Just to drop a pill of knowledge The most famous manuscript about fighting in the middle ages is from Italy, the Flos duellatorum. Italian mercenaries, generals and marines (but most of all, equipment) were amongst the most sought after from foreign armies from the middle ages to the XVIII century approximately. Why? Well because Italy was a land marked by constant conflicts, therefore adapt or die
The "Arditi" Italian Spec. Forces of WW1 were trained specifically in Knife Fighting. They ran into the trenches with their Knives instead of rifles and commenced to dispatch the enemy. Brave,Very Brave.
bayonet beats knife. Darn, now I'll get 20 replies about shovels. I know about the shovel beeing superior in theory. I am just pointing out that Knife+Stick is superior to just Knife
@@Scarletraven87 Not if you have to turn quickly in a narrow trench. And if your first thrust is a miss, the opponent can easily grab the "stick" (a rifle isn't handy as a spear) and make his way to you. It is also easier to deviate than a hand-held knife, since you can basically do only a forward-thrusting movement as an effective attack (not very good for slashing).
@@Scarletraven87 Did you ever train to fight against a spear? I do. Spears have the advantage of reach, but when you deviate the sharp point, the rest is harmless. you don't "outmaneuvre" something with a greater reach, you close the distance to avoid the dangerous part. Normally, a spear user who holds it with both hands could try to hit you with the back end... not so much in a trench. Also, a rifle with a bayonet isn't nearly as handy as a spear, so it's easier (less reach too). And if we're storming a trench, I get the guy who's back is towards me. The riskiest moment is when jumping in, cause the rifle-and-bayonet guy has all the advantages: one last shot, and an easy trajectory to intercept with the point. That's why the Arditi used assault grenades before jumping in.
Imagine when the OP finds out that Italians have a REALLY long living Martial Arts traditions that involves from swords, spears and polearms to knifes and even clean hands systems, and that Italy had THE best knight the world has ever seen: Fiore dei Liberi, the man, the legend.
@@water737 haha, the one disappointed is me. Why would I mention Salvator Fabris, when he dealt ONLY in rapiers, cloaks and daggers, when I could mention Fiore Dei Liberi, who dealt with pretty much anything you can use to attack, parry or defend yourself with, lived 200 years before Salvator, and clearly inspired his Scienza d'Arme? Why would I not mention THE best knight of all times, the same figure of Miyamoto Musashi from the West? Makes bsolutely no sense to mention Salvator instead of Fiore.
@sombraarthur incorrect fabris was adept at all the same things he just did not write about them he was clearly a wrestler and mentions that he is not adding it to his book and based on his book we can also gleam.he was proficient with polearms and partisans as many weapons masters of the time must be, if we look at Johann jeorge pascha he has wrestling, fencing, partisan work and so on. I would still count fabris as one of Italy's greatest knights if not the greatest as coming from relatively humble beginnings went on to serve a king for a long period. But if you want to talk all time greatest knight I think that title has been claimed by William Marshall which damn his story is pretty nuts.
@@water737 I think you did not get it, bruv. I was talking about THE one, THE best Italian master of all times, not William Marshall, who was ENGLISH, mate. Focus on that ITALIAN part. I never said that Salvator was not one of the greatest Italian knights, one of the greatest Italian masters, I said that the best of them all, was Fiore. You preffer Salvator over Fiore, and that is okay... But, you cannot deny that between both, Fiore was more important, more influential, and more in the general connoisseur of HEMA than Salvator is. You might think it is a shame, and that is fine. But, Salvator came to expand duels, foremost, and warcraft later. Fiore is on the other hand, first is warcraft, then duels, because through warcraft, duels are just a reduction of the numbers. Clearly, Fiore is the European counterpart to Miyamoto Musashi, unbeatable.
@@sombraarthur mate you did literally state and i quote: "Italy had THE best knight the world has ever seen" thus i threw in william marshall. he grew up in normandy anyway so eh. people tend to froth the longsword stuff far more than anything else so that was inevitable and absolutely fiore is massively influential because he covered so much theres so many extra books i wish there were i wish koeppe finished his second book before he passed and if he did that we had a copy, i wish we have fabris doing wrestling and dagger fighting that would be sick. or a demonstration in the book of taking a spear from a guy with a rapier which is actually legit with his posture. i think theres cases for either orfiore had more printed material and that makes him far more influential today or even in italy at the time he lived being a well known duelling coach and in the same breadth fabris influenced the northern european fencing styles of denmark down to middle germany and in italy also and was complimented by spaniards, but it was perhaps a bigger and more easily traveled world in his day. besides we all know lichtenauer was the GOAT anyway ;) :P
Master Lajolo is a very legit martial artist; I really like a lot of things in his system (f.e. the idea to train "gun AND knife" or the idea of "train in enviroment" etc etc). Nice video ;-)
This is not Italian anything. He is a student of my old teacher William Sanders who was a Silat Guy 23 years ago then, then called it IRISH STICK, now he calls it ITALIAN knife fighting. OMG, and he would have his students use fake credentials back then as well, we were the only accredited certified Indonesian school of Pencak Silat. I recognize these moves any where. He has a personality flaw or something where he wants recognition, changes cultures every decade. This is not authentic, historical, classic Italian anything. Google William Sanders Silat. Watch his movements in old videos. I hope he does a follow up video apologizing. He is plagiarizing his Indonesian teachers for his EGO. My school 23 years ago was King Dragon Silat in Farmington Hills Michigan. It closed when his His head instructor and him fell out. Half wanted to go with Sanders some wanted to stay with Jeff Davidson. Then Sanders changed to Irish Stick and lost more students. So he only wanted to keep students that paid well and worshiped him, and defended for him by Trolling the internet for his honor LOL. OMG can't wait to share this with my old classmates. They are going to get a kick out of this. But sanders flow and moves are genuine, just not Italian. He is a Narcissist
He is one of the best knife practitioners. Excellent structure, footwork, angles. They do have a fencing approach, which possibly shows connections to Italian medieval fencing/HEMA. Well done for bringing the style forward.
This is not Italian anything. He is a student of my old teacher William Sanders who was a Silat Guy 23 years ago then, then called it IRISH STICK, now he calls it ITALIAN knife fighting. OMG, and he would have his students use fake credentials back then as well, we were the only accredited certified Indonesian school of Pencak Silat. I recognize these moves any where. He has a personality flaw or something where he wants recognition, changes cultures every decade. This is not authentic, historical, classic Italian anything. Google William Sanders Silat. Watch his movements in old videos. I hope he does a follow up video apologizing. He is plagiarizing his Indonesian teachers for his EGO. My school 23 years ago was King Dragon Silat in Farmington Hills Michigan. It closed when his His head instructor and him fell out. Half wanted to go with Sanders some wanted to stay with Jeff Davidson. Then Sanders changed to Irish Stick and lost more students. So he only wanted to keep students that paid well and worshiped him, and defended for him by Trolling the internet for his honor LOL. OMG can't wait to share this with my old classmates. They are going to get a kick out of this. But sanders flow and moves are genuine, just not Italian. He is a Narcissist
The basis of this style is traditional Italian "fencing (scherma)", which is a martial art in which bare-handed combat, sword, sabre, stick, knife etc. are used. Olympic fencing descends from it, like archaic boxing, that of the 18th century.
There are only 2 schools of Olympic fencing. Italian and Hungarian. Hungarian being faster without frills won over the Italian. The action is in the wrist like in Chinese sword fighting as opposed to the swinging arm in Italian.
He flings those scissors like a balisong knife. Very interesting vid. Italian posturing is so different, also... it looks soooo..... Italian, I love it. Great idea training on a staircase and on REAL environments... Lo adoro.
I train in real enviroment cos I train all day long ahahah in italia ovviamente... qui ci si adatta non ce lo deve dire Bruce, dobbiamo essere Like Water, se pensiamo... Quelli che non lo fanno di solito si arricchiscono qui da noi invece ahahha
I love the use of the hat. In capoeira, the old masters would sew a weight into the back of the hat. They'd use it as a defensive/offensive weapon against straight razors.
Not a weight - they would sewn a type of steel bowl on the interior of the hat, allowing them to use the hat as a shield akin to a stylized buckler. Also, how do you think that hat could keep itself in one's head during their spins?
This is based on sword fighting during the Renaissance period. The switching comes from the use of bracers. It would allow you to switch the position of the knife safely and be able to block without serious or lethal cuts. Knife also acts as a shield while changing positions. This is a very old system of fighting. I would guess it’s probably 500 years old. I wonder how far back he could trace his lineage.
funny I traced his movements to Pikiti Tersia from the Philippines... absolutely nothing he is doing is European based except for his attempt at linear footwork which is plain awful.
Italian school of swordsmanship has a long tradition and daggers together with rapiers were essential in duels and general fighting especially when used by their mercenaries called "condottieri"
@@emillyyelen5169 exactly right! another reason this video is so scammy. Not one mention of that! Not one bit of research went into this making this a bromance documentary.
@@emillyyelen5169 nitpicking but, the "condottieri" where the leaders (from the word condurre which means to lead). The mercenaries themselves were called "compagni" (literally translates as companions or mates) and the outfits where called "compagnie di ventura" (adventuring companies). I am Italian, by the way.
@@LouKiss Europeans have a very long history of Sword and Knife fighting. They didn't learn it from the Philipinos. When you look at the Roman Gladius, you are looking at a short blade sword the techniques adopt well to the Dagger or Knife. All through history there have been styles of Knife/Dagger fighting. It is not something they learned when they came to the Phillipines.
