The History of Savate French Kickboxing in Southern California 1986–1991
The Forgotten Fighting Sport
Introduction
Savate, or in proper terms Boxe’ Francaise Savate, is a form of kickboxing that got its start in France in the 19th century. It was originally a form of street fighting adapted to use aboard ships using kicks only. In classic Savate, the arms are swept backward as if to hold on to a ship’s cabin or gunwale.
By the early 20th century it was combined with boxing, and it has been a competitive sport in Europe since the First World War.
Today’s Savate utilizes hands and feet to deliver blows to opponents’ head, body and legs. It incorporates the “touch without being touched” mentality of offensive/defensive movements, and delivers kicks with a ballet-like esthetic not typical of other martial arts.
Savate kicks are popularly used in action movies because of their unique, eye-catching style.
They have also been incorporated into modern fighting styles like Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do and Mixed Martial Arts because they are so effective.
The sport is organized internationally by the International Savate Federation, (“ISF”), and in the United States by The US Savate Federation. It is generally accepted that Savate was introduced in the United States in the early 1980’s: on the East Coast by Jean-Noel Eynard, and by Daniel Duby on the West Coast.
I was intimately involved in the early years of California Savate. With this memoir I hope to be able to add further detail to the written record of this period in the sport’s history. The recollections here are my own along with those of my dear friend Barry Jahn. Apologies to anyone that I’ve forgotten!
Barry Jahn
I believe that no representation about Savate’s history in the United States can be accurately made without recognizing the contributions Barry Jahn made to the sport during the period of 1983 to 1995.
Barry was born in Torrance, California in 1957 and grew up as an avid martial arts practitioner and a fan of both boxing and amateur wrestling. He largely jumped from style to style, choosing breadth of knowledge over depth.
In 1982, he began training in boxing with Charles Williams at the Williams Gym in Long Beach, CA. Charles was a notoriously tough trainer who had sparred with Muhammad Ali. At 25, Barry thought he could take care of himself quite well. He was surprised when he started to receive more than his fair share of lumps and bruises along with his foundational education in boxing. Barry said,
“Charlie also trained his teenage son Jeremy on the nights that I came into the gym. He was just a young kid, but he was very skilled and strong. He gave me some of the beatings of my life, and I could barely lay a glove on him.”
Jeremy was a Golden Gloves champion at the time, and later went on to become a professional boxer.
After a year of thrice weekly battles at the Williams Gym, Barry was in peak physical condition and his boxing skills were greatly improved. He wasn’t really looking for the next challenge but it found him.
He learned of a new style called “French Boxing” that was being taught closer to his home. The classes were being given at a small storefront in Torrance, California by a Frenchman named Daniel Duby.
I was his roommate at the time, and saw with my own eyes how Barry reacted to these experiences. I don’t think he ever thought he would find a tougher two hour training session than he was getting with Charles Williams. Barry said,
“I thought I was pretty tough after training with Charlie. I walked into the first class with Daniel, saw a skinny French dude and thought this should be no problem. Was I ever wrong.”
Known as “Savate”, this style of kickboxing incorporates the best of both boxing and karate, with one big difference. In Savate the participants wear shoes, and use them as weapons. Barry would come home with lumps on his shins, deep bruises on his thighs and a big smile on his face. He said:
“Daniel Duby was one mean dude. He enjoyed kicking the crap out of me and everyone else in the class. He was a real taskmaster too, and would put up with nothing but your absolute best. He demanded 100% focus, and if he caught you day dreaming, you’d regret it.”
After training with Daniel Duby for just less than a year, one evening Barry went to the storefront and it was locked. Daniel had left town and that was the end of Barry’s Savate training, for a while any way. He said,
“I think I was very lucky to have two great teachers in a row — Charlie and Daniel. Both focused on using technique to obtain results, and they drove it home through repetition. Both were very good at explaining why certain techniques and combinations were used. They both also taught me the subtleties of ring combat strategies like setting traps for opponents and controlling distance. But most importantly, they both taught me how to put aside my ego. I had a very hard head at the time, and the tough lessons they gave helped me to really absorb what they were teaching.”
Over the next three years, Barry continued to train off and on in kickboxing and Kali at the IMB Academy in Carson, California under the legendary martial arts practitioner and instructor Dan Inosanto. But he always talked about how much he missed training in Savate, and kept up his skills with regular workouts with anyone willing to trade leather with him.
The Inosanto Academy
In 1986, I was living in an apartment in Redondo Beach, CA. It was a fourplex with an old four car garage in back that was never used. One day Barry brought over boxing gloves and focus mitts and decided he was going to give me a Savate lesson in the garage.
At the time, Barry was about 195 lbs of muscle. As a basketball player, I was athletic, but only weighed about 170 lbs. Although I had no boxing training whatsoever, I was a big boxing fan. So I was eager to learn. He showed me a few moves that day and really took it easy on me.
The next time we worked out he told me that a new class was forming, and he wanted me to join him. I reminded Barry that I made my money with my brain and was not into getting beat up, but he persevered, and after he agreed to pay my first month’s dues, I was in.
Around that time, Dan Inosanto had left IMB Academy and started his own Inosanto Academy in Marina del Rey, CA. As I understand it, Dan had urged a particularly skilled Jeet Kune Do practitioner named Salem Assli to return to France to master Savate. Salem had returned with a teaching degree to reintroduce Savate to Southern California’s martial arts community under Dan’s supervision.
My recollection of my first class in Savate at the Inosanto Academy with Salem Assli is how poorly suited I was for the sport. Salem moved like a ballet dancer with impeccable balance and timing and lightning fast hands and feet. He was a small guy, maybe 5’6 130lbs, but was so graceful and precise that he could jump in the air and kick a feather off the top of a basketball player’s head, touching only the feather.
The videos he did for Panther Productions back then, (some with Barry), that you can now view on YouTube, testify to his absolute mastery of the technical aspects of the sport; particularly the acrobatic kicks.
Salem Assli could kick you four times before you reacted to the first kick.
On the other hand, I could barely touch my toes. Just the standard supporting leg position for a round kick (called a fouetté) was difficult for me. All the kicking positions and moves were so awkward, I felt like I made a fool of myself.
But I was an athlete, and I did have pride. Nor was I a quitter, so I kept coming back. The boxing part came pretty naturally to me, and so those skills came pretty quickly. But I can’t say the footwork got much easier. In time, I was able to perform some of the standard kick combinations with decent enough form. Barry, however, picked it up right where he’d left off with Daniel and got really good, very quickly.
He also became friends with Salem, and after a while Salem began working with Barry as a laborer for his flooring business. I had worked a summer with Barry in the same capacity a couple years back and I knew how hard the work was, but also how doing that work together created strong personal bonds. Like being in a foxhole together — almost.
So when Salem started lightly teasing my lameness at class along with Barry, I felt like I was the idiot sidekick to two superheroes. But I persevered, and the extreme talent level in that first Savate class really helped me improve. It also became fun. I realized that I was finally involved in a sporting activity that relied on no one but myself.
As a basketball player, I had lost many games where I played well, but a teammate had made a mistake and our team walked out the loser.
In Savate, if I got a black eye it was my own fault; and the feedback, good or bad, was immediate.
There was no hoping a teammate would make a shot. It was all up to me. Drop my glove, get smacked in the head. Sucker an opponent with a faint, land a great punch or kick! After awhile I was hooked.
There was never any real sparring done in that class, but once in a while Salem would allow us a round or two to lightly spar at the end of the class.
