Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Tuesday, 3rd January 2017
Along with Percy Longhurst and William and Edith Garrud, W. Bruce Sutherland was one of the most prominent members of the “second generation” of British self-defence experts. A Scotsman, Sutherland ran a physical culture academy in Edinburgh and took up jiujitsu after losing a wrestling challenge match to former Bartitsu Club instructor Yukio Tani.
Sutherland’s book Ju-Jitsu Self-Defence went through a number of editions and was notable for its inclusion of a number of “third party” defence and restraint techniques, designed for use by police constables.
By 1915 W. Bruce Sutherland was well-established as a self-defence and close-quarters combat specialist in Scotland, and the ongoing war effort saw him teaching the basics of jiujitsu – according to his own system – for institutions as diverse as the Boy Scouts, the Army and the Special Constabulary.
Sutherland (left) instructs recruits of the “Edinburgh Bantams” in a leg-pickup throw. The “Bantams” were members of a battalion of soldiers who were shorter than 5’3″ tall, and who had initially been ineligible to enlist because of their short statures.
Members of Edinburgh’s “Special Constabulary” receive training in self-defence and come-along holds. The “Specials” were mostly older men who volunteered to serve as constables because many younger, professional policemen had joined the Army.
The “Bantams” – including some very young-looking recruits – learn a jiujitsu throw.
Sutherland (right) observes some of his trainees practicing a defence against a dagger attack.
Sutherland demonstrates a jiujitsu tomoe-nage (“stomach throw”) for an onlooking group of “Bantam Battalion” trainees.
A Special Constable practices an extended armbar restraint hold.
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Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Friday, 17th August 2018
Charles Charlemont (left) and Pierre Vigny strike pugilistic poses.
A newly-discovered letter written by Pierre Vigny illuminates both the style of savate he taught at the Bartitsu Club and his feud with Parisian savateur Charles Charlemont. Although Vigny was a prominent professor of antagonistics and was quite widely quoted via articles and interviews, this letter represents one of the very few known instances of his direct commentary.
In early October of 1901, Charlemont wrote a letter objecting to Vigny being promoted as the “champion in French boxing and single-stick” in connection with Bartitsu events. In this letter, which was published in several English newspapers, Charlemont asserted that Vigny had lost to Charlemont himself, M. Mainguet (then an assistant at Charlemont’s school) and “other boxers in Paris.” Charlemont closed by suggesting that Vigny was a “bluffer” who was trying to make a name for himself as a self defence teacher in London.
E.W. Barton-Wright, who was Pierre Vigny’s employer at the time, replied that Vigny saw Charlemont as being a “fantastic dancer only, without the slightest right to the title he has assumed” and noted that Vigny’s championship claim vis-a-vis stick fighting was specific to his own style. Barton-Wright then offered to financially back Vigny in two “World Championship” contests with Charlemont, the first being straight French kickboxing and the second in which Charlemont could kick and punch, but Vigny would restrict himself to boxing.
Barton-Wright further noted that if Charlemont did not accept the challenge, he (B-W) would “allow Vigny to go to Paris and publicly horse-whip him”, before closing with a few choice remarks about the then-recent and infamous Charlemont/Jack Driscoll savate vs. boxing contest (which had ended in a very controversial win to Charlemont).
Despite an exceptionally heated exchange of letters to the editor, the various parties couldn’t agree on terms and so the proposed Vigny/Charlemont challenge fight never happened. Their dispute was, however, illustrative of a wider controversy within the world of French kickboxing.
As we have frequently noted in the past, the academic, touch-contact style promoted by the Charlemonts was coming under increasing criticism at the turn of the 20th century. On October 13th, 1900, Pierre Vigny’s comments in the following letter to Frank Reichel, then Secretary of the French National Sports Committee, were published in the journal La Constitutionelle. They confirm our theory that Vigny was a member of the minority camp, arguing for a radical reform of French kickboxing:
(…) As for the way of organizing this World Championship, why do we not agree upon the rules in force in England, namely: a number of completed rounds, for example six bouts of three minutes each, one of which is a minute of rest, during which the jury, taken naturally from among the most competent, would make notes upon the hits and the work by each opponent in each resumption.
