Editing Savate (section)

===Early history===
[[File:Savate (colorized).jpg|thumb|Illustration from [[1847]] of French sailors practicing savate on a ship.]]
[[File:Bleu a la savate.jpg|thumb|Savate illustration from the 19th century, showing a kick similar to a ''[[rabo de arraia]]'' in capoeira.]]

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 balance on a rocking ship's deck, and that the kicks and slaps were used on land to avoid the legal penalties for using a closed fist, which was considered a [[deadly weapon]] under the law. It was known as the ''jeu marseillais'' (game from Marseille), and was later renamed ''chausson'' ([[slipper]], after the type of shoes the sailors wore). In contrast, at this time in England (the home of [[boxing]] and the [[Marquess of Queensberry rules|Queensberry rules]]), kicking was seen as unsportsmanlike.

Traditional savate was a northern French development, especially in Paris' slums, and always used heavy shoes and boots derived from its potential military origins. Street fighting savate, unlike chausson, kept the kicks low, almost never targeted above the groin, and they were delivered with vicious, bone-breaking intent. Parisian savate also featured open hand blows, in thrusting or smashing palm strikes (la baffe) or in stunning slaps targeted to facial nerves. Techniques of savate or chausson were at this time also developed in the ports of northwest Italy and northeastern Spain—hence one savate kick named the "Italian kick" (''chassé italien'').