Watching him and Barry go at it was pretty amazing. Salem would kick just about every part of Barry’s head and body with the fastest, most well placed kicks. Barry would always drive him up against the wall, and not let him escape.
Who would have won in a real match? Barry was 195 lbs and Salem 130 lbs. Salem was the most skilled, multidisciplinary martial artist I had ever seen. But let’s face it, he couldn’t hurt Barry if he hit him with a baseball bat. So I know who I would have picked, but thankfully no tempers were ever lost, and no one ever really sat down on their punches or kicks at the Inosanto Academy class. It was always very clear that we were learning a sport — never fighting.
The 1987 Savate Seminar
Seminars are a big deal in the martial arts world. Usually, famous instructors travel to distant studios or dojos to give lessons over a weekend to another instructor’s class. Everyone pays an extra fee, the instructors get paid, and the students learn something new. In Savate back in those days, the seminars were held by officials from the International Savate Federation (“ISF”) in France, and taught by reigning Savate World Champions.
The 1987 Savate Seminar was held at Inosanto Academy, and consisted of a couple days of classes and a day of testing. The classes stood out to me as they were taught by World Champions; these guys were amazing! Even though none of the instructors could speak English it was clear that they were teaching you how to fight, not just to learn a sport.
Salem would demonstrate a combination of kicks and punches in his typical ballet-like style, then one of the Champions would show how it was done in the ring. This really resonated with Barry and I.
At the time, only officials from the ISF could confer any technical rank on students. During that first Savate Seminar, I ended up testing for, and receiving, my technical rating of Red Glove. Red Glove is the third level of qualification out of five student levels. I was put through my paces at the Seminar mostly by Francis Echinard, a French expatriate who held the Silver Glove I (elite) ranking.
Barry received his Silver Glove I credential, which is the first of three elite levels of qualification. Barry also earned his Initiateur teaching credential, which is the first of three instructor levels. Salem received the newly designated Silver Glove II, which was at the time the highest level that was practically available to anyone. There was also a Silver Glove III, but since it took two Silver Glove III’s to test the person, there were only five of those in the world.
Now that he had a Silver Glove II on top of his Moniteur teaching credential (level two), Salem was at the top of the U.S. Savate world. But in those classes taught by the French World Champions, there was definitely a pecking order and Salem was nowhere near the top. It was obvious that the French ranked fighters in a different class than technical experts.
Many of the names of the people in the above photo are lost to time. But apart from Barry and myself, I can recognize:
- ISF Executive, Michel Roger;
- the great multiple time World Champions, Richard Sylla and Robert Paturel;
- future two-time Light Heavyweight U.S. Savate Champion Gerry Bedka, (more on him later);
- Silver Glove I, Matt Diagostine;
- future Welterweight Champion and Silver Glove I, Mike Young; and
- Silver Glove I and former Daniel Duby student, Tony Adams.
After this seminar, a small group of French expatriates began to coalesce around Salem. All were experienced savateurs, and they assumed various roles within Salem’s inner circle. At the top of the list was Francis Echinard, who also began teaching classes at the Inosanto Academy.
The Garage
I remember Barry’s and my excitement while driving home from the seminar. Barry said,
“I felt like a door had opened for me after that seminar. The feeling I got from the French fighters was exactly what I felt from Daniel Duby. Yes, you have to know how to properly deliver the punches and kicks. Yes, you have to be able to deliver and avoid the combinations. But you don’t have to be a 130lb ballet dancer to do it. The intent of Savate is not to look good, the intent is to fight and knock out your opponent.”
For my part, I was really surprised that I had been able to achieve Red Glove in way less than two years. I still felt awkward when I threw certain spinning technical kicks, but I could see from the French experts’ classes that those kicks weren’t used much in the ring any way. My self confidence soared.
A few months later into early 1987, Barry blurted out an idea while driving home from a sweaty class in Marina del Rey,
“We should start our own Savate school!”
I was not that confident! Was he crazy? But he kept at it. He was a credentialed instructor, under Salem. He’d been training in Savate for years under two famous instructors. I’m an entrepreneur, so thinking in those terms I said, “Maybe if we go to Salem with the idea to open the Salem Assli School of Savate, he will agree and be our partner.”
We decided to start training in my garage in Redondo Beach. Barry already had most of the equipment and bags, I just had to talk my wife into parking her car outside. It came together pretty quickly.
By mid 1987, I was married and had embarked on a new startup business venture. I already had a successful entrepreneurial background, and at 28 years of age my career was starting to explode. I was also an avid basketball player and was five years into a forty year run of park and league basketball with an ever expanding group of athletic guys.
This was both good and bad for my Savate career. On one hand, I had much less time to devote to Savate than I had previously. On the other hand, I played ball twice a week with a bunch of athletes, some of whom even thought they could fight! Maybe I couldn’t attend every class, but I could certainly fill the classes with basketball players.
That’s exactly what we did, and Barry’s class schedule started filling up fast. He focused his teaching on what he called American-style Savate, which was patterned after Daniel Duby’s, the French Champions’ and Charlie Williams’ classes. Barry’s students would learn Savate in the context of fighting; both in the ring and street style.
There was not a lot of pretty, leaping aerial kicks taught. The basic curriculum was: control the distance between you and your opponent, use the appropriate punch or kick determined by that distance and,
most importantly, hurt but don’t get hurt.
It was not exactly the Savate taught by Salem Assli, but it worked for the American students, and it started to become popular in the area. Word spread from the basketball court to the beach to the baseball diamond, and we started signing up a variety of new students from athletes to surfers to local tough guys.
The program started with cardio, stretching and boxing, moved to leg and body kicks, and only when the students had a grasp of the footwork and balance did Barry move them to head and spinning kicks. It was delivered in a common sense manner, and it resonated really well with the first batch of students.
This was a big departure from how we had been taught at the Inosanto Academy, and I wondered how it would be taken by Salem and his group.
The Lomita Fighting and Fitness Academy
As word-of-mouth spread across the South Bay we soon started getting guys who had trained in other martial arts coming to classes at The Garage. Barry loved the new blood because things got more serious. By the time 1988 came around, we had run out of room.
Part of our pact with Salem was that Barry and I would continue to attend his classes in Marina del Rey. My business and family schedule ate into my time for Savate so I fell off quite a bit, which was something that Salem noticed and harped on me about. But Barry stayed true to his word and regularly attended Salem’s classes. That is where we met Ian McGee and Todd Korving.
They were both Black Belts in multiple martial arts. Ian had been brought over to the U.S. from New Zealand by Dan Inosanto, and could grapple, kickbox, and knife-, sword- and stick-fight with the best of them. He also sported a wicked sense of humor. Todd had grown up surfing in Malibu with Sean Penn and his brothers. He had the same martial arts background.
It was amazing to watch the two of them do sword demonstrations. They once did a public demonstration at a city celebration in Palos Verdes, CA using two, sharpened machetes. It drew hundreds of spectators and was so thrilling, and dangerous, that mothers were shielding their children’s eyes. Anyone less skilled would have lost an arm, at least!
Both guys were serious martial artists: that’s what they did for a living and who they were as people. Although Ian could have been a standup comedian if he’d tried, he was that funny.
Somehow it was decided that they would join us in a new business venture. They would teach Kali, Wing Chun and Ju Jitsu. We formed the Southern California Savate Club, under which Barry would teach Savate. I’d help him with the classes and handle the business. We formed the The Lomita Fighting and Fitness Academy and found a nice storefront in Lomita, California; which is just inland from Redondo Beach in the South Bay area of Los Angeles. After some expensive tenant improvements and lots of construction work, we opened for business in early 1988.