I recommend looking into esgrima criollo- Argentinian knife fighting- if you haven’t already. They use ponchos for distractions and defense. Beautiful in a deadly way with fascinating history.
Hatian machete fighting ("Tire machete")& Puerto-Rican machete and axe fighting (aka "Guazabara")... they're really captivating to look at in action. The evolution, history and application is beyong interesting.
The use of the poncho as a defensive tool in a knife fight used to be more common throughout Latin American countries. If you watch old Latin American movies with fight scenes, you will occasionally see some people using their poncho/coat as a defensive tool.
There are many Italian knife fighting systems. State recognized maybe. But there are other systems used by the Italian military. If you keep digging you will find more and connections to other weapons canne fighting where they are taught in connection. This is not my favorite Italian system but there are others. Really cool that you highlighted this
Have you looked into the Sykes Fairbairn commando knife fighting that was developed during and after World War II? The stories that they told as police in Shanghai and the fighting are legendary. It would be interesting to see how it stacks up against our contemporary martial arts culture.
the two have very different goals. The goal of fairbairn is to take out a sentry nice and silent. lagiolo shows actaul fighting when the 2 opponents agreed to enter a fight, there is no surprise exept for the change of hands. Lagiolo moves a lot both hands and feet while avoiding the opponents hits, this may result in dropping the knife especially that a small knife
In Italian (definitely in Sicilian) knife fighting, such fights were stylised duels, not street thuggery, not killing matches. The stylised moves were an essential part of the ritual. It was all about looking good, showing your bravery and honour and humiliating your opponent with damaging, but rarely lethal cuts. Deaths did occur, but they were not the primary focus, it was a honour duel not an execution. Think ‘deadly dance’ rather than ‘street brawl’.
3:00 in italy double sided blades are legally weapons and not used as pocket knives. 6:40 straight razors were a common weapon,expecially in the south, scissors also Many pocket knives have a square tip design because by law they could be made longer. The main dueling and fighting pattern in Sicily was the Liccasapuni, soaplicker knife. Italian martial arts mostly consists of these regional styles of stick and knife fencing. The was a strong culture of dueling in the south,so many peculiar dueling knives designs. Stick fighting was the other side,schools teach both. The recently created a national competition called Liu-Bo. Honestly,it is a very underdevelopped sector,there is no martial culture in Italy outside of Boxing and TMA.
Unfortunately the martial arts culture in italy is dead, even for boxing and other more popular martial arts, italians nowdays are scared of pain and hard work, unfortunate, expetially when you consider than in the past we were a warrior culture and we taught martial arts to the world
@@adolfhipsteryolocaust3443 I only partialy agree.yes italian grew softer like everywhere else. But the problem is the stigma attached to anything that it is not soccer. Karate is, basicaly, the only martial art you can practice without being called a maniac or similar. Aikido? you automaticaly become a steven seagall wannabe... Kali? what are you, a wannabe killer? it is ignorance more than anything else.... which is even worse than what you described. This led, over time, to a serious shrinkage of offer... (I had to drive 40 minutes to practice Kali... where I live now, in 40 minutes by car I have at least 45 proposal in everything martial arts related) add to this the not exactely popula cost and you get the point
@@udp1073 not just that, mma is also straight illegal in italy, i practice in mma and you can't ground and pound, also gyms are not that serious, we train too little and so on, there is a reason why there is no high level italian fighter in any combat sport, our society and government wants us weak cigarettes
Not "only", but they got famous for that because they wanted the close contact with enemies, the greatest form of courage and honor. First special force in history. They were also the first to parachute behind enemy lines, right during WW1, in silent infiltrations one at a time, with two-seater planes equipped with homemade hatches. Almost nobody knows this.
As a kiro (Ilustrisimo tony diego line) practitioner, spot on the itallian knife spar and Ilustrisimo analysis, sir! Fun fact: ilustrisimo has lots of Spanish and Italian blade influences.
@@inside_fighting he just finished 2 days in florida!! He'll be in Cincinnati, Ohio, next! Then NY...you could connect with Mr. Dan Lowman since he is our rep there
I like what Grandmaster Oliver Garduce of the Pintados system says: "Play with your knife all the time and become familiar " Your channel has really grown on me bro❤
Thanks. I wear a wide brim wool hat everyday and I find it to be the best tool in my box set but I never knew it could be used in self defense for a blade. I always used it for spiders and the occasional snake in the blackberry patch
It would make sense for there to be things that look like Eskrima, because the Italian and Spanish fencing traditions are very related and Eskrima is influenced by the Spanish fencing tradition. Think the "Manual del Baratero". Also, regarding fedora use, there are various European fencing manuals that show using the hat as a parrying device, especially with smallsword and knife, so this is definitely a historical technique with a long European pedigree. Scissors were used by the Spanish and Italians for duels, especially horse and sheep grooming shears.
Some FMA systems does incorporate fencing styles like kali ilustrisimo and more modern system. More traditional system favors footwork and slashing motions.
nella prima parte dei secoli 1500 1600 spagna e alcune parti di italia che erano spagnole o comuni che prestavano all'impero furono i primi a colonizzare e o commerciare, anche i samurai furono impressionati dagli spadaccini portoghesi mi pare@@MrUod ! Grazie
Magellan first Spaniard to visit Mactan 1521...died and killed by Lapu-Lapu...a known expert in Kali martial arts...maybe when the Spaniards came...the art evolve...when the Japanese came another evolution...Kali is keep evolving adapting other martial arts .. judo, jujitsu , Kung Fu, wrestling are taught in our Kali school...even boxing
Thanks for sharing another interesting style of martial arts with us! Love how you keep it positive, which is sadly rare today with so many people trashing other styles. Absolutely agree that training in real environments is super important. Some buddies and I used to train in abandoned buildings. You can pick up so much training on stairs, in narrow hallways, and doorways/entryways that you just won’t know always training on mats. Of course, I’m also thankful for how much I’ve gotten out of training on mats too.
I agree completely, I practiced Bujinkan for about 8 months. Very picked on art for many legitimate reasons, but one thing I did learn was your environment changes everything. My instructor at the time would clutter our tiny training hall with lots of objects. Eg tables, plastic chairs, medicine ball and we would roll one on one amongst it. On one occasion a day off work I was so badly bruised. Environment changes everything.
Back in the renaissance period duelling with rapiers they used cloaks in the offhand as a shield, to deflect, distract and even put on top of the blade to divert it for an opening attack. So the hat trick probably had old roots
This guy is an all around knife/blade handler, obviously familiar with all bladed weapons, tools, pieces of art; wielding scissors like balisongs and Kerambits. Very cool guy we can easily relate to..
When it comes to Italian knife fighting, I've heard of a style or system called Paranzas Cortas, but this looks incredibly advanced, and I can see some similarities to knife usage in Kali. I say this as a casual observer considering I only have basic training with knives and most of my experience is in unarmed forms of martial arts, although I've always wanted to learn Kali or some form of weapons-focused martial art. Lately I've been getting into Kuntao Silat because I'm disabled (I'm almost 31, but I've had back and hip problems since I was in my early 20's due to being overworked at a job I had at the time and then a botched surgery that was supposed to fix it) but the movements utilized in Silat seem to agree with me despite my limitations. I've also learned the basics of cane fighting since I walk with a cane, but as I've stated already, the bulk of my experience is fighting unarmed. I hope that in addition to my learning of Silat I can learn more about the specifics of using the Karambit as they are fascinating blades. I first became interested in the use of blades because I'm a collector.
@@Tanieleddu I always found that confusing because I've seen some people spell it with an s and others not so I wasn't sure which was correct. Thanks for letting me know though and for taking the time to do so. I hope that you're doing well and having a great day :)
There are several knife fighting school in Italy, from north to south. In Rome the duelers were used to protect themselves by wrapping their jackets around their foreamrs. I'm talking about mortal duels. I think that this kind of protection was used everywhere.
Looks similar to eskrima probably because they came from the same system namely the espada 'y daga of spain. Italians developed their version and filipinos developed their own version after learning the main art.
Another way to state what you said about protecting “where the sun don’t shine”, is that everywhere a joint bends, it bends to protect a major artery. The neck tucks to protect the carotid artery, the shoulder to protect the subclavian artery, the elbow to protect the brachial artery, the wrist to protect the radial artery and so on.
I’ve seen the wounds from knife fighting personally from gang violence. They definitely maintain measure/distance. The same is true with machete fighting. The old European manuscripts weren’t lying about maintaining measure. Even the traditional Japanese swordsmanship styles do the same. Although I’m surprised people don’t practice deployments regularly. I guess not enough first or second hand experience.
When I practice ground fighting (only 1 knife); I find that if I'm on bottom with the knife, hand changes become the most important thing for both knife retention and creating attacking opportunities.
WW2 Combatives in Italy were inspired by Fiore. That said, this gentleman certainly has influence from SE asian knife arts. Not a bad thing. Classical Italian dagger is just longer so the movements are different as a result. Cloaks/jackets were also a bigger part of Italian knife/dagger. AKA cloak and dagger. Nice modern rebirth...renaissance? of Italian knife fighting.
Impressive indeed. Nice find and great video. Having trained kali I think you make a great point about drawing the blade. I recall nothing covering that. But when I trained in kali years ago we had plastic knives with felt edges that we put chalk on and them sparred. It was very humbling. But as you got better, those chalk marks were just on the forearms. But everyone always got marked. It was great training, and I rarely see anyone practice knife sparring.
