Discover Top Posts Tagged with #bataireacht

Spent today hitting things with sticks. It went so well I had so much fun :3

HAMMER HARLEEN AND THE FISTS OF CLOWNING (FREE FACIAL RECONSTRUCTION)

I have been looking for what martial arts Harley Quinn may have learned as she is seen going toe-to-toe with the likes of Catwoman, Nightwing, Batgirl, Lord Death Man, and Batman, to name a few. All that comes up is her backround in gymnastics and learning from the Bat Family, and her aggression and fearless approach of being a wild card. She is a scrapper, but Batman and Nightwing are too skilled to be beaten by a simple scrapper. So, what is her fighting secret?

Source: Pinterest. If you know the artist, please let me know and I will credit their work.

What I am about to present is not canon, and I do my best to stick to canon because this is about Harley Quinn and how she is presented in popular culture and not my fantasies, but martial arts was my first love ♡. I have spent over 30 years training and studying various forms of martial arts from books to learning under local masters, so I have more than a basic understanding of the Fist.

Source: Harley's hammer from a keychain I bought.

First, we all know she had a backround in gymnastics and was a criminal psychologist that worked in Gotham, where crime is the rule and not the exception. With that, before she was the Maiden of Mischief, she was just Dr. Harleen Quinzel, so it would be logical that she took self defense classes. She also grew up in New York and is Jewish, so Krav Maga, an Israeli self-defense art inspired by Israeli military hand-to-hand combat, would make the most sense. Krav Maga is also one of the more popular and efficacious self defense systems in the United States.

Krav Maga uses open hand strikes, clinches, knees, elbows, weapons disarms, and evasion tactics. They also teach eye gouging, throat and groin strikes, as well as grappling defense. Being a military art, it is based on survival and not for sport or beauty like prize fighting or traditional martial arts.

Source: Harley VS. Apokolips

Although she was a gymnast, gymnastics does not teach fighting, but there are martial arts that combine gymnastics and fighting, the most famous being Wushu and Shaolin Kung Fu. There is an ancient kung fu method called Yi Jin Jing, or Muscle Tendon Change Classic, which is influenced by Yoga and combines a mix of flexibility and strength exercises.

Shaolin Kung Fu combines acrobatics, gymnastics, iron body, animal forms, weapons forms, meditation, and Traditional Chinese Medicine. I wouldn't go as far as saying she trained in China, but New York has a large martial arts community and its own Shaolin Temple, so it is a possibility.

Source: Google. Young Sifu Shi Yan Ming training in Shaolin Temple. He runs the New York branch of Shaolin.

Another style that involves acrobatics and kung fu, which is one of my favorite styles, is Drunken Boxing.

It isn't a single style. It is taught to intermediate to advanced students once they have mastered the basics of their style. It has a mix of tumbling, jumping, spinning, flipping, and deceptive tactics and techniques based on the movements of a drunkard.

Sources: Jackie Chan, Drunken Master 2, Gordon Liu, Shaolin Drunken Monk.

Finally, we have her weapons. Her most notable being her bat and (oversized) mallot.

Source: Harley Quinn Animated Series

The Irish have a stick fighting style called "bataireacht" which uses a shillelagh, a hard wood (blackthorn) stick with a natural nob as a handle that is good for hooking and smashing, such as smashing a skull.

Source: irelandjournal.typepad.com

Of course, swinging a bat at someone is a very effective way to end almost any fight.

Source: Harley Screws Up the DCU

#harley quinn #harlequin #pop-culture sorcery #harlivy #multiverse #harleen #dc comics #mutant sorcery #poison ivy #chaos magick #fitness #martial arts #wushu #drunk fist #drunk #stick fighting #martial arts gushing #bataireacht #shallelagh

#ireland #Bataireacht #County Leitrim #this is cool as fuck #and yes I know scotland and ireland are different places #but come on #when am i gonna get a chance to pull out #so i married an axe murder #references with this good of a setup

AN LORG MÓR

According to Irish tradition, the Dagda, chieftain of the Tuatha Dé, possessed a magical staff called the Lorg Mór, which was so powerful that it could kill nine men with a single blow from one end, and raise them back to life with the other. The word "lorg," like many other Irish words, can mean different things depending on context - in this case, either "staff" or "club." It's not clear which was the intended meaning, so I've opted to combine aspects of both by basing this depiction off of a traditional blackthorn shillelagh, or Irish fighting stick, which was designed to serve as both cane and cudgel. Branches of blackthorn surround the staff, bearing fruit and flower at one end, and deadly spikes at the other. In the center is the Ogham letter nGétal, whose kennings in the Bríatharogam include "raiment of physicians" as well as "beginning of slaying," alluding to the staff's dual purpose as an agent of healing and harm.

Irish blackthorn The term shillelagh (thonged stick) has a very murky past. It’s not known exactly when people began calling walking sticks and cudgels shillelaghs. Originally, shillelaghs were made from oak, though there is no known connection with Shillelagh Forest or Shillelagh Village, aside from suffering the same anglophone corruption of two different words. After rampant deforestation in Ireland, walking sticks and cudgels found themselves being made from other materials, primarily hawthorne, hazel, and blackthorn. Shillelaghs were used not only as walking aids, but also to settle disputes between individuals and factions. Faction fighting was rampant in the late 18th century and early 19th century, but became almost nonexistent when the Famine set in. Sticks used for the purpose of fighting are simply known as ‘bata’. The use of shillelaghs as a weapon was called bataireacht (literally “stick fighting”). Today, almost all genuine shillelaghs are made from blackthorn which, while strong and decently resistant to warping, is notoriously unforgiving during the curing process. It can take 2 to 3 years for a blackthorn shank to properly cure/dry out. Hurried and/or done improperly, blackthorn will develop multiple cracks, making it unsuitable for use. Some are called loaded sticks on account of them having molten lead poured into a hollowed out area of the knob in order to increase the striking power.

#blackthorn shillelagh #blackthorn #shillelagh #bata #bataireacht #ireland #western martial arts #knobstick #walking stick #hiking stick #outdoors #self defense

Today I had the enormous joy of learning an ancient and (at one point) nearly extinct form of #HEMA - boiscín or #bataireacht (Irish stick-fighting with the shillelagh), in a workshop by specialist researcher & martial artist Maxime Chouinard. Bataireacht is unique amongst surviving stick combat arts, and there are clues that it possibly represents a form of combat used throughout Europe as far back as Roman times, preserved by Irish and Bretons. In practice, it feels very similar to Dog Brother's style of fighting, and also some of the street combat I've seen in Asia. Overall I had a lot of fun.

#hema #bataireacht