The Grand Opening was quite surprising to me as it attracted a number of luminaries from the martial arts world. To see people that had graced magazine covers and fought on TV at our little gym was pretty heady stuff for us. We had somehow arrived in a world that was very foreign to me.
Our relationship with Todd and Ian was great right from the start. We evenly split the most popular days and times for classes, and there was never any competition between the two platforms. It worked well — they taught the martial artists, we taught the fighters.
Word of mouth continued to spread across Los Angeles, and soon the Savate side had full classes going five days a week. Our classes were quite diverse, with a number of women wanting to learn self-defense; older businessmen wanting to get in shape; curious hobbyists; and real athletes mixed in with the various tough guys in attendance.
The energy at the new gym was exciting, it just had a different feel than anything we’d done in the past. We were doing something that wasn’t being done anywhere else. New people with backgrounds in boxing or martial arts would walk in almost nightly and join up. Unlike Salem’s classes at the Inosanto Academy, Barry’s classes all ended with sparring.
In fact, sparring was the point of the classes.
On weekday nights we began to hold open sparring where anyone could come in off the street and kickbox anyone in their weight class. We believed we were the only gym doing this at the time. We didn’t even have a boxing ring, we just taped off an area on the floor and had at it.
Soon there were crowds of guys coming in to spar, and the level of the sparring was generally closer to actual fighting than not. From my perspective, a lot of times it was fun to dance around and drop punches and kicks on tough guys that didn’t really know how to fight. But sometimes the competition got pretty tough. Although we were able to play around with people more than we had to really fight, I always felt like I was a bit behind. The time I missed with my very busy business career kept me out of the gym more than I wanted.
Barry, on the other hand, more or less lived at the gym and was at the peak of his powers. Not a lot of the outsiders wanted to spar with Barry too much. He would smack around football players and big bikers, always holding back a bit at the end so as not to look like he was unfairly dominating people. It was a business after all, and we didn’t want to scare away new students. He also had put together a select group of students who hungered to compete, and he taught them ring skills in special, elite classes.
Ricky Lew had actually joined us at The Garage. He was a welterweight, 18 years old and had been a high school baseball player. He was a 100% athlete that progressed rapidly. Barry brought out a strong desire in Ricky to win, and Ricky was able to focus on his opponent like an elite athlete only can. Jeff Hoagland was 22 years old and a lightweight. He walked in with a chip on his shoulder wanting to fight. Barry took him under his wing, and fight he did. Both of these guys were a handful for me in the gym, but I was just big and tough enough to keep from getting beaten up by them every session.
Matt Diagostine was 25, a Super Middleweight and Barry’s brother in law. Another former baseball player, Matt had all of the athleticism, desire, ego and dedication required to be a successful fighter. He had also trained with us at the Inosanto Academy and held the rank of Silver Glove I, so he was well versed in the technical aspects of the sport. Although he gave as good as he got, I enjoyed sparring with Matt, because he had limitations I could exploit. I honestly also really liked trying to beat up the pretty boy!
With the rising popularity of our weekly sparring nights, word had spread further into the martial arts world. One night, Trent Suzuki, a 26 year old Middleweight, walked into the gym. He was a second degree Black Belt in Tang Soo-Do Karate, and had been fighting in karate for years. He later he admitted that his goal was to put on a show. He was going to prove that this Savate was a fraud, and would put a whipping on whoever was the best Savate fighter, to prove the point.
At the end of the first night he was so overcome by his experience he bowed to Barry and told him that Savate was everything that he had heard and more. Barry was his new Shi-Fu (Master), and he needed to learn everything Barry could teach him. Trent immediately became a regular. He and I had many wars in the gym, and truthfully I was lucky to get a draw with him on most nights. He was very skilled and a tough fighter.
In September of 1988, Barry received a call from Fred Degerberg, owner of the Degerberg Academy in Chicago, Illinois, inviting him to bring our fighters to Chicago for the first US Savate Tournament. We learned in that call that Fred’s academy was hosting the French contingent for a Savate seminar, followed by a tournament on October 15, 1988.
This gave us less than two months to train our fighters for their first competition. Now we really had to find a boxing ring. We were lucky enough to find one that was hardly ever used at a local health club. After Barry joined, he managed to sweet talk his way into many guest passes that we used to train our fighters.
Crowds would gather, and we drove our fighters hard. There was no playing around with the guys, we had little time and we had to make it count. But after training was over, Barry and I found time to have fun. We would have particularly violent sparring matches that would produce blood and bruises, and they weren’t all on me! I even got some punches and kicks in on Barry once in a while.
We loved to see the shocked looks on the faces of the spectators who feared we were going to kill each other.
Then I ran into some bad luck, I broke my right hand. At first I could barely hold the focus mitts to train our fighters. Toward the end of training I was able to get in and spar with them, but I did not train, nor did I ever intend to fight in Chicago. I never ran in the mornings, I drank beers after training, worked long hours and could barely stay in the ring with our fighters who were being whipped into a frenzy by Barry.
The First U.S. National Championship Savate Tournament
In Los Angeles, October 15, 1988 will always go down in sports history as the night Kirk Gibson hit his famous homerun for the Dodgers in the bottom of the ninth inning to beat the heavily-favored Oakland A’s in the first game of the 1988 World Series. For American Savateurs that date also holds great significance. That was the date that the first Savate Championship Tournament was held in the United States.
Ricky Lew and Matt Diagostine would represent the Southern California Savate Club in the tournament, joined by Barry as their Head Trainer and me as Cornerman. We all went through the perfunctory seminar in Chicago out of respect to Salem, Fred Degerberg and the French dignitaries. During which time, we all felt the menacing glowers of our Chicago counterparts. Each of these guys was in superb fighting shape and each had his game face on.
Except for Fred himself, who could not have been a more jovial and generous host. He even took Barry and I out for Polish food and beers the night before the tournament. After a big meal and multiple beers, he dropped the bomb on us (me). He said,
“Hey you know, Steve, it sure would be great if you could get in the ring with Gerry Bedka tomorrow night.”
When I replied that I had not trained one minute and my broken hand had only just barely healed, he said his immortal words in a strong Chicago accent,
“Ah don’t worry. It will just be an exhibition.”
When we woke up on Tournament day we were greeted with pouring rain. It was still a gray, ugly day when we made our way over to the Limelight Club to start preparation for that night’s bouts. When we arrived, we were greeted by a bunch of dour Chicago fighters who obviously could not stand us simply because we were from sunny Southern California.
Barry could very easily come from the Midwest. In fact, we had driven out to rural Illinois the day before to see his grandfather’s old workshop and meet some of his family members. Apart from his blonde hair and ability to surf, you would never guess he was from Los Angeles. He’s just not an L.A. kind of guy. But Ricky and Matt were both born and raised Southern Californians, complete with the infamous “dude” accent for which we Angelinos are known.
But more than any of my colleagues, I am guilty of being a 100% So Cal dude. Especially then. Add on the fact that I am also obviously a white collar type (a yuppie, in 80’s terms), then you have the perfect Public Enemy #1 for the Chicago fighters and crowd.
Now, that would not normally bother me in the least, in fact I always enjoyed that kind of stuff. Rivalries make sports more fun. But as I looked at that night’s Fight Card, I noticed that I was scheduled to fight Gerry Bedka. Apart from being Degerberg’s top Savate light heavyweight, Gerry was also a professional kickboxer, with an unbeaten record.
I was going to be fed to the lions.
