, promoter scrums, etc) to work their beat. It’s a relationship that breeds way to much dependency and leniency on the part of the journalist. That’s not just an mma specific problem. That’s just a part of the media ecosystem we exist in.

But a lot of MMA fans expect journalists to just be their personal fight announcers. Like the MMA versions of Shams or Woj. But that’s not “journalism”, that’s PR.

Steven Marrocco spent damn near a decade chasing the story on how Zuffa hid Sean Spencer’s brain injuries from the world to protect the sale of the company and then dumped Spencer on his own. Karim Zidan is out here reporting on how MMA culture overseas and in the US is being used to sport wash violent extremist and recruit people into far right terror organizations. Jon Nash and Paul Gift are out here reporting the hard financials of the business, shedding light on just how much money is actually being made by (and kept from) fighters. And a lot of fans don’t even talk about their work. It’s dumb.

peashooter85

Gold inlaid kris originating from Java, 20th century.

from Hermann Historica

budogang

Taekwondo Kids

peashooter85

Tibetan sword dated to the 14th-15th Century. Currently on display at the Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds.

sifu-kisu

theanticool

I really respect that Olympic gold medalist Sena Irie was like “I don’t want to box professionally, I want to work with frogs.”

theanticool

Her entire Twitter is like this

dr-grayson

This is my new favorite person

pridebudoblr

wrist surgery (im poor lol)

hello budoblr! so I've been approved to remove a cyst on my wrist finally. ive had it for a long time and had it drained on top of erupted. so this is finally happening.

BUT alas, it is expensive. since its on my wrist, it hinders my performance in tkd. and trying to learn lots to become an instructor is literally my dream. this is just a small bump in the road. ive started a gofundme to help raise what i need for the surgery. every penny counts! all funds raised are going directly to the surgery.

i know its a large sum, so even if the goal isn't met im still grateful for any bit that is. please share!

doing this so i can finally go fulltime at the dojang! thank you as always for the support the martial arts family has shown me. ur all absolutely amazing!