If one of the two opponents is not out of the fight before the end of the sixth resumption, the jury will declare the one who has the most points to his credit to be the winner, or if the two champions are found to be “ex-œquo” (“in an equal state”), they will decide a new meeting.
A good reform would be to remove, in this championship, the announcement of touches; if it is necessary to announce that one has been touched on the shin (which is one of the most frequent strikes), we lose, by the slight pauses resulting from those announcements, whole combinations; it prevents those interesting and scientific passes that may follow.
These rules are those of my boxing and savate school which I introduced in London and which is a branch of what Mr. Barton-Wright, the well-known initiator of the new method of personal defense , calls ‘Bartitsu’.
The editor of La Constitutionelle agreed with Vigny, adding that:
We never say anything else: French boxing is full of inertia and nonsense. It is worthy of derision for one to stop on receiving a light stroke, crying “touché!”, when, in reality, one would “reply” thoroughly. By not going beyond these conventions, we have made French boxing a superb exercise in flexibility, but that is all. From the truly combative point of view, it is especially practical on an ignorant opponent, or perhaps a passing drunkard.
A fighter who “replies” bravely removes the effect of the cross-over and turning kicks; cancels all this virtuosity, all this affected elegance.
French boxing lacks strong punches. The punch of the Joinville style does not land heavily upon the body.
The victory over Driscool (sic – Driscoll) is not an affirmation of the French method; it is a proof of the high personal worth of Charlemont, of his fine courage, his temperament and his dash.
What is needed is a rational method, less elegant and more useful.
Some further context may be useful. In a follow-up letter to the editor in December, Barton-Wright reported that Charlemont had by then refused the challenge because “he says he is not a pugilist, but a Professor of Savate”. Barton-Wright also claimed that it had actually been Pierre Vigny’s brother who had lost the bouts referred to in Charlemont’s original letter, and closed with some very disparaging remarks about Charlemont’s character.
This issue is confused by the facts that Pierre Vigny evidently had at least one brother, named Eugene, and possibly another, named Paul, and that when the newspapers referred to “Professor Vigny of Geneva” they did not always specify which Vigny brother had actually fought. It is certain that, on March 11, 1897, one of the Vigny brothers lost conclusively in a boxing match against an English boxer named Attfield, and was then defeated in a savate match against Charles Charlemont. It may also be notable that Pierre Vigny initially travelled to England to improve his boxing, before joining forces with Barton-Wright.
Addressing Vigny’s point re. shin kicks; the reliable efficacy of those techniques had been in serious question since the aforementioned Charlemont/Driscoll debacle a few years earlier. Many French observers were startled when Charlemont’s low-line kicks didn’t have the presumed devastating effect upon Driscoll, who was able to evade or simply ignore most of them, while dealing considerable damage with his gloved fists.
The rules of that bout, which were very close to those Vigny himself later instituted via the Bartitsu Club, represented a radical departure from the Charlemonts’ favoured style of French kickboxing. Vigny’s larger point, though, does not advocate a reformation of technique so much as of protocols.
Following the convention of academic fencing, the Charlemonts’ style required the formal courtesy of calling “touché!” at even the lightest touch of the opponent’s fist or foot. This had the effect of rewarding speed and dexterity, but at the cost of complexity and realism, given that it essentially paused the bout, artificially requiring both fighters to acknowledge the point, then re-set and start again.
One experienced witness to the Charlemont/Driscoll fight noted that Charlemont was handicapped by his long experience of kicking lightly in academic bouts, to the extent that those low kicks that did land lacked stopping power. Parsing the entire range of eyewitness reports on that fight, from both French and foreign observers, it’s difficult to avoid the conclusions that Charlemont would have lost if not for an accidental but strictly illegal kick to Driscoll’s groin, and that he certainly shouldn’t have been awarded the victory because of it.