Finding Fred, I said, “Uh, hey Fred. What’s this about putting me in an actual fight? I told you I would do an exhibition for you, but that’s it.”
”No, Steve. It’ll be fine, Gerry knows it’s just an exhibition. Don’t worry, I saw you training yesterday, you can hang in there with him!”
replied Fred, as he walked away, trying to suppress a laugh.
I looked at Barry, knowing that I had been suckered. He didn’t want me to see the scared look on his face. Gerry Bedka looked like a Russian hitman from a spy movie. Not only was he ripped and a professional fighter, he was as mean as hell.
I was about ten pounds over what would have been my fighting weight, slightly hungover from the beers the night before and in no shape to play an important basketball game, let alone fight for the U.S. Light Heavyweight Championship of Savate.
We didn’t really talk too much about this while preparing Ricky and Matt for their fights, but it was definitely weighing on my mind.
When we brought Ricky out to the ring from the makeshift dressing room in back, the crowd was already pretty raucous. As I learned that trip, Chicago in 1988 was a blue collar, drinking town. There was a big bar in the back of the hall and a bar setup half way back from the ring on each side of the hall. They were all full of people.
As we got up to the ring there was lot of catcalling going on from the crowd; disparaging my yuppiehood, Ricky’s mixed ancestry and our general Southern California vibe.
As Barry brought Ricky up into the ring it felt like they had done this many times before. Barry was well prepared and measured, and Ricky had a look on his face that I can only describe as an athlete in “the zone.” He was not in the least bit nervous, but actually had a big smile on his face.
After the bell for Round One rang, Ricky went out into the middle of the ring, saluted his opponent and started shuffling around the ring, sizing his guy up. Each threw a jab here and there as they got used to the ring and moved into the center.
Seemingly within 30 seconds or so I saw Ricky move quickly toward his opponent. He stepped to the side, threw a left lead fouetté (round kick) directly into his opponent’s solar plexus, and in a blink of an eye fired another left fouetté directly to the head of his opponent, with the toe of his shoe striking directly on the guy’s jaw.
Ricky’s opponent went out like someone flipped a switch and he collapsed in the ring. There was no need to count to ten, Ricky had just won the U.S. Savate Welterweight Championship in his first real match.
We brought Ricky back into the dressing area to a few cheers from the partisan crowd. What could they say, really? They had just watched their guy get knocked cold by the dude from So Cal!
The crowd started to drunkenly scream for blood. I had to hurry to get ready because my fight was coming up.
I felt like a condemned man, and jokingly asked for a priest.
I got dressed, had my hands wrapped and gloves laced and started smacking the focus mitts with Barry. I got warmed up, and realized that I was already a little out of breath and sweaty. Barry did his best to coach me,
“Circle to your right, stay away from his right leg and right hand. Counter his right with that big left hook to the body.”
When it was time to walk to the ring, our path was diverted away from the normal aisle that we had just used with Ricky and Matt. We were sent around the hall, a door was opened, and we found ourselves standing outside in the rain! Barry and I looked at each other and just started to laugh. This was like something out of an old book or a black and white movie from the 40’s.
In about five minutes, another door was opened and we went into the arena just as the announcer was finishing his announcements. Tony Zale, a famous Chicago boxing champion from the 50’s was announced, and then my fight was announced. As I walked to the ring, I swear I could hear and see him laughing at me from the third row, amidst the din and catcalls.
I felt like a condemned man walking to the gallows. But curiously, I wasn’t really scared, I guess I was more resigned to the fact that I was going to get my ass whipped. Barry was my corner man, so I at least knew I was in good hands. We were introduced to a deafening round of boos, I walked back to my corner and he stuck in my mouthpiece.
When the first bell rang, I started to move around and trade jabs with Gerry. For the first 30 seconds or so, I felt really good. The strength of his punches and kicks didn’t feel extraordinary, not even as hard as what Barry would give me when we sparred. I felt like this was something I could maybe do. I punched and kicked back, and evaded his advance. So far, so good.
Then maybe half way into the first round, I felt my energy drain. It was not gradual, it was sudden. As if a giant syringe had been plunged into my spine and my life force siphoned out of me. Whoosh, whoosh, Gerry’s very heavy punches started flying by my head at light speed, while I moved my head away in slow motion. What was happening to me? I was already drained!
The bell sounded, I went back to my corner and collapsed on my stool.
“You did GREAT! Keep it up!” yelled Barry. I looked him in the eye and said,
“You gotta stop the fight, I’m dead.”
The second round started way too soon, and I managed to get off the stool. The room was starting to slightly spin, even though I am not sure he had even landed a punch on me yet. I was wobbling around and he knew he had fresh meat ready for the taking. He pounced on me and pushed me into the corner, where he started throwing bombs at my head.
I don’t actually remember even being hit, but I know I was because after the fight I had a small mouse on the side of my eye. What I do remember is collapsing in the corner. Gerry went to his corner, and the referee came to me and said “get up.” He knew I had not been hit hard or much. I looked him straight in the eye and said the same thing I told Barry when he tried to get me to start Savate lessons,
“I make my money with my brain… that’s it for me.”
He laughed at me, waved his arms and Gerry Bedka had won the first U.S. Savate Light Heavyweight Championship.
As carefree and breezy of a personality as Ricky was, Matt was just the opposite. Extremely handsome and charismatic when he wanted to be, Matt was also beset by self-doubt that night. He was outwardly confident, expecting to win, but inwardly, I could see that he wondered if he was really good enough.
As fight time became closer and closer, Matt became more quiet and then almost sullen. Barry did everything he could to fire Matt up, but Matt’s emotions were getting the best of him when he stepped into the ring.
Matt fought bravely against Jim “Bazooka” Mitchell that night. Mitchell was a ringer, trained by Mike Young. What we didn’t know at the time was Jim was also one of the leading instructors in amateur gymnastics, having trained the famed Olympic Gold Medal Winner Mary Lou Retton in 1984. Mitchell would go on to have a 13-year undefeated career as a World Champion kickboxer, recognized by the WKA and IKA.
Every time Matt tried to aggressively move into Jim to throw his hands or feet, he would be caught by a booming right Thai kick to one of his legs. As I recall, the French referee warned Jim to kick with his shoe, but he continued to land extraordinarily hard blows on Matt’s thighs with his right shin.
By the middle of the second round Matt was having difficulty staying on his feet, and was a sitting duck for the more experienced Mitchell. The referee later stopped the bout when it was obvious that Matt could no longer fight on his battered legs.
In the final bout of the night, a Southern California kickboxer named Mike Young fought an experienced Chicago fighter named Mark Streator. We knew of Mike as an excellent fighter who had previously travelled to France to fight Richard Sylla, the famous French Savate Champion.
It was quite an exciting fight, with five rounds of great action, A Unanimous Draw gave each fighter a share of the U.S. Lightweight Championship.
A month or so later, Fred Degerberg sent us some press clippings. One of them had a photo of me with my arm around Gerry Bedka, still in our Savate tunics and with hand wraps but no gloves on. We were standing next to one of the bars in the hall, right after our fight. Each of us had a shot glass in our hands. Yes, I bought us each a shot before we even got to the dressing room, and toasted his victory with him right in front of the now clapping crowd.
I finally found a way to gain the respect of those Chicago fight fans.
Click here to view all of the Photos from the Tournament
Click here to view the Tournament on YouTube
The L.A. Times Story
A short time after we returned from Chicago we were contacted by a writer from the Los Angeles Times, one of the largest newspapers by circulation in the country. He had heard about us and wanted to write an article on our gym.
