Savate Savate Savate (), also known as boxe française, savate boxing, French boxing or French footfighting, is a French combat sport that uses the hands and feet as weapons combining elements of English boxing with graceful kicking techniques. Only foot kicks are allowed, unlike some systems such as Muay Thai, which allow the use of the knees or shins. "Savate" is a French word for "old shoe or boot". Savate fighters wear specially designed boots. A male practitioner of savate is called a tireur while a female is called a tireuse. Savate takes its name from the French for "old shoe"
Savate (heavy footwear, especially the boots used by French military and sailors) ("cf." French-English loanwords sabot and sabotage and Spanish cognate "zapato"). The modern formalized form is mainly an amalgam of French street fighting techniques from the beginning of the 19th century. Savate was then a type of street fighting common in Paris and northern France. In the south, especially in the port of Marseille, sailors developed a fighting style involving high kicks and open-handed slaps. It is conjectured that this kicking style was developed in this way to allow the fighter to use a hand to hold onto something for