"Everyone always gets marked" -- yes exactly so. I've never been shot, but many years ago I used to associate with some shady people in my misspent youth and have been slashed and stabbed (back then an 11" stiletto was my weapon). We used to have a saying about knife fights, "the loser dies at the scene, the winner dies on the way to the hospital". Of course that's not always literally true; in reality or at least my experience when _both_ people have a knife the fight rarely lasts long beyond the first blood. It's almost always the unarmed one who ends up seriously hurt or killed; for that's when the armed aggressor feels safe in attacking. But I have witnessed a few *serious*, life and death knife-on-knife fights, and mind you this is 100% undisciplined street fighting stuff, and the injuries are fking horrific. That's what eventually got me into actual training.... But even the best will end up cut or stabbed in a knife fight I don't care how well trained you are or how good you are unless you're made of steel you're going to get hurt.
Well said. Once in a while someone like you comes along and dispells all the mythical shenanigans tells it the way it is. In a knife fight..all the combatants lose or are severely injured. As usual it's the bad guys who resort to knives with an element of surprise. Having one and the skills to counter that is useful as it reminds the assailant of the mutually destructive nature of the confrontation. Hopefully, self-preservation kicks in without any combat taking place and both parties de-esclate. If it's impossible to disengage better look for something to grab with a free hand to use as a shield quickly and fight for dear life with the objective of getting away quickly when the opportunity presents itself.
Look.. I think you must see our Esgrima Criolla called esgrima Gaucha in the Río de la Plata, there are 3 styles, esgrima criolla argentina, esgrima criolla oriental (from Uruguay) and esgrima criolla brasilera. The Gaucho is from Uruguay, Argentina and Brasil, in Uruguay and Brasil this martial art it's passed from father to sons or daugthers, but in Argentina my friend Jorge Prina it's a good master. The Gaucho is one of the best warriors you can see, because it is the mix from indian+european+african. We fight to live in a world were you kill or die. Thanks
Italians have to be fancy, I guess, switching up grips in the middle of an engagement. His techniques in the one-on-one demonstrations look formidable.
2:34 - agreed... FMA always begins from a stance of presumed combat. What I like here is a lot of wrist camming... fine movement makes a big difference with short blades.
At the beginning of the 20 century, the Italian gangsters used old razors or stilettos due to the lack of weapons and used them as gangsters in the streets of NYC, but this later faded into the background because after that they were able to access revolvers, pistols and automatic weapons.
A little while ago, I commented on a Funker Tactical video in which GN stated that sinawali was essentially useless in training with the knife. Out of everything I added in comment, he decided to respond that "there is no such thing as a knife fighter". If you train knife then you are a knife fighter, but this lajolo guy seems to be going much, much further in training than I've experienced in my kali background. It's wild that we train all these drills in FMA; all the sensitivity drills, all the efficient footwork and hand movement, all the reactions that up-close range creates and here we are looking at what a knife fight more truly is. It really makes me rethink my kali training and how to deal with this. I'm far more 'aggressive' in stick fighting, meaning I will purposefully close the distance to get in for strikes but my opponents almost always tend to be more skittish and dancing around out of range and just not fighting. We don't use padding but we aren't dog brothers either, so they don't want to risk getting hurt. Knife fighting is different physically and psychologically and this video shows that. The sparring videos really showcase how "stupid" knife fighting really is because managing range becomes a long, drawn out game and if you have that amount of time you should be rethinking what the hell is happening. It's like staring at the stove for five minutes and purposefully not contemplating the fact that you are trying to put your hand on the hot burner. Getting jumped in an alleyway is an immediate, crazy situation but if you have a knife, the opponent has a knife and you two are facing off for minutes trying to figure out who can cut the other's fingers then there is an egregious failure in training on your part to end it. Sorta like Bruce Lee's epiphany about how his fight took too long and how ill prepared he was to deal with it despite his training. Anyway, thanks for showcasing this, these videos are great!
I love your open mind approach to martial arts. I would not hesitate to say that it means that you are a master and, at any rate, I would be more than glad to train under your guidance. You are close to Spain. I do not know if you have time to spare but it would be great if you came to share your wisdom. Thank you for being there and share your no bs overview of the different styles. Best of luck!
In the sparring video, at 6:32 he uses a fragment of a very famous tune in the Pizzica style from southern Puglia (called Pizzica de San Vito). A nod to the local tradition. The pizzica was used, among other things, as pretend fighting - similarly to capoehra in Brazil.
Uh really this isn't particularly unique. See mattei florin at tactical combat systems. I'm not saying this is bad by any stretch. But real old school Italian knife fighting can be found in the book "the Sicilian blade". If you can find it. It mostly deals with stabbing and poking with a stiletto type knife. Where I used to go we taught a combination of that and the Philippines style with good old basic thug-fu thrown in.
All these videos are you making about unheard of martial art. I did the research back in the AOL days when they didn't have a lot of videos on UA-cam. it's cool you are making them
Master Lajola’s belly also has the perfect amount of adipose tissue to help provide an extra layer of protection in a knife fight. This is what peak performance looks like for knife fighting.
The hat thing is something done in the navaja knife style of fighting that was done by gitanos in Spain. They used their hat and their clothes to blind the opponent and as defensive tool.
Really very cool and interesting system. Thanks for sharing. Also you're so right about what you said in 17:46, that people inherently don't know how handle a weapon, be it a knife, a stick or a gun
There was a unit of Italians in WW1 that I believe were only armed with knives and seemed they were pretty feared. I am curious if this was what they were trained in?
Not only daggers, but also pistols and hand grenades. They were called Arditi (Valiants), and they were basically shock troops and infiltrators in the enemy trenches.
Being Italian I think it shows the best skill from my heritage. I myself practiced knife fighting which was Petiki Tursa so now I can implement this skill with it.
Knife (and stick) fighting was a thing in Mediterranean Europe. A lot of local differences... Check out "manual of the baratero" in example which is from Spain but has very similar movements and tactics of Italian knife fencing. Also FMA got influenced by Italian sword masters of the Renaissance period, they arrived along with the Spaniards as mercenaries and gave the mathematical and geometrical aspects typical of FMA.
A lot of those geometrical aspects already existed in FMA. Remember, the roots of FMA are shared with Silat, and Silat is very analytical regarding angles, body positioning, etc.
And the Italians and Spanish were influenced by African stick fighting, which is probably the oldest styles in the world. The English knife styles were influenced by Indian and so on and so forth.
3:14 so i think the knife he’s using is a slip joint. in italy you have to declare a regular reason to have a knife on you in public. most traditional european folding knives from previous generations are slip joints because having a knife which locks could be seen as tactical or more difficult to explain away. i haven’t seen the video but i think he uses his forearm to close the blade.
I went down this rabbit hole a year or more ago, on UA-cam. There's another guy that has some strange movements and claims a long lineage in Italy. I'd bet, given the terrain, that Italy has many different knife fighting/dueling styles. A quick look at their historic knives and you'll see several fighting folders. I found it funny that, in his movie type video, he takes his jacket off and sets it down and uses his hat instead. Historically, people would use their jacket or cape to protect their other arm, blind their opponent, wrap the knife, disarm, hide their own knife, etc. Several European countries had strong knife dueling traditions from at least Medieval times. Sailers worldwide learned to use knives and swords/sabers. Ship's crews were generally not homogeneous and typically added crew members from around the world as needed. They tended to stop at various ports and information was shared. It's a bit of a chicken and the egg conundrum when looking at styles, since they all had skills, techniques, tricks, and styles that spread like their venereal diseases. I'd bet Filipino arts learned from the Spanish, Malays, Chinese, Indians, and Arabs at minimum. I'd also bet that traditional arts in Spain and Italy brought back lessons learned in their ports of call. We act like the world was made up of countries completely cut off from each other, but people traveled and mixed and moved and learned from each other.
The style of the video is attributable to the southern area of the country; recently I happened to find an interview on the local history of Genoa, a large port in the North and historically one of the Maritime Republics, by a Master As you say, it happens that in important ports, contact with other cultures, and the undergrowth that is around, can be dangerous and allows for the development of interesting combat situations This master, Claudio Parodi, talks about walking stick, "gambetto" (hand combat) and knife of the Genoese school, traces its birth back to the Genoese merchants in Constantinople, after the Turks conquered it (so I think in the mid-1400s) and relegated them to the margins being allied with the Venetians (other Italians of a competing Maritime Republic); therefore they developed these techniques not being able to carry weapons The little that can be seen of the "gambetto" made me think of techniques that are very similar to much better known martial arts, despite the school being very local ua-cam.com/video/FbXYlGcaPpI/v-deo.html
Not sure which FMA you practiced but the PTK system does focus on deployment and doesn't focus on just looking pretty. It focuses on lethal effectiveness.
In the nineties there was a BLACK BELT article called “on deadly ground”( also a Stephen Seagal movie, same era) and that is precisely what the article was about; covered topics like balance, traction, potential hazards, and also a little bit about footwear. Anyways, nice video. Very fascinating as I’ve never heard of Italian knife fighting but I’ve seen other Italians very handy with knives; a knife thrower to be exact, I was very impressed so “Italian knife fighting”, though I’ve never heard of it, didn’t surprise me.
I guarantee he has some silat in his background. That pattern on the floor is from pentjak silat. They also do similar movements hiding the blade, protecting vital points, etc. . Check out Joe Simonet's knife fighting stuff.