A couple days later he came by the gym and interviewed Barry, Matt, Ricky and I, and a couple of our students, including an alumnus of The Garage, one of my basketball buddies, named Dave Barlow. He also got some comments from Salem.
We were proud of the way our gym was portrayed in the article. It opened a floodgate of city-wide interest in Savate.
I was asked about the Chicago tournament, and said, “That was hard .. the guys we fought ran into the ring with ‘kill’ on their minds. Now we will know what to train for next year.”
I also said, “Americans can adapt much easier to savate than they can to, say, karate or kung fu. Savate just seems to flow (for) every young boy who at one time in his life puts on little boxing gloves in his front yard with his friends and they have at it. It’s just a lot more natural than doing the foreign movements of an Eastern art.”
“We find people can really progress quickly, and Americans like to progress quickly.”
Also in the article it was stated, “(Salem) Assli makes it clear that the quality of the recent American championships was poor compared to similar events in France. Next year he expects to assist in organizing the championships, and “I hope the technique level will be superior,” he said. “I’m pretty sure it will be.”
Qualifying the Sport of Savate in California
After the bouts in Chicago and the subsequent L.A. Times article, the popularity of Savate was growing rapidly. The spotlight was on our gym, and we saw a big increase in interest from fighters of other styles. Barry, Ian and Todd held impromptu, after class workouts with the owners of other martial arts gyms, and we all began sparring with fighters from other disciplines.
It was common to find Karate, Tai Kwan Do and Muay Thai practitioners waiting in our lobby to join the weekday sparring sessions. This increased competition in our gym to a completely different level, and made our fighters yearn to get in the ring again.
Barry was once again the catalyst to our turning an idea into reality. “Why don’t we put on the second Savate Championship ourselves?” he said to me one night over a beer after a typically grueling sparring session. Being an entrepreneur, I naturally gravitate to big ideas and in 1989 at 30 years old I still felt like I was immortal — nothing was impossible.
“Hell yes.” I said, “Let’s do it.
But we soon found out that there was one very big obstacle and a lot of internal politics standing in our way. The big obstacle was the State of California Department of Consumer Affairs, California State Athletic Commission. This governmental agency was in charge of all athletic competitions held in California. While boxing matches had long been held in California, there had been very few full contact karate and kickboxing bouts held.
After speaking with gym owners who had previously been involved in these types of bouts, we learned that “the Commission” preferred that full contact martial arts fights be held elsewhere. Technically they could be legally held under very stringent rules, but the Commissioners themselves didn’t really understand kickboxing sports, and so were biased against them. The consensus from the martial arts industry was that we were going to get turned down.
Barry and I went through the motions with the Commission and worked to meet the many regulations and qualifications required to submit with our application. Because we were trying to promote fights that had people kicking each other while wearing shoes, no one at the Commission gave us any chance of success. It had never been done before in California. We submitted our application and were told that we had to stand up before the Commissioners in a public interrogation to determine the outcome.
At this point, I was fairly seasoned in the art and science of pitching investors for startup businesses. We structured our presentation as if we were trying to qualify for an investment from a venture capital firm. We augmented the pitch with a video presentation we shot at the gym and edited in Barry’s living room, using an old fashioned video camera and a video cassette deck. The subject matter was mostly those young women and middle aged businessmen training at the gym with a light hearted soundtrack and voice over. I wish I still had that video, it would be the height of 80’s kitsch!
I don’t recall why I didn’t go to Sacramento with Barry that day, but it was either about money, or my brand new baby daughter — maybe both. The tournament had cost us a small fortune, and our Savate obsession did not have the complete support of our spouses. We were always at the gym and now we were draining the bank accounts too!
So Barry flew to Sacramento, where he showed our video and pitched a panel of bureaucrats to license a one-time kickboxing tournament. After quite a bit of back and forth, and arguing amongst the Commissioners themselves, the yes votes outweighed the no votes by a slim margin. We were licensed and the fights were on.
But by giving almost all of our focus to obtaining the license and training our fighters, we had committed a grave error. We had not sufficiently involved Salem and his group of French disciples in the planning process. Word came back to us through Ian and Todd, who still trained and taught at the Inosanto Academy, that egos had been bruised and we needed to make amends.
At this point I really had no relationship with anyone over there, so we thought it best for Barry to meet with Salem to work everything out. After all, they had been friends and were still outwardly cordial. Barry came back with a big win. We would be “allowed” to hold the Tournament as an exhibition after Salem held the 1989 Savate Seminar. Salem would not send fighters to compete, (he had none), and he would not allow the use of his name in connection with the bouts, nor would they be sanctioned by the ISF.
The 1989 Savate Seminar
The 1989 Savate Seminar was held on May 10, 1989 at Le Lycée Francaise de Los Angeles in West Los Angeles. It is a private, international school with all coursework taught in the French language, and the center of French culture in Los Angeles.
It was again hosted by Salem Assli and the Inosanto Academy, and administered by the President of the ISF, Jean-Marie Rousseau. World Champions Richard Sylla, Robert Paturel and Pascal Ducros taught the classes and graded the participants.
Two weeks earlier, Barry had had an overseas telephone call with an interpreter from the ISF in Paris who represented Mr. Rousseau. He was able to explain that the Championship Tournament was being held after the Seminar. It was made clear to Barry that the ISF wholeheartedly supported and sanctioned the Tournament and would volunteer their World Champions to referee the bouts.
Despite the language barrier, Barry was treated very well by the ISF and the Savate Champions at the Seminar. Unfortunately, there were no French expatriates willing to do more than perfunctory translation, so there was little meaningful dialogue between him and the French professionals. In fact, there was little camaraderie between the members of our gym and Salem’s group. It was obvious to all that there was a chill between the two U.S. Savate camps.
I had been furiously training and reading the required Savate history to qualify for my Silver Glove I, and by all accounts I was more than prepared to ace the test. But I was unable to attend the first day of the Seminar because I was out of town on business. So I was told by Salem Assli that since I had missed the first day of the seminar, I would not only have to take a written and physical examination on the second day, but I would also have to submit a written report on the history of Savate. I wrote this on my laptop on the plane home.
The next day I tested and passed both the written and physical tests, and submitted the report. Later I was told that the French professionals scored me at the top of the class. I felt really good about my performance and everything we had done so far to promote the sport. We really had come a long way, and were doing something that most people never get the chance to do. I had a little bit of an impostor’s syndrome compared to everyone else who were Savate lifers, but I felt like I was doing my part on the business side and what I did was helping the sport.
When reconvening the seminar after a break, we were all told that Salem Assli had received the Professeur teaching credential, which is the highest level in Savate instruction. He would now sit on the panel to determine the qualifications of each person who tested in the Seminar.
After the testing was completed the group reconvened to watch and participate in technical demonstrations with Salem and the World Champions. At one point, Salem asked me to join him for a demonstration. I didn’t know what was coming, and honestly I wouldn’t have been able to stop it even if I did. But I did not expect Salem to stick the point of his shoe in both of my eyes, one kick after another, leaving them both black on the night before the National Championship Tournament.
This was very disconcerting, because it was obvious that he was trying to humiliate me. I think it touched a chord with the French Champions as well. Immediately after, Pascal Ducros, the Light Heavyweight Champion, jumped up and demanded that Salem demonstrate with him. He chased Salem around the room, looking directly at me and then punching Salem, over and over. Despite the language barrier, it was obvious to all that Salem had crossed the line with me and was being repaid for his actions.