The argument over academic touch-contact vs. professional full-contact continued in French kickboxing circles until the outbreak of the First World War, which had a devastating effect on the sport. Many young fighters naturally served as soldiers during that awful conflict, and many were badly wounded or killed. Hubert Desruelles, who appears to have at least occasionally taught at the Bartitsu Club as well as at his own schools in France, was severely injured in both arms during the war, putting an end to his athletic career.
During the post-War decades, French kickboxing slowly rebuilt itself to include both the traditional “touch” (assaut) style and a full-contact style influenced by the no-nonsense ethos of British and American boxing. If only a similar compromise could have been reached circa 1900 …
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Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Monday, 30th October 2017
During the first decade of the 20th century, the Millwall Dock area of London’s East End was a notoriously attractive target for all manner of plunderers, who found easy entrance and escape via the Dock’s complex, shifting maze of alleyways. The Millwall Dock Police, all of whom were former soldiers and whose average height was an impressive 5’11”, frequently found themselves in hot pursuit of agile thieves and looters on foot.
In December of 1903, the Chief Constable of the Dock Police introduced a unique weapon to assist his constables in making arrests of runaway thieves. This new item was a sturdy staff of 1″ oak with a wide curved handle, very similar to a shepherd’s crook. As well as proving useful as a general-purpose walking stick, the staff was ideally suited to catching fleeing felons by snaring them around the neck, arm, leg or ankle.
The Chief Constable devised training drills for his men in the use of the hooked staff, “introducing several cuts and guards which are, at present, little known”, according to a report in the Nottingham Evening Post.
In an editorial, a journalist for the West Somerset Free Press remarked that the new weapon seemed to have been designed on the “Japanese self-defence principle”. That comment was very likely intended as a general allusion to jiujitsu but it also, probably accidentally, evokes the use of specialised “mancatcher” weapons such as the sodegarami, tsukubō, and sasumata * in ko-ryu martial arts, most especially those associated with police work in feudal Japan.
The same journalist struck a pragmatic note of caution, observing that “there is considerable danger attached to the use of such weapons (…) for a man tripped up by a crooked stick might easily sustain severe injuries, and to maim prisoners is, to say the least of it, not consistent with English use.”
Nevertheless, by 1905 the crook-staff had become standard issue for Millwall Dock police constables. Very similar techniques were likewise advocated for civilian use by E.W. Barton-Wright and Pierre and Marguerite Vigny, all of whom promoted the use of crook-handled canes and umbrellas to trip and otherwise impede attackers:
* A modification of the sasumata has, incidentally, been revived in recent decades and is now widely used by Japanese police, security officers and even teachers; the latter regularly train in the use of the sasumata against knife-wielding school invaders.
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Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Thursday, 14th March 2019
The “last hurrah” of the venerable English tradition of quarterstaff fighting took place on the gladiatorial stages of the early 18th century, when professional roughhousers such as James Figg “took on all comers” with various weapons for the chance to win prize money. As the sport of boxing overtook weaponed stage-fighting, the quarterstaff largely receded into folklore, aside from sporadic and largely undocumented revivals via rural fairs.
During the mid-late 19th century, however, the confluence of newly-devised protective equipment for sports such as cricket and fencing and the renewed enthusiasm for the tales of Robin Hood laid the basis for a widespread quarterstaff fencing renaissance.
From the 1870s onwards, the old/new sport became particularly popular among soldiers and was frequently a highlight of “assault-at-arms” exhibitions, featuring displays of martial gymnastics and all manner of antagonistics. Two instructional manuals were produced – Thomas McCarthy’s Quarterstaff: A Practical Manual (1883) and a chapter in R.G. Allanson-Winn’s comprehensive Broadsword and Singlestick(1898).
Bartitsu founder E.W. Barton-Wright claimed that he had often had to defend himself against attackers armed with quarterstaves – among an alarming variety of other weapons – during his travels abroad. It’s likely that he was referring to his time working in mining settlements in Portugal, where the folk-sport/martial art of jogo do pau was widely practiced during the late 19th century, though the matter of why he may have been repeatedly attacked there remains open to speculation. In any case, according to Barton-Wright’s own reports, his favoured tactic of closing in against opponents armed with superior weapons – notably a feature of his presentations of the Vigny method of stick fighting – was inspired by these encounters.