Your comment about using the hat in knife fights... in early 1900's Buenos Aires, the Tango Scene originated in the rough clubs near the docks. the men who frequented these clubs often had knife fights and used their scarves in the same way as this guys used their hats.
We (italians) were very fond of knife fighting with usually regional shaped knives during 1800 and a little further. Most famous kinds are the "Pattada" or "Resolza". The thing was so popular you usually could find a wood bench or block in front of inns and restaurants with a sign that said "si vuoi entrare nell'ostello, sullo ceppo lo coltello" "If you wish to enter the hostel, stuck your knife in the wood" to avoid duels and mess inside. It was a common thing. I Highly suggest taking a look to the sardinian knives I mentioned above and it's use. It's very, very impressive.
Thank you for your distinguished efforts in providing us with everything interesting and enjoyable in the world of martial arts. Your information is considered a reference in combat methods. I hope that you will devote episodes to Russian combat methods, especially combat sambo and hand-to-hand military combat.
Paranza corta siciliana is also officially recognized by CSEN (National Educational Sports Center) and CONI (Italian National Olympic Committee). Check it out. It is originated by sicilian shepherd's necessity to defend themselves by brigands and it was also common for people to duel with knives in order to end disagreements or defend their honor. I'm pretty sure Italy is full of sticks and knives fighting schools due to the nature of our country (each region kinda has its own story and has been dominated by different people throughout history) but I'm not aware of any other tbh
Wow I train on stairs I’ve never seen anyone else do this. Lajolo reminds me a lot of classic 52 blocks, but I’m quite sure the styles have crossed paths.
As I understand it, knife fighting was analyzed a few years back, a statistical approach to it if you will. Most knife fights or attacks are in prison. And experienced murderers in prison were interviewed, they know what works and what doesn't work. Their stance is quite defensive since one of the riskiest things that could happen in a knife fight is being disarmed by your opponent, or the man. The knife is kept concealed as long as possible and when disclosed, it's kept close to the body. Simple methodology, you're jabbing with your left arm and waiting for an opening for your knife with your right hand. Once it opens, go for it several dozen times until the enemy is neutralized. Yes, you might get cut in the left arm, but it's the price you pay for playing with knives in the first place. Still this Italian gentleman has a lot of style to him. Certainly flashy enough.
Using the hat reminds a lot to me the sword and cape discipline in the Bolognese style of Renaissance fencing, it is always better to have something to avoid getting cut or parry things when you fight.
I came across Piper and Libre Fighting recently in a seminar coming from a certified Inosanto Academy Instructor. You should totally check it, it's savage, and very unique. Also, thanks for showing so much of the martial arts world, it's awesome.
I really love the Italian knife using special forces that attacked at night by jumping into trenches and bunkers with only blades in hand.. hardcore definition
one thing i learnt in the military is very simply. "if its spectacular its not practical and what is practical is not spectacular" waving the knife around as such is great for showmanship but does nothing outside of that. Its a "sandwhich filler" basically put in there to do nothing but look better.
@@paulfarley-g2v military knife fighting is vastly different than what you see in many countries on the streets for numerous reasons. A knife in field combat is a last resort. A knife for killing someone involves involves sneaking up on them and is not much different at that point as any weapon as the element of surprise is everything… but in the street where one person draws a blade and the other does this kind of hand movement is relevant to avoid the knife hand from becoming an easy target.
My Father taught me, never to bring a weapon to a fight that you cannot defend against. Because you could be disarmed, and it could be used against you.
As an Italian I have never heard of this style,Once upon a time I know that men rarely killed each other,Only if someone insulted someone else's honor was he challenged to a duel, or treacherously killed,It depends on the type of offense that was committed. For example, if someone touched someone else's wife, he was killed with dishonor,In any case this was done in southern Italy, In northern Italy at least in recent times, as far as I know, people were calmer and less "bloody"
At 12:05 you are completelly correct, imho. I know two guys that at least 20 years ago practiced Katori Shinto Ryu. During a training with wooden katanas, they were doing a lot of cool Hollywood stuff, both super aggresive and secure. At some point, the master had enough of that shit. He stopped them, tetrieved the two wooden katanas, and gave them two REAL katanas. At the "go", they remained at least at 4 meters from each other, and none of them wanted to make the first move. So, yes, if you have a knife and the other guy has it too, probably you won't feel so confident to strike.
I have trained in FMA and love the art but it does have its drawbacks. There are a couple other people you should check out if you haven't heard of them before, that have much more of a realistic modern approach. Tribe 13 UA-cam channel is great. Ed caldron(he was on the joe rogan podcast) has a similar take, I had an opportunity to take a two day class with him and it was absolutely amazing. Libre knife fighting guild, piper knife fighting and Craig Douglas shiv works (more grappling with wepons) is all interesting stuff to check out. Anyways great channel I try to catch all of your videos, keep it up!
My opinion, there”s more need to practice knife deployment because by the time a knife can pose a danger is at a very close distance which in theory you should have ample time to deploy your knife normally. If you got caught by surprise, then the problem is more on your threat detection/awareness rather than knife deployment. The fundamental difference between this style and FMA is this style is more passive and defensive while FMA is aggressive and offensive. I think this is where some FMA practitioners and the art has a disconnect. FMA is designed in a flow because it is meant to be executed in one continuous attack until the enemy is defeated. FMA is not a self defense art, it is a killing art.
I'm particularly interested in the way Lajolo incorporates the straight razor into the system. You can see this guy and others doing amazing straight razor training drills. And somewhat hair-raising, because they're using live sharp razors which he demonstrates. Fascinating. I especially love the straight razor for some reason, and often carry them. It was once a common street weapon in the United States, up into the 1970s. But is now obscure. Probably because not a whole lot of men are shaving with them anymore. My favorite antique razor that I restored and rebuilt, which is a Wade & Butcher English barber's razor, had clearly led a very long life of being carried in a hip pocket when I found it. Still sharp too. If only I could know where it had been before that. I'm sure it was an interesting story...
I love the use of hats...that's a very common thing in weapon martial arts...hats, cloaks, beer mugs...they all appear in much older weapon styles as well.
Remember: walking up stairs backwards with two sharpened knives is 'super smart'. :) joking. agree100% systema gets grief but they are grwat at i corporating environment. Bravissimo.
Just to drop a pill of knowledge
The most famous manuscript about fighting in the middle ages is from Italy, the Flos duellatorum. Italian mercenaries, generals and marines (but most of all, equipment) were amongst the most sought after from foreign armies from the middle ages to the XVIII century approximately. Why? Well because Italy was a land marked by constant conflicts, therefore adapt or die
I would’ve thought Flor Di Battaglia would be more famous?
@@smartstudyingdoggo9031, that is the same. Fior di battaglia is the Italian title of Latin “Flos duellatorum”, which literally means flower of duels.
@ oh wow can’t believe I missed that! You wouldn’t believe I took my Latin in school, considering that I didn’t even notice it, sorry…
The "Arditi" Italian Spec. Forces of WW1 were trained specifically in Knife Fighting. They ran into the trenches with their Knives instead of rifles and commenced to dispatch the enemy. Brave,Very Brave.
bayonet beats knife.
Darn, now I'll get 20 replies about shovels.
I know about the shovel beeing superior in theory.
I am just pointing out that Knife+Stick is superior to just Knife
@@Scarletraven87 Not if you have to turn quickly in a narrow trench. And if your first thrust is a miss, the opponent can easily grab the "stick" (a rifle isn't handy as a spear) and make his way to you. It is also easier to deviate than a hand-held knife, since you can basically do only a forward-thrusting movement as an effective attack (not very good for slashing).
Bravo
@@mariosebastiani3214 Please, try to imagine how would you use a trench to outmaneuvre a spear
@@Scarletraven87 Did you ever train to fight against a spear? I do. Spears have the advantage of reach, but when you deviate the sharp point, the rest is harmless. you don't "outmaneuvre" something with a greater reach, you close the distance to avoid the dangerous part. Normally, a spear user who holds it with both hands could try to hit you with the back end... not so much in a trench. Also, a rifle with a bayonet isn't nearly as handy as a spear, so it's easier (less reach too). And if we're storming a trench, I get the guy who's back is towards me. The riskiest moment is when jumping in, cause the rifle-and-bayonet guy has all the advantages: one last shot, and an easy trajectory to intercept with the point. That's why the Arditi used assault grenades before jumping in.
Imagine when the OP finds out that Italians have a REALLY long living Martial Arts traditions that involves from swords, spears and polearms to knifes and even clean hands systems, and that Italy had THE best knight the world has ever seen: Fiore dei Liberi, the man, the legend.
oh i thought you were guna say salvator fabris... disapointment ensues.
@@water737 haha, the one disappointed is me. Why would I mention Salvator Fabris, when he dealt ONLY in rapiers, cloaks and daggers, when I could mention Fiore Dei Liberi, who dealt with pretty much anything you can use to attack, parry or defend yourself with, lived 200 years before Salvator, and clearly inspired his Scienza d'Arme?
Why would I not mention THE best knight of all times, the same figure of Miyamoto Musashi from the West?
Makes bsolutely no sense to mention Salvator instead of Fiore.
@sombraarthur incorrect fabris was adept at all the same things he just did not write about them he was clearly a wrestler and mentions that he is not adding it to his book and based on his book we can also gleam.he was proficient with polearms and partisans as many weapons masters of the time must be, if we look at Johann jeorge pascha he has wrestling, fencing, partisan work and so on.