Later, Barry received the Moniteur teaching credential, which allowed him to teach Savate to any level of student. He was now the highest ranking American in the Savate system. When my name was called, I was not awarded the Silver Glove I, despite having qualified. Instead I was given the Yellow Glove, the next tier down in student qualifications. Seemingly as a consolation I was also given a Bronze Glove which is the third level (of three) qualifications for Combat, because I had previously competed in Chicago.
The reason why I didn’t receive the Silver Glove? I had not attended both days of the Seminar.
The Second U.S. National Savate French Kickboxing Championship
We rented The Strand nightclub in Redondo Beach on the night of Saturday, May 11, 1989 for the Second U.S. National Championship of Savate French Kickboxing.
From a business and personal perspective it was a nightmarish experience — we were forced to pay for the privilege of navigating the ever changing requirements of various California State regulatory and taxation agencies. They ran us ragged right up to the first round of the bouts.
Although they constantly regulated boxing matches in the state, these agencies somehow could not agree on the rules and regulations used for an amateur kickboxing promotion.
As an example, instead of charging taxes on ticket sales, they decided to place a tax inspector at the gate and charge for every person that walked in the door. After what we had been through with the State regulators, we trusted them so little that I actually had my then 70 year old mother stand with the inspector and security at the door to make sure the headcount was accurate.
But thankfully, time heals and yesterday’s losses are today’s stories. As memory serves me now 34 years later,
the night was a complete success and we all had a blast.
It was decided that black eyes and all, I would run the business end that night, as I was the only one of us used to wearing (and the only one to own) a suit. Barry had always been the Head Trainer for all of our fighters and he had them in absolute perfect condition and focused on victory. The French representative from the ISF and the World Champions would referee and judge the bouts. In attendance were the Who’s Who of California Martial Arts, including Dan Inosanto and yes, even Salem. The house was packed, with a number of movie stars and celebrities in the audience.
Representing the Southern California Savate Club were Ricky Lew, the reigning U.S. Welterweight Champion; Jeff Hoagland, Lightweight; Trent Suzuki, Middleweight; Tony Gerbino, Heavyweight and Vern “The Towering Inverno” Ford, Super Heavyweight.
Also fighting was a full contingent from Chicago, under the aegis of the Degerberg Academy. In just seven months’ time, our rivalries had been completely converted into friendships. In fact, my old nemesis Gerry Bedka and another Chicago fighter actually stayed at Barry’s house prior to the Tournament. Mike Young and Jim “The Bazooka” Mitchell were also on the card, and looking for blood. Everyone was in top shape, and ready to rumble.
As usual, history remembers the winners, and it is written by the victors. The Southern California Savate Club came out of the tournament with three National Championships. Ricky won again by first round knockout, using the exact same fouetté combination as in Chicago. Jeff overwhelmed his opponent in the second round. Trent won a tough, three round war. The ISF even presented Barry and I with plaques in the ring commemorating the event.
After the fight, Barry was approached by Howard Hanson, the President of the World Kickboxing Association, the international kickboxing sanctioning body. We had watched many WKA bouts on grainy VHS tapes over the years, and all of kickboxing’s legendary fighters had fought under that organization since 1976. The WKA was the real deal in our eyes, and it seemed that we were the same in their eyes. Howard asked Barry to train North American Bantamweight Champion Pixie Elmore for her upcoming World Championship bout in France.
We were on top of the Savate world, for a night, anyway.
The Aftermath
After the tournament in Redondo Beach, interest in Savate had never been higher. The Strand Nightclub had been sold out, and the room had been full of martial artists, fighters, athletes and celebrities. There were also a number of movers and shakers from Hollywood and the affluent Westside of Los Angeles in attendance, some of whom were Salem’s private students.
Kickboxing had broken through in film and entertainment with the first “Kickboxer” movie starring Jean-Claude Van Damme about to be released. His acrobatic kicks were exactly the same thing anyone could learn from Salem Assli on the West Side of L.A. Less entertaining but more practical versions were taught by Barry Jahn over in the South Bay.
It seemed that Savate was ready to breakout into the mainstream.
To make it even more exciting, Michel Roger of the ISF told the crowd at the Tournament that Savate had been chosen as a demonstration sport by the French Athletic Commission for the Paris Olympics.
Popular culture had found Savate and it would also soon be an Olympic sport. This meant that Savate could now be used as a vehicle to fame through both competition and entertainment. But how could we unlock its potential, how could we bring Savate to the masses?
First, we had to find a way to accelerate its penetration into the fighting sports market. The way to do that was to show the spectating public more Savate. It was exciting, people loved it. They needed to see more of it. To do that, we had to convince long entrenched martial arts schools and promoters that Savate deserved a seat at the table with Karate-based kickboxing, and with the other kickboxing sport that was also exploding in popularity at the time, Muay Thai Kickboxing.
We were not just gym owners, trainers and participants, we were fans. Barry and I had grown up on boxing. We attended every boxing or kickboxing match in the area that we could, and kickboxing was really making a resurgence at the time. It was starting to become very popular.
Right in our own backyard, South Bay Promotions had entered the scene with a high profile, holding regular boxing and kickboxing matches in Redondo Beach. We immediately began negotiating to get our fighters onto their promotions, and saw the opportunity to forge a strong business partnership with them. The hiccup we encountered was the unwillingness of their barefooted Karate-based kickboxers to fight shoe-clad Savate fighters.
We soon turned our attention to a fledgling promoter in Orange County that held regular kickboxing matches in hotel ballrooms. Most of these bouts were held under Muay Thai rules. We knew that Muay Thai fighters had no qualms about fighting Savate fighters wearing shoes.
Muay Thai is a very well-known fighting sport now, but at the time it was as obscure as Savate is today. It was brought to the U.S. by the Muay Thai Academy of America in North Hollywood, CA in 1984. Muay Thai practitioners use their hands, elbows, knees and feet as weapons. Boxing gloves cover their hands, but they fight barefooted. At the time, the Commission would not allow the use of knees or elbows in Muay Thai fights, so Muay Thai kickboxers were allowed to fight other Karate-based kickboxers.
They almost always won.
While Muay Thai has a very strong Eastern esthetic, unlike the Japanese and Chinese martial arts, it relies on power, force and conditioning over technique and agility. Muay Thai fighters have always been known as among the very toughest of all fighters. So we were able to match our fighters with Muay Thai fighters with no pushback from the promoters or the fighters’ managers.
The only problem was the Commission, as there had never been a sanctioned kickboxing bout between barefooted and shoe wearing fighters in California. Now Savate shoes are not combat boots, they are more like a sports moccasin. But rules are rules.
Funny enough, despite all the headaches we’d had with the Commission previously, this variance to the rules was rubber-stamped and approved without incident. Government works slowly, but we eventually received “temporary approval” to participate in Savate vs Muay Thai kickboxing matches.
The One Timers
Over the years, a number of Barry’s students became fighters. Some fought once, were satisfied, and never needed to do it again. Trent Suzuki was one of those people. He had fought an all-out war with a Deputy Sheriff trained by Mike Young at the 1989 Tournament, and won. He said that Barry and Savate brought everything that was inside of him out, and once he did that he was able to go back to enjoying and teaching martial arts. He was at peace and happy with his decision. Trent went on to have a very successful athletic and martial arts training practice in West L.A., and trained a number of celebrities, including the late, great actor, Sidney Poitier.
