seriously folks..i was watching the Albion morris men on tv late one night when i couldn't sleep. there was this stick dance and my goodness was it hard core..looked like escrima or summat. then a guy in a lion costume..I'm thinking whoa..stick fights..lion dance..this is martial stuff..do you think the english once had their own martial art now hidden in the morris dance? or was i late night rambling?

Minerva wrote:
seriously folks..i was watching the Albion morris men on tv late one night when i couldn't sleep. there was this stick dance and my goodness was it hard core..looked like escrima or summat. then a guy in a lion costume..I'm thinking whoa..stick fights..lion dance..this is martial stuff..do you think the english once had their own martial art now hidden in the morris dance? or was i late night rambling?

I wouldn't be surprised if there was some historical connection.

I know a chap who's been researching sword skills held in Scottish Dance.

Personally, I'm hoping they will do morris dancing at London 2012, we'll do our nation proud ha ha!

Well this is an eerie coincidence...I was doing some one-to-one training a few weeks ago and we were doing some freestyle stick work. We both spontaniously began dancing and skipping and smacking our sticks together before shouting out TaiJiMorris Dancing at the same time.

If only someone had been there with a video camera..'twould have been priceless!!

The closest link I know of is that some of the terms used in the Ledall manuscript (a short medieval english longsword text) are shared with contempory dance texts. i am no expert on that though, Stevie Thurston would be the one to ask.

No direct link to morris dancing though. Singlestick fighting may have links to it. Singlestick fighting evolved as a sport/entertainment from backsword techniques and was commonly practiced at festivals and the like.

As for the version you saw, maybee they are just fairly hard core moris dancers who do escrima on the side?:)

I'm sure there is something in this idea but the bells on the legs wouldn't be useful for stealth attacks. If your mate told you he was a morris dancer would you be scared tho?

The bells lure you into a false sense of security:

*ching ching ching*
"Whats that?!".... "oh its only a morris danc-*SMACK*

"Hey nonnynonny mother f***er"

And yes. Yes I would

madfrog wrote:
Well this is an eerie coincidence...I was doing some one-to-one training a few weeks ago and we were doing some freestyle stick work. We both spontaniously began dancing and skipping and smacking our sticks together before shouting out TaiJiMorris Dancing at the same time.

If only someone had been there with a video camera..'twould have been priceless!!

I did have! Bwahahaha!

It's been sent to you've been framed already!!

Bailu Taiji wrote:
madfrog wrote:
Well this is an eerie coincidence...I was doing some one-to-one training a few weeks ago and we were doing some freestyle stick work. We both spontaniously began dancing and skipping and smacking our sticks together before shouting out TaiJiMorris Dancing at the same time.

If only someone had been there with a video camera..'twould have been priceless!!

I did have! Bwahahaha!

It's been sent to you've been framed already!!

You fool...you told her...now you will have to share the money or she will poke you to the death!!

haha..love it..perhaps they could be graded by smock colour?

Minerva wrote:
seriously folks..i was watching the Albion morris men on tv late one night when i couldn't sleep. there was this stick dance and my goodness was it hard core..looked like escrima or summat. then a guy in a lion costume..I'm thinking whoa..stick fights..lion dance..this is martial stuff..do you think the english once had their own martial art now hidden in the morris dance? or was i late night rambling?

what do you mean, 'once had?' lol, apparently my sister's seen a morris men dance turn into a real fight at a local village fete - bells and all!

whoa..for real! I got kicked out of a yoga class for starting a brawl..never realised people got so wound up chilling out! But morris men brawl must have had bells on..did they fight in rounds?