I would still count fabris as one of Italy's greatest knights if not the greatest as coming from relatively humble beginnings went on to serve a king for a long period.
But if you want to talk all time greatest knight I think that title has been claimed by William Marshall which damn his story is pretty nuts.
@@water737 I think you did not get it, bruv. I was talking about THE one, THE best Italian master of all times, not William Marshall, who was ENGLISH, mate.
Focus on that ITALIAN part.
I never said that Salvator was not one of the greatest Italian knights, one of the greatest Italian masters, I said that the best of them all, was Fiore.
You preffer Salvator over Fiore, and that is okay... But, you cannot deny that between both, Fiore was more important, more influential, and more in the general connoisseur of HEMA than Salvator is.
You might think it is a shame, and that is fine. But, Salvator came to expand duels, foremost, and warcraft later. Fiore is on the other hand, first is warcraft, then duels, because through warcraft, duels are just a reduction of the numbers.
Clearly, Fiore is the European counterpart to Miyamoto Musashi, unbeatable.
@@sombraarthur mate you did literally state and i quote: "Italy had THE best knight the world has ever seen" thus i threw in william marshall. he grew up in normandy anyway so eh.
people tend to froth the longsword stuff far more than anything else so that was inevitable and absolutely fiore is massively influential because he covered so much theres so many extra books i wish there were i wish koeppe finished his second book before he passed and if he did that we had a copy, i wish we have fabris doing wrestling and dagger fighting that would be sick. or a demonstration in the book of taking a spear from a guy with a rapier which is actually legit with his posture.
i think theres cases for either orfiore had more printed material and that makes him far more influential today or even in italy at the time he lived being a well known duelling coach and in the same breadth fabris influenced the northern european fencing styles of denmark down to middle germany and in italy also and was complimented by spaniards, but it was perhaps a bigger and more easily traveled world in his day.
besides we all know lichtenauer was the GOAT anyway ;) :P
Master Lajolo is a very legit martial artist; I really like a lot of things in his system (f.e. the idea to train "gun AND knife" or the idea of "train in enviroment" etc etc). Nice video ;-)
This is not Italian anything. He is a student of my old teacher William Sanders who was a Silat Guy 23 years ago then, then called it IRISH STICK, now he calls it ITALIAN knife fighting. OMG, and he would have his students use fake credentials back then as well, we were the only accredited certified Indonesian school of Pencak Silat. I recognize these moves any where. He has a personality flaw or something where he wants recognition, changes cultures every decade. This is not authentic, historical, classic Italian anything. Google William Sanders Silat. Watch his movements in old videos. I hope he does a follow up video apologizing. He is plagiarizing his Indonesian teachers for his EGO. My school 23 years ago was King Dragon Silat in Farmington Hills Michigan. It closed when his His head instructor and him fell out. Half wanted to go with Sanders some wanted to stay with Jeff Davidson. Then Sanders changed to Irish Stick and lost more students. So he only wanted to keep students that paid well and worshiped him, and defended for him by Trolling the internet for his honor LOL. OMG can't wait to share this with my old classmates. They are going to get a kick out of this. But sanders flow and moves are genuine, just not Italian. He is a Narcissist
Has he ever been in an actual knife fight?
@@AZ-kr6ffand u?
@@MatteoArgaliaGalli-dc4ph
I can't remember.
Progetto Razzia!!! Hahaha, che mito!
He is one of the best knife practitioners. Excellent structure, footwork, angles. They do have a fencing approach, which possibly shows connections to Italian medieval fencing/HEMA. Well done for bringing the style forward.
This is not Italian anything. He is a student of my old teacher William Sanders who was a Silat Guy 23 years ago then, then called it IRISH STICK, now he calls it ITALIAN knife fighting. OMG, and he would have his students use fake credentials back then as well, we were the only accredited certified Indonesian school of Pencak Silat. I recognize these moves any where. He has a personality flaw or something where he wants recognition, changes cultures every decade. This is not authentic, historical, classic Italian anything. Google William Sanders Silat. Watch his movements in old videos. I hope he does a follow up video apologizing. He is plagiarizing his Indonesian teachers for his EGO. My school 23 years ago was King Dragon Silat in Farmington Hills Michigan. It closed when his His head instructor and him fell out. Half wanted to go with Sanders some wanted to stay with Jeff Davidson. Then Sanders changed to Irish Stick and lost more students. So he only wanted to keep students that paid well and worshiped him, and defended for him by Trolling the internet for his honor LOL. OMG can't wait to share this with my old classmates. They are going to get a kick out of this. But sanders flow and moves are genuine, just not Italian. He is a Narcissist
@@the1knifepro169 thanks for being the educated one in the room.
@@the1knifepro169ua-cam.com/video/q_j9PlkGUYk/v-deo.htmlsi=c2JrIalVPPHs-oYt
Έχει και στην Αθήνα σχολή έμαθα για το ιταλικό στιλέτο
O please give me a break...Learn something about combat before you comment on the issue of knife fighting...😮
The basis of this style is traditional Italian "fencing (scherma)", which is a martial art in which bare-handed combat, sword, sabre, stick, knife etc. are used. Olympic fencing descends from it, like archaic boxing, that of the 18th century.
Yes, yes. I agree 100% my friend.
There are only 2 schools of Olympic fencing. Italian and Hungarian. Hungarian being faster without frills won over the Italian. The action is in the wrist like in Chinese sword fighting as opposed to the swinging arm in Italian.
He flings those scissors like a balisong knife. Very interesting vid. Italian posturing is so different, also... it looks soooo..... Italian, I love it. Great idea training on a staircase and on REAL environments... Lo adoro.
I train in real enviroment cos I train all day long ahahah in italia ovviamente... qui ci si adatta non ce lo deve dire Bruce, dobbiamo essere Like Water, se pensiamo...
Quelli che non lo fanno di solito si arricchiscono qui da noi invece ahahha
I love the use of the hat. In capoeira, the old masters would sew a weight into the back of the hat. They'd use it as a defensive/offensive weapon against straight razors.
Not a weight - they would sewn a type of steel bowl on the interior of the hat, allowing them to use the hat as a shield akin to a stylized buckler.
Also, how do you think that hat could keep itself in one's head during their spins?
This is based on sword fighting during the Renaissance period. The switching comes from the use of bracers. It would allow you to switch the position of the knife safely and be able to block without serious or lethal cuts. Knife also acts as a shield while changing positions. This is a very old system of fighting. I would guess it’s probably 500 years old. I wonder how far back he could trace his lineage.
funny I traced his movements to Pikiti Tersia from the Philippines... absolutely nothing he is doing is European based except for his attempt at linear footwork which is plain awful.
Italian school of swordsmanship has a long tradition and daggers together with rapiers were essential in duels and general fighting especially when used by their mercenaries called "condottieri"
@@emillyyelen5169 exactly right! another reason this video is so scammy. Not one mention of that! Not one bit of research went into this making this a bromance documentary.
@@emillyyelen5169 nitpicking but, the "condottieri" where the leaders (from the word condurre which means to lead). The mercenaries themselves were called "compagni" (literally translates as companions or mates) and the outfits where called "compagnie di ventura" (adventuring companies). I am Italian, by the way.
@@LouKiss Europeans have a very long history of Sword and Knife fighting. They didn't learn it from the Philipinos. When you look at the Roman Gladius, you are looking at a short blade sword the techniques adopt well to the Dagger or Knife. All through history there have been styles of Knife/Dagger fighting. It is not something they learned when they came to the Phillipines.
I recommend looking into esgrima criollo- Argentinian knife fighting- if you haven’t already. They use ponchos for distractions and defense. Beautiful in a deadly way with fascinating history.
Sounds amazing. Writing it down
Hatian machete fighting ("Tire machete")& Puerto-Rican machete and axe fighting (aka "Guazabara")... they're really captivating to look at in action. The evolution, history and application is beyong interesting.
The use of the poncho as a defensive tool in a knife fight used to be more common throughout Latin American countries. If you watch old Latin American movies with fight scenes, you will occasionally see some people using their poncho/coat as a defensive tool.
Interesting. The knifes looks like small arming swords. I get confirmation bias for my first impression of sword and buckler.
In real knife fights, it's almost impossible to identify the style used. The thing is so quick and brutal that all styles looks the same thing.
There are many Italian knife fighting systems. State recognized maybe. But there are other systems used by the Italian military. If you keep digging you will find more and connections to other weapons canne fighting where they are taught in connection. This is not my favorite Italian system but there are others. Really cool that you highlighted this
Have you looked into the Sykes Fairbairn commando knife fighting that was developed during and after World War II? The stories that they told as police in Shanghai and the fighting are legendary. It would be interesting to see how it stacks up against our contemporary martial arts culture.
everybody who is curious about these things has heard that...
and when you already mention that you could have said that knife is SAS symbol also
I am quite a fan of the founder of the OSS, precursor to our CIA.
the two have very different goals. The goal of fairbairn is to take out a sentry nice and silent. lagiolo shows actaul fighting when the 2 opponents agreed to enter a fight, there is no surprise exept for the change of hands. Lagiolo moves a lot both hands and feet while avoiding the opponents hits, this may result in dropping the knife especially that a small knife
@@emillyyelen5169the SAS emblem is a short sword. You may be thinking of the royal Marines commando badge which is the faiburn sykes dagger.
In Italian (definitely in Sicilian) knife fighting, such fights were stylised duels, not street thuggery, not killing matches. The stylised moves were an essential part of the ritual. It was all about looking good, showing your bravery and honour and humiliating your opponent with damaging, but rarely lethal cuts.