Matt Diagostine also fought once. Even after losing to Jim Mitchell in Chicago, he maintained his desire to achieve greatness in Savate, telling the L.A. Times: “… he will move to France in November to train with the masters. He hopes eventually to earn a living in savate. The 23-year-old graduate of Torrance High School says he has devoted his life to the sport. “That sounds pretty goofy,” he added, “but I’m (at the academy) about 5 hours a day, and I love it.” Matt dropped off pretty quickly after the article was published. He went on to become a stockbroker and author.
We unfortunately lost touch with Vern “The Towering InVerno” Ford, Tony Gerbino and the other one-timers. But none of their names have lived on in kickboxing lore, so we assume they fought their fight and went on with their lives having reached their own personal milestones.
I fought one fight. I wasn’t planning on doing it, it kind of snuck up on me when I wasn’t prepared for it. But I did it. Looking back on it after 34 years, am I happy I did it? With my performance? With the fact that I sat down and quit? We’ve already established that I’m not a quitter. I think the reader can also infer that I am also a results oriented person that likes to win.
I can say without trepidation that I am fine with the way the whole thing went down, but most of all, I’m happy that I came out of it with all my marbles. When you go into the ring to fight in any combat sport, it is serious business. You can lose your life. Had my personal circumstances (marital status, career, etc.) been different, I definitely would have trained hard and volunteered to fight. But that wasn’t my reality. I am happy to have experienced it, but
I would not recommend going untrained into a ring with any experienced fighter, let alone Gerry Bedka.
But before I could have second thoughts about competing, I broke my ankle and had to have it surgically repaired. I had taken part in a notorious dust-up in the street, which both added to my reputation and was the fodder for many jokes, (I won easily, then tripped, breaking my ankle, on my way to a celebratory beer). It kept me sidelined for months, and it was never really the same again.
Savate vs Muay Thai
After my ankle healed, I jumped back onto the training team, but the sparring had advanced well beyond my capabilities. Ricky Lew and Jeff Hoagland had become monsters set upon eating their Karate and Muay Thai kickboxing competitors for breakfast. Todd Korving, our multiple Black Belt business partner, even decided to try out the adventure of the ring.
Muay Thai had rapidly become the predominant form of kickboxing in California, owing to the style’s complete domination of karate-based kickboxing in the ring. Crowds thrilled to spectacular leg kick knockouts, and oohed and ahhed at the Thai fighters pre-bout ritual of Wai Kru, which is a dance-like series of respectful bows played out to Thai horn music.
Ricky Lew fought the first match between Savate and Muay Thai in California. It was held in 1990, at a ballroom in Costa Mesa, CA. It was an undercard fight of little significance to the crowd. But this fight was very important to the camps on both sides. Muay Thai schools and fighters reveled in their dominance; they wouldn’t say they were unbeatable, but wouldn’t disagree with those that said it either. Good Muay Thai fighters were feared.
But as with each of Ricky’s previous fights, he was smiling as we walked him up to the ring. Barry had him well prepared, he was an experienced athlete and he knew how to get into and remain in “the zone.”
His opponent’s Wai Kru ritual seemed more ominous than respectful to us that night, as if a predator were eyeing his prey waiting for the optimal moment to strike. At the opening bell, Ricky saluted his opponent and went into the middle of the ring. His opponent threw repeated, powerful leg strikes that Ricky parried easily.
Thai boxers feet are generally somewhat rooted to the canvas in order to build up the force they need to throw their kicks. They lash their legs out using their toughened shins as the striking weapon, generally aiming for the opponent’s thighs or body. They use these kicks as a battering ram, and they are amazingly effective and destructive when thrown by a skilled Muay Thai fighter.
But Savate fighters don’t use force against force. Savate teaches fighters to be light on their feet, like a skilled boxer — think a young Muhammad Ali. So when his opponent swung his battering ram to Ricky’s legs, he skipped away, lightly parrying the strike with his own toughened shin. The Thai fighter was getting nowhere, and he was obviously not used to this at all. He was already getting a bit frustrated.
Another big difference between Muay Thai and Savate is the use of the hands. Normally, Muay Thai fighters use their elbows and knees, but they are not allowed in California. To strike with an elbow or knee, a fighter needs to get into close range of his opponent. With such formidable weapons in their arsenal, it seemed that Thai fighters never really had to train too much with their hands. As a result, we felt that their boxing skills were not as strong as they should be. They didn’t snap their punches back crisply to coverup, and they seemed to overreact to feints.
So when Ricky threw a couple of high kick faints, his opponent immediately overreacted each time, bringing his gloves up to his head, but not returning them quickly to cover his middle. Probably not the smartest thing to do with Ricky Lew.
Ricky’s third fight ended the same exact way that his first two fights did. He threw a snapping high left fouetté’, and his opponent raised his hands to block. Ricky then quickly stepped to the side and threw another left fouetté to the solar plexus, the toe of his shoe burying into his opponent’s mid-section. His opponent dropped his hands too late, and then boom.
Ricky’s fouetté landed clean on his opponent’s jaw and that was it. Lights out.
Ricky had now won three consecutive fights by first round knockout, and he had just delivered the shot heard around the Southern California kickboxing world.
The Competition Team
After Ricky’s dramatic victory over the Thai fighter, he was joined by Jeff Hoagland, our Lightweight Savate Champion; our partner, multiple martial arts Black Belt Todd Korving; and various students on the Southern California Savate Club’s Competition Team. Barry and I felt very good about their ability to compete with the Muay Thai and Karate kickboxers in the area.
But our luck seemed to change in an instant. First, we scheduled Ricky’s next fight against another Muay Thai fighter, and trained him to score another knockout. When we arrived at the venue on the day of the fight we learned that there would be no fight. The opponent had backed out, giving us no notice.
This was highly unusual. Muay Thai culture emphasizes paying respect almost as much as it does battering opponents into oblivion. Muay Thai fighters also have the very well-earned reputation of being extremely tough. So our jaws dropped when we later heard that the fighter’s trainer had come to our gym unannounced one night while we were training fighters.
It was customary for people to come in off the street, sit in our lobby and spectate so we had no idea this had happened. We never heard anything definitive, but it seemed to everyone at the time that the mighty Muay Thai management team wanted nothing further to do with Ricky.
Next we were advised by the Commission that the temporary variance allowing Savate shoe-wearing fighters to compete with barefoot kickboxers had expired. We would have to petition the Commission for a rule change, which could conceivably take years to complete.
Savate’s short competitive history in California had now run its course.
We could hold Savate bouts again, but there would be no more Savate vs Muay Thai or Karate kickboxing matches held in California. To our knowledge, it has never been done again.
Barry continued to train fighters but it was now also necessary to teach Muay Thai tactics as well as Savate, and Barry had no certification in Muay Thai.
Extending the toe of the shoe out to its maximum distance from the body is used very specifically in Savate, in the fouetté. This kick allows the fighter to keep his opponent at extreme distance: farther away than in boxing, and much farther than in Muay Thai. Now this strike was not available, it put our fighters at a disadvantage against Thai fighters. To get close enough to strike, our guys had to enter the range of the Muay Thai leg kick. Everybody knew how dangerous this was.
Howard Hanson of the WKA came through on the promise he made to Barry on the night of our Tournament. Barry trained the WKA North American Bantamweight Champion Pixie Elmore for her World Championship bout in France in 1990. Unfortunately, the fight was cancelled, but Barry’s training expertise had made it to the major leagues.
Despite the bad luck, our fighters were willing to continue to fight in kickboxing matches, and they battled Muay Thai kickboxers in gyms and ballrooms across Southern California in 1989 and 1990.
Unfortunately, Ricky Lew was forced to retire after severely injuring his knee in a softball game.
