Author Archives: BartitsuSociety

For Your Listening Pleasure: “Eugen Sandow, Victorian Strongman” and “The Bare Fists of Boxing”

Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Friday, 3rd February 2012 The Art of Manliness website presents a podcast interview with David Waller, author of the new biography The Perfect Man: the Muscular Life and Times of Eugen Sandow, Victorian Stongman.  Sandow … Continue reading

Posted in Boxing, Edwardiana, Interviews, Physical Culture | Comments Off on For Your Listening Pleasure: “Eugen Sandow, Victorian Strongman” and “The Bare Fists of Boxing”

“It was jiu-jitsu!” (1906)

Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Monday, 2nd January 2012 I drew a deep breath as I mastered the contents of this momentous document. Then, just as I was about to replace it in the ingenious receptacle contrived for … Continue reading

Posted in Edwardiana, Fiction, Jiujitsu | Comments Off on “It was jiu-jitsu!” (1906)

“The Best Self Defence” (1910)

Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Thursday, 3rd November 2011 Some sound advice in this article from the Australian Northern Star of November 25, 1910. The anonymous writer may well not have been aware of Bartitsu, which actually included … Continue reading

Posted in Antagonistics | Comments Off on “The Best Self Defence” (1910)

“Foiling the Ubiquitous Thug” (1912)

Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Thursday, 27th October 2011 A selection of illustrations from the New York Tribune article Unarmed Citizens May Here Learn How To Foil The Ubiquitous Thug (March 10, 1912).

Posted in Antagonistics | Comments Off on “Foiling the Ubiquitous Thug” (1912)

Professors of Self Defence

Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Thursday, 2nd December 2010 I resolved on putting myself into the hands of some professor of self-defence, who whilst he knocked me about for his amusement, and worked me into a state of … Continue reading

Posted in Antagonistics, Editorial, Edwardiana | Comments Off on Professors of Self Defence

“New Weapon Against Hooliganism: The Walking Stick as a Means of Defence” (1902)

Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Thursday, 28th March 2019 Following the Bartitsu Club’s “Anglo-Japanese Tournament” tour of early-mid 1902, the Club dissolved and the former instructors all went their own ways.  The subject of this September 14, 1902 … Continue reading

Posted in Vigny stick fighting | Comments Off on “New Weapon Against Hooliganism: The Walking Stick as a Means of Defence” (1902)

Bartitsu on BBC3 Radio’s “A Time Traveller’s Dictionary”

Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Friday, 22nd March 2019 Dr. Naomi Paxton offers a brief but highly accurate summary of Bartitsu in this new edition of BBC3’s Time Travellers podcast series. Dr. Paxton also has a longstanding interest in suffrajitsu and has previously offered … Continue reading

Posted in Canonical Bartitsu, Interviews, Suffrajitsu | Comments Off on Bartitsu on BBC3 Radio’s “A Time Traveller’s Dictionary”

Edith Garrud and Suffrajitsu Featured in “Beauty Bites Beast”

Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Thursday, 21st March 2019 Self-defence expert Ellen Snortland’s 2016 documentary Beauty Bites Beast includes a short feature on Edith Garrud’s role in training the “Amazons” of the women’s suffrage movement. The suffrajitsu excerpt, including images … Continue reading

Posted in Documentary, Suffrajitsu, Video | Comments Off on Edith Garrud and Suffrajitsu Featured in “Beauty Bites Beast”

“Vice, Crime and Poverty: How the Western Imagination Invented the Underworld”

Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Saturday, 16th March 2019 This new book by French cultural historian Dominique Kalifa explores the notion of the criminal underworld in Western popular culture, including the infamous Parisian Apache and London hooligan phenomena that fed – and were fed … Continue reading

Posted in Academia, Edwardiana, Hooliganism, Pop-culture | Comments Off on “Vice, Crime and Poverty: How the Western Imagination Invented the Underworld”

“Professor Kano and His Judo School” (from “A Woman Alone in the Heart of Japan”, 1906)

Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Thursday, 14th March 2019 Bartitsu founder Edward Barton-Wright spent three years, between roughly 1895-98, living in Kobe, Japan, where he worked as an antimony smelting specialist for E.H. Hunter and Company.  By his … Continue reading

Posted in Jiujitsu | Comments Off on “Professor Kano and His Judo School” (from “A Woman Alone in the Heart of Japan”, 1906)