Deaths did occur, but they were not the primary focus, it was a honour duel not an execution. Think ‘deadly dance’ rather than ‘street brawl’.
I observe this Italian guy for a long time, aside from his apparent masterful skills, I love his taste in clothes, he's always so impeccably dressed.
Same here! I have always liked his use of shaving razors
That’s Italy for ya
yeah he is a noble
i mean from a real noble family
3:00 in italy double sided blades are legally weapons and not used as pocket knives.
6:40 straight razors were a common weapon,expecially in the south, scissors also Many pocket knives have a square tip design because by law they could be made longer.
The main dueling and fighting pattern in Sicily was the Liccasapuni, soaplicker knife.
Italian martial arts mostly consists of these regional styles of stick and knife fencing. The was a strong culture of dueling in the south,so many peculiar dueling knives designs.
Stick fighting was the other side,schools teach both. The recently created a national competition called Liu-Bo.
Honestly,it is a very underdevelopped sector,there is no martial culture in Italy outside of Boxing and TMA.
this is 100% legit.
well said and completely true and accurate (I am an italian expatriate, a knife collector and kali trainee, albeit a bad one)
Unfortunately the martial arts culture in italy is dead, even for boxing and other more popular martial arts, italians nowdays are scared of pain and hard work, unfortunate, expetially when you consider than in the past we were a warrior culture and we taught martial arts to the world
@@adolfhipsteryolocaust3443 I only partialy agree.yes italian grew softer like everywhere else. But the problem is the stigma attached to anything that it is not soccer. Karate is, basicaly, the only martial art you can practice without being called a maniac or similar. Aikido? you automaticaly become a steven seagall wannabe... Kali? what are you, a wannabe killer? it is ignorance more than anything else.... which is even worse than what you described. This led, over time, to a serious shrinkage of offer... (I had to drive 40 minutes to practice Kali... where I live now, in 40 minutes by car I have at least 45 proposal in everything martial arts related) add to this the not exactely popula cost and you get the point
@@udp1073 not just that, mma is also straight illegal in italy, i practice in mma and you can't ground and pound, also gyms are not that serious, we train too little and so on, there is a reason why there is no high level italian fighter in any combat sport, our society and government wants us weak cigarettes
The Arditi were an Italian unit in WW1 who fought the war armed only with knives
Not "only", but they got famous for that because they wanted the close contact with enemies, the greatest form of courage and honor.
First special force in history.
They were also the first to parachute behind enemy lines, right during WW1, in silent infiltrations one at a time, with two-seater planes equipped with homemade hatches. Almost nobody knows this.
Arditi means brave/fearless
As a kiro (Ilustrisimo tony diego line) practitioner, spot on the itallian knife spar and Ilustrisimo analysis, sir!
Fun fact: ilustrisimo has lots of Spanish and Italian blade influences.
It’s my favorite fma
@@inside_fighting coach arnold is in the us now, i hope you get a chance to attend one of his seminars/workshops!
@@pepemanikan2808 Do you know if he is in florida at all? Or near there?
@@inside_fighting he just finished 2 days in florida!! He'll be in Cincinnati, Ohio, next! Then NY...you could connect with Mr. Dan Lowman since he is our rep there
@@pepemanikan2808 thank you
This is my new favorite self defense channel!!! Keep up the the good work!!!!!!
I agree. I find he's very in depth and spot on
Appreciate that
Mike, Nice hat, especially the brim:)
Great video and thank you for featuring him. We are hopefully sponsoring him for a seminar in March 2024 in California.
I like what Grandmaster Oliver Garduce of the Pintados system says:
"Play with your knife all the time and become familiar "
Your channel has really grown on me bro❤
Thanks. I wear a wide brim wool hat everyday and I find it to be the best tool in my box set but I never knew it could be used in self defense for a blade. I always used it for spiders and the occasional snake in the blackberry patch
It would make sense for there to be things that look like Eskrima, because the Italian and Spanish fencing traditions are very related and Eskrima is influenced by the Spanish fencing tradition. Think the "Manual del Baratero". Also, regarding fedora use, there are various European fencing manuals that show using the hat as a parrying device, especially with smallsword and knife, so this is definitely a historical technique with a long European pedigree. Scissors were used by the Spanish and Italians for duels, especially horse and sheep grooming shears.
Yes. Spanish gypsies were known for their use of shears/ scissors. Manual Baratero has a lot of such images.
Some FMA systems does incorporate fencing styles like kali ilustrisimo and more modern system. More traditional system favors footwork and slashing motions.
nella prima parte dei secoli 1500 1600 spagna e alcune parti di italia che erano spagnole o comuni che prestavano all'impero furono i primi a colonizzare e o commerciare, anche i samurai furono impressionati dagli spadaccini portoghesi mi pare@@MrUod !
Grazie
Magellan first Spaniard to visit Mactan 1521...died and killed by Lapu-Lapu...a known expert in Kali martial arts...maybe when the Spaniards came...the art evolve...when the Japanese came another evolution...Kali is keep evolving adapting other martial arts .. judo, jujitsu , Kung Fu, wrestling are taught in our Kali school...even boxing
Thanks for sharing another interesting style of martial arts with us! Love how you keep it positive, which is sadly rare today with so many people trashing other styles.
Absolutely agree that training in real environments is super important. Some buddies and I used to train in abandoned buildings. You can pick up so much training on stairs, in narrow hallways, and doorways/entryways that you just won’t know always training on mats. Of course, I’m also thankful for how much I’ve gotten out of training on mats too.
I agree completely, I practiced Bujinkan for about 8 months. Very picked on art for many legitimate reasons, but one thing I did learn was your environment changes everything. My instructor at the time would clutter our tiny training hall with lots of objects. Eg tables, plastic chairs, medicine ball and we would roll one on one amongst it. On one occasion a day off work I was so badly bruised. Environment changes everything.
Love this guy. Been watching him for years lol
Back in the renaissance period duelling with rapiers they used cloaks in the offhand as a shield, to deflect, distract and even put on top of the blade to divert it for an opening attack. So the hat trick probably had old roots
This guy is an all around knife/blade handler, obviously familiar with all bladed weapons, tools, pieces of art; wielding scissors like balisongs and Kerambits. Very cool guy we can easily relate to..
When it comes to Italian knife fighting, I've heard of a style or system called Paranzas Cortas, but this looks incredibly advanced, and I can see some similarities to knife usage in Kali. I say this as a casual observer considering I only have basic training with knives and most of my experience is in unarmed forms of martial arts, although I've always wanted to learn Kali or some form of weapons-focused martial art.
Lately I've been getting into Kuntao Silat because I'm disabled (I'm almost 31, but I've had back and hip problems since I was in my early 20's due to being overworked at a job I had at the time and then a botched surgery that was supposed to fix it) but the movements utilized in Silat seem to agree with me despite my limitations.
I've also learned the basics of cane fighting since I walk with a cane, but as I've stated already, the bulk of my experience is fighting unarmed. I hope that in addition to my learning of Silat I can learn more about the specifics of using the Karambit as they are fascinating blades. I first became interested in the use of blades because I'm a collector.
Paranza Corta. Without "S", italian might sound like spanish but is different. There's no use of the letter "S" at the end of the words.
@@Tanieleddu I always found that confusing because I've seen some people spell it with an s and others not so I wasn't sure which was correct. Thanks for letting me know though and for taking the time to do so. I hope that you're doing well and having a great day :)
@@loneronin6813 no problem! Maybe tomorrow will be my turn to get a correction from you and become wiser! Have a great day!
@@Tanieleddu Thanks so much! I hope you have a great day as well! :D
There are several knife fighting school in Italy, from north to south. In Rome the duelers were used to protect themselves by wrapping their jackets around their foreamrs. I'm talking about mortal duels. I think that this kind of protection was used everywhere.
Looks similar to eskrima probably because they came from the same system namely the espada 'y daga of spain. Italians developed their version and filipinos developed their own version after learning the main art.
Another way to state what you said about protecting “where the sun don’t shine”, is that everywhere a joint bends, it bends to protect a major artery. The neck tucks to protect the carotid artery, the shoulder to protect the subclavian artery, the elbow to protect the brachial artery, the wrist to protect the radial artery and so on.
Thank you so much for introducing this incredible martial artist to us. Id have never found him otherwise. Loads to take from him. 🙏🙏
I’ve seen the wounds from knife fighting personally from gang violence. They definitely maintain measure/distance. The same is true with machete fighting. The old European manuscripts weren’t lying about maintaining measure. Even the traditional Japanese swordsmanship styles do the same.
Although I’m surprised people don’t practice deployments regularly. I guess not enough first or second hand experience.
They had a unit of soldiers that shocked the allies with their knife skills
When I practice ground fighting (only 1 knife); I find that if I'm on bottom with the knife, hand changes become the most important thing for both knife retention and creating attacking opportunities.
WW2 Combatives in Italy were inspired by Fiore. That said, this gentleman certainly has influence from SE asian knife arts. Not a bad thing. Classical Italian dagger is just longer so the movements are different as a result. Cloaks/jackets were also a bigger part of Italian knife/dagger. AKA cloak and dagger. Nice modern rebirth...renaissance? of Italian knife fighting.