In England, quarterstaff fencing exhibitions persisted well into the 20th century, sometimes incorporating crowd-pleasing “stunt” elements, which had been disparaged by Thomas McCarthy as “made-up affairs, just for show”. Interestingly, a number of late-19th century reports on quarterstaff matches refer to disarmed combatants immediately shifting to boxing – though it’s difficult to say to what extent this may also have been tongue-in-cheek showmanship for the crowd.
This rare snippet of film from a 1925 military display in Portsmouth features a moment from a particularly “showy” bout with staves, reminiscent of professional wrestling:
“Look, what’s that up there?!” An old trick given a new twist.
The following, newly-discovered pictures represent a fairly late addition to the corpus of English quarterstaff fencing materials. They originally appeared in an Illustrated London News article titled “The Quarterstaff: Then and Now”(1934). The photos were taken at the Royal Air Force Depot in Oxbridge, and feature R.A.F. swordsmen Sergeant Turner and Sergeant Jarrold, “refereed” by Professor Ware. Note that, although Turner and Jarrold are shown here in regular gym kit for purposes of demonstration, during competitive staff play they would have worn protective equipment of the type shown above. The captions are by M. Pollock Smith.
A swinging a blow from Sergeant Turner, right, at his opponents ribs, successfully parried. Had the defending man had the grip of his left hand reversed, he would have been in a better position to retaliate with a riposte on his assailant’s head.
A swinging a blow from Sergeant Turner, right, at his opponents ribs, successfully parried. Had the defending man had the grip of his left hand reversed, he would have been in a better position to retaliate with a riposte on his assailant’s head.
A downward cut at the head successfully intercepted by the French head parry, like that of old English quarterstaff fighting. It will not take the defender a second to swing his staff round to hit at his adversary as he returns to guard. The lunge is a modern addition to the game.
As frequently happened in old-time fighting, one man has had his staff knocked out of his hands, so he has closed quickly, before receiving the coup de grace, to engage in a hand to hand struggle for the remaining stick. In modern play, dropping the staff would count as being hit .
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Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Thursday, 11th October 2018
Pierre Vigny strikes a pugilistic pose.
Mid-late 1901 was undoubtedly the heyday of the Bartitsu School of Arms, not least because it was during that period that the School’s champions were put to their greatest tests in public competition. Following a series of more-or-less academic displays and several novel style-vs-style challenge matches, both the sporting public and England’s combat champions were eager to see Bartitsu exponents pitted against “name” fighters.
It seems to have been widely accepted that sparring exhibitions of Bartitsu as a complete style – resembling a Dog Brothers gathering, in its combination of stickfighting, kickboxing and submission wrestling – would have been considered “brawling in a public place” under Edwardian English law.
Therefore, the next best option was to hold competitions in the various component styles. E.W. Barton-Wright was keen to oblige, proffering a series of open challenges via the pages of the Sporting Life, as was the custom then.
While the greatest controversy attended the exotic art of jiujitsu (and whether champions of that style would prevail against expert European wrestlers), Barton-Wright was also eager to locate a worthy boxer to challenge Pierre Vigny. Therefore, the following notification appeared in the Sporting Life of Wednesday, 10 July 1901:
Mr. E. W. Barton-Wright is anxious to find a good boxer who would willing to oppose one of his men for exhibition work to demonstrate the merits of English boxing against his system of boxing. No boxer under middle-weight need apply, as be that his man shall have no advantage in weight, therefore a heavy-weight would given the preference. Weight of his own man; 11 st. 4 lbs. Apply to the Bartitsu School of Arms and Physical Culture, 67b, Shaftesbury Avenue, W.C.
The timing of the infamous October, 1899 Driscoll/Charlemont fight in Paris had been especially unfortunate from Barton-Wright’s point of view. The scandal resulting from that fight had generated massive ill-will against the French style among the English sporting public at exactly the time when he was attempting to introduce a “new art of self-defence” that incorporated French martial arts.
