Continuing our articles on African Martial Arts we move over the Nigeria in West African to look at the boxing style of Dambe. Much like many styles we will cover. We believe this style will have a lot of potential to be used in media like Films and TV and most especially Video Games. The Fighting Game could defo look into these.
Martial Art: Dambe
Style: Striking (Boxing)
Origin: Hausa peoples (possibly migrated from Sudan, Ancient Egypt Hellenistic Boxing techniques and cultures in the 10th century)
History: Dambe is a form of boxing martial arts associated with the Hausa people of West Africa. It is typically practiced by Butcher caste group in the Hausa community but over the last century, clans of butchers have travelled to farm villages during the harvest period to instigate a challenge (visitors vs locals) as a harvest festival event. many of the traditional terms used in the style refer to ancient warfare. But it is much more of a solid yet brutal combat sport. Its techniques are notably considered to have a visual resemblance to illustration of Ancient Egyptian Boxing (12th and 13th Dynasties) and Hellenistic Boxers, some Muslim scholars theorised it was introduced into Northern Nigeria by early migrating Hausa from the east between 10th and 11th century. It supported by the theory that the Hausa peoples may link to East and North East African nations like Ancient Egypt and Sudan through migration or trade or other form of interaction.
Culture: There are no formal weight classes, but fighters are usually matched based on their size, height and somatotypes. Matches last three rounds with no time limit. The end of the round is signified by 1) no activity, 2) one of the fighters or an official calls a halt, 3) a fighter's knee, hand or body touches the floor. Knocking your opponent down is referred to as killing the opponent.
Warriors: Fighting techniques heavily revolves around striking mostly punches. However whilst this can be compared to boxing, there are differences. Dambe fighters have a lead hand which acts as the shield. This hand is used for defensive techniques such as blocking, parrying, pushing/palm striking, grabbing and trapping (Similar to Wing Chun Trapping) and occasionally in extremely rare cases Eye Gouging. The rear hand is called the spear, it is primary used to delivering punches and is wrapped up in a rope called "Kara". In more deadlier bouts the Kara Spear hand could be covered in Adhesive Resin and glass shards to be used as a slashing or stabbing weapon. This practice is widely considered illegal now especially since traumatic injury, brain damage and even death was still possibility regardless of using glass or not. Kicking is also used but quite rare many of which are simply low kicks and stomps. In some cases warriors can wear a chain over their lead leg and use it for defensive blocks or shin kicks, the uncovered rear leg is usually only for holding ground or occasional kicks. In traditional bouts Warriors wore amulets for supernatural protection, but this is not much allowed in modern Dambe tournaments. Some lifestyle choices among boxers involve ritual smoking of Hemp or Marijuana before bouts, though many serious ones in the modern and urban areas focus strictly on strength training such as the typical stuff Modern Olympic boxers do at the gym. Unique exercises include push ups using the head (similar effects to neck bridges some wrestlers do) or single finger weight training to increase the strength of the their strikes.
Media/Potential: In recent years this style has become popular among martial art enthusiasts and people studying African cultures. YouTube Channel: Dambe Warriors. Highlights several bouts between fighters, some to name are Shagon Dan Panda, Shagon Samaila, Ali Kanem Bello, Garkuwan Goje. In terms of fictional representation there is no fighting game character to use this style (yet), ironically though first person shooter Overwatch has Doomfist. The Villainous leader of Talon's origin story sound much like fighting game character in some aspect and even his playstyle references some of Dambe characteristics such as having his gauntlet do most of his heavy damage like a spear whilst his other hand does a weaker punch and shot gun attacks to control distance like the shield hand. Finally Chadwick Boseman confirms his martial arts trainer Marrese Crump had him train in many styles of martial arts, Dambe included for the Black Panther films. Some of the techniques may not seem obvious aside from punches, trapping/grabbing, blocking and parrying. But think of T'Challa's claws and the fact the some extreme dambe technique allow kicks, gouging and using glass shards for slashing or stabbing. It would be no surprised to us if we see more of this style in future. Here's a little compilation of Overwatch Dambe boxer Doomfist in action just to show people the potential of what kind of character can be created from this style.
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