Jailhouse Rock (fighting Style)

Jailhouse Rock (fighting Style)

Jailhouse rock or JHR is a name which is used to describe a collection of different fighting styles that have been practiced and/or developed within US penal institutions. The different regional “styles” of JHR vary but share a common emphasis on improvisation governed by a specific set of underlying principles.

Some examples of the many styles of JHR are 52 Hand Blocks, Brick City Rock, Comstock Style, Stato. Many of these styles of JHR are thought to have evolved regionally in different penal institutions.

Jailhouse Rock if it exists is in fact one of two of the USA's only "Native Martial Arts", the other being called Rough and Tumble. As such, Jailhouse Rock, the 52 Hand Blocks and their variants may be compared to savate, which was originally a semi-codified fighting method associated with an urban criminal subculture, which underwent a gradual process of codification before becoming established as a martial art accessible by the cultural mainstream.

52 blocks has been referenced in journalist Douglas Century's Street Kingdom: Five Years Inside the Franklin Avenue Posse, as well as numerous Wu Tang Clan songs and Ted Conover's book Newjack.