Jeff Hoagland, in particular, was an active kickboxer during this period. As Muay Thai came to dominate the kickboxing scene, Jeff eventually left Barry and worked with a number of different trainers, trying to accelerate his knowledge of Muay Thai and find a competitive edge.
But the gym remained busy and Wednesday night open sparring still had local tough guys coming in to try their luck. One of the toughest was Big John Mushaney. He was 6’3, 250 lbs and ripped with muscle.
John had boxed and taken Karate classes, but primarily he was a formidable street fighter. He had heard of our reputation and thought we were a joke. Like Trent Suzuki before him, he came in one Wednesday night specifically to beat the hell out of everyone. After three hours of sparring, primarily with Barry, not only had he not beat up anyone, he found that he couldn’t walk too well either.
John trained with Barry for years after that night, eventually earning his Silver Glove I and Moniteur credentials. Later, John taught Barry’s American Savate style and trained kickboxers at gyms across Southern California and Texas.
John has always proudly and publicly pointed to Barry’s teaching and our gym as the foundation of his success in the sport.
Mixed Martial Arts
The second path we saw to elevating Savate into the major leagues of fighting sports was to accelerate our progress along the path that we had been on from the beginning. Experimentation was the genesis of the Lomita Fighting & Fitness Academy. We were mixing different forms of fighting arts together and trying to create a new audience.
Barry had been taking private lessons with the Brazilian Ju Jitsu legend, Royce Gracie in Gracie’s Torrance garage for a while. As all fighting arts fans know, Royce Gracie won the First Ultimate Fighting Championshipin 1993 by beating Gerard Gordeau, a French Savate fighter.
Barry, Ian and Todd had long been hosting mixed martial arts sparring sessions with other multi-sport practitioners, notably, the late Ted LucayLucay, who had trained extensively with Dan Inosanto in Jeet Kune Do and the Filipino martial arts.
A logical next step was to get Royce Gracie to join us. We set a time for Barry and I to meet with Ian and Todd to discuss how to go about it. Barry and I basically planned to offer Royce anything he wanted.
But before this meeting could be held, another tragedy took place.
After taking a day trip to Tijuana, Ian’s car was stopped by Border Control on the freeway at Camp Pendleton. He was taken into custody as an illegal alien — he had let his immigration process lapse. Ian was subsequently deported back to New Zealand, and none of us ever saw him again.
Ian was our true, personal connection to the incredibly insular martial arts world. He had been a protégé of sorts to Dan Inosanto, and was well trusted by industry leaders. With him gone, we lost our personal connection to the industry.
This also drastically reduced Todd’s cashflow, which caused him to give his notice at the gym. Without the mixed martial arts side of the business in operation, the Lomita Fighting & Fitness Academy closed.
While Todd and Barry reopened a smaller gym together down the street, and Barry continued to train kickboxers in his backyard ring for a few years, the magic was lost. Everyone eventually scattered, and we were all left with the feeling that the future could have, and should have been a lot different for American Savate.
Epilogue
Throughout my time in Savate, I had also operated in a parallel business universe. I had met a former NASA scientist in the mid 80’s and together we built a small company around his inventions. By 1989, we had attracted investment, and were even being courted by Wall Street firms to take our company public. But I was an entrepreneur, not a big business titan.
There was not a lot of money in martial arts at the time. It was not uncommon to see lifers like our partner Todd, for instance, living in their vans. Like so many other famous martial artists, finances were tight for Salem during this period as well. Salem’s ability to make a living depended on his remaining the Professeur of Savate in the U.S., so he could teach seminars and make and sell videos.
And across Los Angeles, there was our gym, standing in the way. Barry and I had gone from being his students to the top of the sport in the U.S. within a very short time. We were doing it for fun, not because we needed to make a living from it.
Despite Barry having earned all of the relevant expert credentials, and our receiving the endorsement of the ISF in France; Salem and Francis labelled us as carpet baggers and frauds.
With this “wall” up, our gym couldn’t gain complete legitimacy, even within our own sport. This was very hurtful to us personally, as well. We couldn’t understand why they were against us. But I get it now.
Savate is a uniquely French sport, and Salem believed in maintaining its purity. Barry taught a much different, Americanized style. Salem had dedicated his life to martial arts, and struggled to get by. I was a yuppie, a hobbyist and appeared to be rolling in the dough. Bottom line? They made nothing from us and we could conceivably take business from them.
In our defense, they never offered to work with us, so I can’t understand why we would have been required to pay them anything. We did originally offer Salem half the company, but they never came back and asked to cut a new deal.
So how could we have done anything differently? I honestly don’t know. But any way you add it up, this was about money. It created a big wound in American Savate that never healed.
Both Barry and I always had the greatest respect for Salem. Neither of us held any grudges against him then and I certainly have no axe to grind today, especially in light of the fact that Salem passed away a couple years back. He deserved all the accolades he ever earned. Salem was the greatest technical Savateur either of us ever met.
But however you look at it, this happened. It is history.
So when Salem purposely blackened my eyes at the 1989 Seminar and demoted my ranking for his own, trivial reason, that was it for me. I was out. It was no longer fun.
I didn’t play any outsize role within our group, so it’s not like everything ended when I lost interest. But Barry and I had a unique partnership, and when I wasn’t around to help him realize his goals, he started attacking what was in front of him rather than reaching for the impossible.
As I look back on this now 34 years later, I get a bit wistful. It is just too bad that the personal egos and parochialism could not have been put aside back then. Had Salem embraced our “Salem Assli School of Savate” concept in 1987, where could we have been today?
To answer that question, you need only look at history. The movement to organize combined fighting arts was happening so fast at the time, if we didn’t do it, someone else was bound to do it.
When we stepped away, another group filled the void we created in the market.
At the time my bet would have been on the Muay Thai people. They were dominating the fighting arts. But it was done by a group from right down the street, lead by the guy we had hoped would be our partner. Our hats are off to them too, they changed the face of American sports.
The Ultimate Fighting Championship was founded by the Gracie family and a Torrance, CA business man named Art Davie right around the time that we walked away from Savate.
With one of Gracie’s students, famed film director John Milius, they put together 28 investors to fund the startup. Today the UFC is worth billions of dollars. Mixed martial arts fights are viewed by millions and the sport has overtaken boxing as the most popular fighting sport in the world.
We had almost all of the pieces together: the skills, the fighters, the competitive and promotional experience, the business expertise and the access to capital. If we could have somehow brought the wall down between the two Savate camps, we would have had the martial arts industry legitimacy we lacked, and a direct connection to Hollywood.
As the old saying goes, “the pioneers get scalped but the settlers prosper.” Today the sport of Savate French Kickboxing is exactly as we found it so many years ago. There are one or two French Professeurs traveling around the country teaching Savate seminars at Karate dojos and Muay Thai gyms. Savate kicking techniques are seen on TV and movies, but the origin is not really known. Competitive Savate remains a niche attraction in Europe but is completely unknown in the USA.
American Savate could have, and should have, had a much different history.
Barry and I hope that this memoir helps today’s American Savateur understand more about the history of the sport that we all love. We recognize that this is certainly not the complete history of Savate during this time period. Others that were there at the time may have their own recollections and may even see some of the events we’ve discussed in a different light.
But this is our view of the history of Southern California Savate. It was an exciting time to be alive, we had an awful lot of fun and we treasure all of the relationships we made along the way.
Click here to view photos from the history of the Southern California Savate Club
Click here to watch videos on the history of the Southern California Savate Club on YouTube