Impressive indeed. Nice find and great video. Having trained kali I think you make a great point about drawing the blade. I recall nothing covering that. But when I trained in kali years ago we had plastic knives with felt edges that we put chalk on and them sparred. It was very humbling. But as you got better, those chalk marks were just on the forearms. But everyone always got marked. It was great training, and I rarely see anyone practice knife sparring.
"Everyone always gets marked" -- yes exactly so. I've never been shot, but many years ago I used to associate with some shady people in my misspent youth and have been slashed and stabbed (back then an 11" stiletto was my weapon). We used to have a saying about knife fights, "the loser dies at the scene, the winner dies on the way to the hospital". Of course that's not always literally true; in reality or at least my experience when _both_ people have a knife the fight rarely lasts long beyond the first blood. It's almost always the unarmed one who ends up seriously hurt or killed; for that's when the armed aggressor feels safe in attacking. But I have witnessed a few *serious*, life and death knife-on-knife fights, and mind you this is 100% undisciplined street fighting stuff, and the injuries are fking horrific. That's what eventually got me into actual training.... But even the best will end up cut or stabbed in a knife fight I don't care how well trained you are or how good you are unless you're made of steel you're going to get hurt.
Well said. Once in a while someone like you comes along and dispells all the mythical shenanigans tells it the way it is. In a knife fight..all the combatants lose or are severely injured. As usual it's the bad guys who resort to knives with an element of surprise. Having one and the skills to counter that is useful as it reminds the assailant of the mutually destructive nature of the confrontation. Hopefully, self-preservation kicks in without any combat taking place and both parties de-esclate. If it's impossible to disengage better look for something to grab with a free hand to use as a shield quickly and fight for dear life with the objective of getting away quickly when the opportunity presents itself.
Look.. I think you must see our Esgrima Criolla called esgrima Gaucha in the Río de la Plata, there are 3 styles, esgrima criolla argentina, esgrima criolla oriental (from Uruguay) and esgrima criolla brasilera.
The Gaucho is from Uruguay, Argentina and Brasil, in Uruguay and Brasil this martial art it's passed from father to sons or daugthers, but in Argentina my friend Jorge Prina it's a good master.
The Gaucho is one of the best warriors you can see, because it is the mix from indian+european+african.
We fight to live in a world were you kill or die.
Thanks
Filipino martial arts have elements of Spanish and European sword styles :)
The northern and central do not the southern Philippines because the Spanish were never able to conquer that region.
The northern and central do not the southern Philippines because the Spanish were never able to conquer that region.
The northern and central do not the southern Philippines because the Spanish were never able to conquer that region.
The northern and central do but not the southern Philippines because the Spanish were never able to conquer that region.
The northern and central do but not the southern Philippines because the Spanish were never able to conquer that region.
Italians have to be fancy, I guess, switching up grips in the middle of an engagement. His techniques in the one-on-one demonstrations look formidable.
in italy during knife fight it's used a towel like around the hand opposed to the blade, used like a shield and a distraction too
Ah a rich tradition of knife fighting in Italy !
The Vendetta will not vendetta itself...
2:34 - agreed... FMA always begins from a stance of presumed combat. What I like here is a lot of wrist camming... fine movement makes a big difference with short blades.
At the beginning of the 20 century, the Italian gangsters used old razors or stilettos due to the lack of weapons and used them as gangsters in the streets of NYC, but this later faded into the background because after that they were able to access revolvers, pistols and automatic weapons.
A little while ago, I commented on a Funker Tactical video in which GN stated that sinawali was essentially useless in training with the knife. Out of everything I added in comment, he decided to respond that "there is no such thing as a knife fighter". If you train knife then you are a knife fighter, but this lajolo guy seems to be going much, much further in training than I've experienced in my kali background.
It's wild that we train all these drills in FMA; all the sensitivity drills, all the efficient footwork and hand movement, all the reactions that up-close range creates and here we are looking at what a knife fight more truly is. It really makes me rethink my kali training and how to deal with this. I'm far more 'aggressive' in stick fighting, meaning I will purposefully close the distance to get in for strikes but my opponents almost always tend to be more skittish and dancing around out of range and just not fighting. We don't use padding but we aren't dog brothers either, so they don't want to risk getting hurt. Knife fighting is different physically and psychologically and this video shows that. The sparring videos really showcase how "stupid" knife fighting really is because managing range becomes a long, drawn out game and if you have that amount of time you should be rethinking what the hell is happening. It's like staring at the stove for five minutes and purposefully not contemplating the fact that you are trying to put your hand on the hot burner. Getting jumped in an alleyway is an immediate, crazy situation but if you have a knife, the opponent has a knife and you two are facing off for minutes trying to figure out who can cut the other's fingers then there is an egregious failure in training on your part to end it.
Sorta like Bruce Lee's epiphany about how his fight took too long and how ill prepared he was to deal with it despite his training. Anyway, thanks for showcasing this, these videos are great!
This is very cool. A complete martial art. Thanks for sharing. I'm going to incorporate as much of this as I can with my Kali.
I love your open mind approach to martial arts. I would not hesitate to say that it means that you are a master and, at any rate, I would be more than glad to train under your guidance. You are close to Spain. I do not know if you have time to spare but it would be great if you came to share your wisdom. Thank you for being there and share your no bs overview of the different styles. Best of luck!
I hope to visit Seville in March 🙏🏼 thank you for watching
2:25 typical Italian gesture.😊
this is not a knife fight, they have a normal conversation but in the last phase, before it starts to get serious
In the sparring video, at 6:32 he uses a fragment of a very famous tune in the Pizzica style from southern Puglia (called Pizzica de San Vito). A nod to the local tradition. The pizzica was used, among other things, as pretend fighting - similarly to capoehra in Brazil.
Uh really this isn't particularly unique. See mattei florin at tactical combat systems. I'm not saying this is bad by any stretch. But real old school Italian knife fighting can be found in the book "the Sicilian blade". If you can find it. It mostly deals with stabbing and poking with a stiletto type knife. Where I used to go we taught a combination of that and the Philippines style with good old basic thug-fu thrown in.
All these videos are you making about unheard of martial art. I did the research back in the AOL days when they didn't have a lot of videos on UA-cam. it's cool you are making them
The internet’s golden age :)
We do a lot of knife sparring at my Kali school! It can really build distance management, timing and footwork.
Yea obviously lol
Master Lajola’s belly also has the perfect amount of adipose tissue to help provide an extra layer of protection in a knife fight.
This is what peak performance looks like for knife fighting.
you got my like for that epic intro, well played sir!
The hat thing is something done in the navaja knife style of fighting that was done by gitanos in Spain. They used their hat and their clothes to blind the opponent and as defensive tool.
Really very cool and interesting system. Thanks for sharing. Also you're so right about what you said in 17:46, that people inherently don't know how handle a weapon, be it a knife, a stick or a gun
There was a unit of Italians in WW1 that I believe were only armed with knives and seemed they were pretty feared. I am curious if this was what they were trained in?
Not only daggers, but also pistols and hand grenades. They were called Arditi (Valiants), and they were basically shock troops and infiltrators in the enemy trenches.
Being Italian I think it shows the best skill from my heritage. I myself practiced knife fighting which was Petiki Tursa so now I can implement this skill with it.
Knife (and stick) fighting was a thing in Mediterranean Europe. A lot of local differences...
Check out "manual of the baratero" in example which is from Spain but has very similar movements and tactics of Italian knife fencing.
Also FMA got influenced by Italian sword masters of the Renaissance period, they arrived along with the Spaniards as mercenaries and gave the mathematical and geometrical aspects typical of FMA.
A lot of those geometrical aspects already existed in FMA. Remember, the roots of FMA are shared with Silat, and Silat is very analytical regarding angles, body positioning, etc.
Fma are heavy influenced by spanish fencing, specially the "verdadera destreza" (true skill) that all about angles.
And the Italians and Spanish were influenced by African stick fighting, which is probably the oldest styles in the world. The English knife styles were influenced by Indian and so on and so forth.
3:14 so i think the knife he’s using is a slip joint. in italy you have to declare a regular reason to have a knife on you in public. most traditional european folding knives from previous generations are slip joints because having a knife which locks could be seen as tactical or more difficult to explain away. i haven’t seen the video but i think he uses his forearm to close the blade.
I went down this rabbit hole a year or more ago, on UA-cam. There's another guy that has some strange movements and claims a long lineage in Italy. I'd bet, given the terrain, that Italy has many different knife fighting/dueling styles. A quick look at their historic knives and you'll see several fighting folders.
I found it funny that, in his movie type video, he takes his jacket off and sets it down and uses his hat instead. Historically, people would use their jacket or cape to protect their other arm, blind their opponent, wrap the knife, disarm, hide their own knife, etc.
Several European countries had strong knife dueling traditions from at least Medieval times. Sailers worldwide learned to use knives and swords/sabers. Ship's crews were generally not homogeneous and typically added crew members from around the world as needed. They tended to stop at various ports and information was shared. It's a bit of a chicken and the egg conundrum when looking at styles, since they all had skills, techniques, tricks, and styles that spread like their venereal diseases. I'd bet Filipino arts learned from the Spanish, Malays, Chinese, Indians, and Arabs at minimum. I'd also bet that traditional arts in Spain and Italy brought back lessons learned in their ports of call. We act like the world was made up of countries completely cut off from each other, but people traveled and mixed and moved and learned from each other.
