Want to Learn Something New? Read An Old Book

I recently reviewed the English translation of Jean-Joseph Renaud's Manual 'Defense In The Street'. Over the course of many years worth of looking at manuals on Self Defense, Sport Martial Arts, Combatives, etc., I have noticed a trend that is undeniable. Despite many peoples claiming to have come up with a new 'technique' or 'tactic', the truth is there is very little new under the sun.

Especially when it comes to unarmed fighting.

Whether someone came across it and decided to try it out to see if it had merit, or it just came out one day in a training session and it worked and they thought they had come up with something original is immaterial.
The fact remains that no matter what anybody thinks, the old saying holds true.

Sooner or later, everything old is new again.

As an example I'm putting up two images. You should recognize the tactic immediately. It's called 'The Fence' and it was brought out by Geoff Thompson in I believe the late 1980's.

The Fence - Geoff Thompson




And here we Jean-Joseph Renaud's version......from 1912, 70 years earlier.



To be clear, I am not making this comparison to slam Geoff Thompson in any way. It is simply my way of saying that you should not just discard something, whether it a handsaw for a sawz-all, a paint brush for a paint-sprayer, or a revolver for a semi-auto just because it appears to be the 'next big thing' being hyped in the current advertising cycle.