Nice to see these fighters experimenting with a variety of tactical guard positions throughout and with some grappling/disarm options towards the end of their bout.
Another useful video tutorial in the fundamentals of Vigny cane fighting from instructor Oliver Janseps, this one detailing the parry/riposte dynamic against high and outside/inside body line attacks.
German HEMA instructor Oliver Janseps offers a clear explication of Guard by Distance tactics and dynamics in this video, which is part of an occasional series.
Veteran instructor Alex Kiermayer offers a tutorial in the fundamentals of warming up, striking and parrying with a cane in the classic Vigny style.
If you’d like much more in the same vein, Alex’s comprehensive, multi-part instructional series Bartitsu: Historical Self-Defence with a Walking Stick According to Pierre Vigny is available in English via Vimeo.
The ancient art of Bataireacht (Irish stick fighting) has undergone a modern revival closely paralleling that of Bartitsu, and this sparring clip demonstrates the close technical parallels as well. Similar to Vigny stick fighting, Bataireacht emphasizes high guard positions and includes the double-handed guard, and comparable to Bartitsu as a holistic style, the Irish system also features unarmed striking and grappling.
Here’s a compilation of Bartitsu sparring clips for comparison:
An early heads-up that Tony Wolf will be giving a live Zoom lecture on the “Apache chic” craze of the early 20th century:
At the turn of the 20th century, the exploits and styles of Parisian Apache (pronounced Ah-pahsh) street gangsters fascinated the international bourgeoisie. Readers breathlessly followed the criminal exploits of “the Terror”, “Golden Helmet” and other infamous Apaches via tabloid newspapers; nightclubbers thrilled to the danse d’Apache, which acrobatically mimicked a violent encounter between an Apache pimp and a prostitute; slumming society ladies took classes in la langue verte (“the green language”), the secret slang of Montmartre brothels and back-alleys. Apache fashions, weapons and even their ingenious pickpocketing and mugging tricks became the subjects of high society discourse, and their lore was quickly absorbed into popular culture via pulp novels, Grand Guignol plays and silent film serials.
This lavishly illustrated presentation explores the extraordinary demimonde mystique of the Apache subculture during la Belle Époque and ponders its pop-culture legacy unto the present day.