The style of the video is attributable to the southern area of the country; recently I happened to find an interview on the local history of Genoa, a large port in the North and historically one of the Maritime Republics, by a Master
As you say, it happens that in important ports, contact with other cultures, and the undergrowth that is around, can be dangerous and allows for the development of interesting combat situations
This master, Claudio Parodi, talks about walking stick, "gambetto" (hand combat) and knife of the Genoese school, traces its birth back to the Genoese merchants in Constantinople, after the Turks conquered it (so I think in the mid-1400s) and relegated them to the margins being allied with the Venetians (other Italians of a competing Maritime Republic); therefore they developed these techniques not being able to carry weapons
The little that can be seen of the "gambetto" made me think of techniques that are very similar to much better known martial arts, despite the school being very local
ua-cam.com/video/FbXYlGcaPpI/v-deo.html
First time watcher for one of your videos and have to say liking what i am seeing as such am subscribing.
The 40's style segment was the single best thing ive ever seen
Not sure which FMA you practiced but the PTK system does focus on deployment and doesn't focus on just looking pretty. It focuses on lethal effectiveness.
Intresting video thanks for sharing and the commentary, Spanish navaja is another intresting knife/style of fighting.
He is in fact also a full instrutor under Dan Inosanto so of course there is also influence from FMA.
In the nineties there was a BLACK BELT article called “on deadly ground”( also a Stephen Seagal movie, same era) and that is precisely what the article was about; covered topics like balance, traction, potential hazards, and also a little bit about footwear. Anyways, nice video. Very fascinating as I’ve never heard of Italian knife fighting but I’ve seen other Italians very handy with knives; a knife thrower to be exact, I was very impressed so “Italian knife fighting”, though I’ve never heard of it, didn’t surprise me.
I guarantee he has some silat in his background. That pattern on the floor is from pentjak silat. They also do similar movements hiding the blade, protecting vital points, etc. . Check out Joe Simonet's knife fighting stuff.
He says it on his website.
Just found your channel. Pure gold. Thanks for sharing this.
Interesting! Thank you for being so open to different styles / methods
Your comment about using the hat in knife fights... in early 1900's Buenos Aires, the Tango Scene originated in the rough clubs near the docks. the men who frequented these clubs often had knife fights and used their scarves in the same way as this guys used their hats.
The first SF in the world were the ARDITI, they used this style.
We (italians) were very fond of knife fighting with usually regional shaped knives during 1800 and a little further. Most famous kinds are the "Pattada" or "Resolza". The thing was so popular you usually could find a wood bench or block in front of inns and restaurants with a sign that said "si vuoi entrare nell'ostello, sullo ceppo lo coltello" "If you wish to enter the hostel, stuck your knife in the wood" to avoid duels and mess inside. It was a common thing. I Highly suggest taking a look to the sardinian knives I mentioned above and it's use. It's very, very impressive.
Thank you for your distinguished efforts in providing us with everything interesting and enjoyable in the world of martial arts. Your information is considered a reference in combat methods. I hope that you will devote episodes to Russian combat methods, especially combat sambo and hand-to-hand military combat.
Danilo is a really cool guy, he is good at what he does and he has mad style!
Paranza corta siciliana is also officially recognized by CSEN (National Educational Sports Center) and CONI (Italian National Olympic Committee). Check it out. It is originated by sicilian shepherd's necessity to defend themselves by brigands and it was also common for people to duel with knives in order to end disagreements or defend their honor. I'm pretty sure Italy is full of sticks and knives fighting schools due to the nature of our country (each region kinda has its own story and has been dominated by different people throughout history) but I'm not aware of any other tbh
Wow I train on stairs I’ve never seen anyone else do this. Lajolo reminds me a lot of classic 52 blocks, but I’m quite sure the styles have crossed paths.
As I understand it, knife fighting was analyzed a few years back, a statistical approach to it if you will. Most knife fights or attacks are in prison. And experienced murderers in prison were interviewed, they know what works and what doesn't work. Their stance is quite defensive since one of the riskiest things that could happen in a knife fight is being disarmed by your opponent, or the man. The knife is kept concealed as long as possible and when disclosed, it's kept close to the body. Simple methodology, you're jabbing with your left arm and waiting for an opening for your knife with your right hand. Once it opens, go for it several dozen times until the enemy is neutralized. Yes, you might get cut in the left arm, but it's the price you pay for playing with knives in the first place. Still this Italian gentleman has a lot of style to him. Certainly flashy enough.
Using the hat reminds a lot to me the sword and cape discipline in the Bolognese style of Renaissance fencing, it is always better to have something to avoid getting cut or parry things when you fight.
Love this video. Watching as an expat in Thailand.
Looking forward to training out here
I hope links I gave are informative. Thanks for showing this and great coverage
Yea appreciate the info 🙏🏼
I came across Piper and Libre Fighting recently in a seminar coming from a certified Inosanto Academy Instructor. You should totally check it, it's savage, and very unique.
Also, thanks for showing so much of the martial arts world, it's awesome.
I really love the Italian knife using special forces that attacked at night by jumping into trenches and bunkers with only blades in hand.. hardcore definition
The WW1 "ARDITI"
That was the "Arditi". Very Brave men.
one thing i learnt in the military is very simply.
"if its spectacular its not practical and what is practical is not spectacular"
waving the knife around as such is great for showmanship but does nothing outside of that. Its a "sandwhich filler" basically put in there to do nothing but look better.
@@paulfarley-g2v military knife fighting is vastly different than what you see in many countries on the streets for numerous reasons. A knife in field combat is a last resort. A knife for killing someone involves involves sneaking up on them and is not much different at that point as any weapon as the element of surprise is everything… but in the street where one person draws a blade and the other does this kind of hand movement is relevant to avoid the knife hand from becoming an easy target.
My Father taught me, never to bring a weapon to a fight that you cannot defend against.
Because you could be disarmed, and it could be used against you.
Well-dressed gentlemen. No martial art could look more italian.
Just wow! I can see a lot of fencing in this, still incredible.
As an Italian I have never heard of this style,Once upon a time I know that men rarely killed each other,Only if someone insulted someone else's honor was he challenged to a duel, or treacherously killed,It depends on the type of offense that was committed. For example, if someone touched someone else's wife, he was killed with dishonor,In any case this was done in southern Italy, In northern Italy at least in recent times, as far as I know, people were calmer and less "bloody"
Here in south Italy, in old times, we used to wrap our jacket on the left harm ad use it as "shield" during honor knife duels
At 12:05 you are completelly correct, imho.
I know two guys that at least 20 years ago practiced Katori Shinto Ryu. During a training with wooden katanas, they were doing a lot of cool Hollywood stuff, both super aggresive and secure. At some point, the master had enough of that shit. He stopped them, tetrieved the two wooden katanas, and gave them two REAL katanas. At the "go", they remained at least at 4 meters from each other, and none of them wanted to make the first move.
So, yes, if you have a knife and the other guy has it too, probably you won't feel so confident to strike.
I have trained in FMA and love the art but it does have its drawbacks. There are a couple other people you should check out if you haven't heard of them before, that have much more of a realistic modern approach. Tribe 13 UA-cam channel is great. Ed caldron(he was on the joe rogan podcast) has a similar take, I had an opportunity to take a two day class with him and it was absolutely amazing. Libre knife fighting guild, piper knife fighting and Craig Douglas shiv works (more grappling with wepons) is all interesting stuff to check out. Anyways great channel I try to catch all of your videos, keep it up!
FMA has numerous different systems. Which one did you train in?
OMG this was soo useful brother. Thanks and these italians man, that's how they cutup pizza into these fine triangles! :D
My opinion, there”s more need to practice knife deployment because by the time a knife can pose a danger is at a very close distance which in theory you should have ample time to deploy your knife normally. If you got caught by surprise, then the problem is more on your threat detection/awareness rather than knife deployment.
The fundamental difference between this style and FMA is this style is more passive and defensive while FMA is aggressive and offensive. I think this is where some FMA practitioners and the art has a disconnect. FMA is designed in a flow because it is meant to be executed in one continuous attack until the enemy is defeated. FMA is not a self defense art, it is a killing art.
I'm particularly interested in the way Lajolo incorporates the straight razor into the system. You can see this guy and others doing amazing straight razor training drills. And somewhat hair-raising, because they're using live sharp razors which he demonstrates. Fascinating. I especially love the straight razor for some reason, and often carry them. It was once a common street weapon in the United States, up into the 1970s. But is now obscure. Probably because not a whole lot of men are shaving with them anymore. My favorite antique razor that I restored and rebuilt, which is a Wade & Butcher English barber's razor, had clearly led a very long life of being carried in a hip pocket when I found it. Still sharp too. If only I could know where it had been before that. I'm sure it was an interesting story...
Bob Brean was 70 when he taught me . He was an amazing teacher.
That hat thing is cool, when I was a younger man I got in a knife fight and I had to wrap my arm with my jacket to use as a defensive blocker.
That intro gets me every time😂
That intro 😂😂😂
You got a sub just based off of that, and the video was well worth the like.
Thanks for sharing.
I love the use of hats...that's a very common thing in weapon martial arts...hats, cloaks, beer mugs...they all appear in much older weapon styles as well.
The weird rolling the blade over his arm to switch grips seems like an amazing way to accidentally drop your knife.
Hahhaha but it looks very pretty 🤔 i recently got more in to a traditional form of Silat and they do it with longer blades for rotating the grip
The strange moves are made to make the knife invisible for the other person. He will know know where the next hit will come.
Remember: walking up stairs backwards with two sharpened knives is 'super smart'. :) joking. agree100% systema gets grief but they are grwat at i corporating environment. Bravissimo.