Thus, despite Vigny’s status as the Chief Instructor of the Bartitsu Club, Barton-Wright’s public pronouncements had tended to de-emphasise or even disparage savate per se, in favour of promoting their “new and improved” method of kickboxing that was unique to Bartitsu.
Within the week, Barton-Wright’s Sporting Life notice was answered by Professor Newton, a well-known boxing coach and partisan of the English style:
“Bartitsu vs. Boxing”: In answer to Mr. Barton-Wright’s challenge, which appeared the Sporting Life of the 10th last, Professor Newton, who is teacher of and firm believer in the British art of self-defence, has several pupils who have expressed their willingness to compete against Mr. Barton-Wright’s pupils at their respective weights in order to prove which is the better system. If a series of contests can be arranged, Mr. Barton-Wright will oblige by forwarding copy of his rules to the North London School of Arms and Physical Culture, 55, Barnsbury-road, London, N.
Unfortunately, but not uncommonly, nothing seems to have come of this proposed encounter. Beyond the formalities of public notifications in the newspapers, combat sports challenges were subject to behind-the-scenes negotiations and many never came to fruition, often due to personality clashes, logistical issues and/or disagreements over terms.
Two minutes per round. Sharp work right and left. Barry knocked Vigny down after nearly getting the right on the jaw with sufficient force. Vigny got up and kicked right and left. Severe business.
Round 2. Sharp and severe work at close quarters. Both on ground twice, and toppled over in an embrace among the people.
Round 3. Barry led. Vigny had a rough time of it, and they frequently clinched. To the end, a splendid encounter. Vigny kicked and boxed hard. Barry punched with might and main. When time was called, honours were to the advantage of Barry on points.
The results of this hard-fought bout were not widely reported; another journalist said that the fight was inconclusive.
The next prominent boxer to publicly accept Barton-Wright’s challenge was none other than Jerry Driscoll himself. Shortly after the Vigny/Barry fight, Driscoll wrote the following letter to the editor of The Sportsman (a similar notice appeared in The Sporting Life on the same day):
Sir,—As an Englishman who has beaten the best Savate boxer, viz, feet and hands, against my hands only, I should be pleased to compete against Mr. Barton-Wright’s man, for from £50 aside, upwards, and largest parse. Match to come off early in January. I will also wager a good side bet that I stop Mr. Barton-Wright’s man inside ten rounds, Mr. Barton-Wright’s man to have his feet padded, the same as when he competed against Jim (sic) Barry. I only stipulate that we must have one English and one French judge, and the Sporting Life to appoint referee. No 30-second rounds, nor either man allowed to rest fifteen minutes, was the case when I met Charlemont.
Yours, etc., Jerry Driscoll (Instructor to the principal English amateur boxing clubs). Railway Cottage, Barnes.
Driscoll’s claim to have “beaten the best Savate boxer” would, itself, have been mildly controversial. Although Driscoll was widely held to have been handily winning the fight until his opponent landed a probably accidental, but definitely illegal groin kick, as a matter of record, Charles Charlemont had won that fight.
Driscoll shortly followed up with another letter:
Seeing Mr. Barton-Wright is on the warpath with his savate instructor, and matching him against our past boxers, I will box his Frenchman ten rounds for £100 aside, National Sporting Club’s rules, any time he chooses make a match. Money ready as soon as Mr Barton-Wright makes an appointment through the columns of the Sporting Life.
… and he raised the stakes again in The Sportsman of February 14th, 1902:
If Barton Wright wishes to match his Frenchman with me, and is not out for advertisement, he will attend the N.S.C. (National Sporting Club) at one o’clock on Saturday next. Vigny can have a match for £lOO or £3OO aside, and as the distance is but of one hundred yards, I hope that Mr. Wright will be on hand.
A similar notice from Driscoll was published in mid-April. On April 22nd, Vigny replied:
Pierre Vigny, Instructor of the Bartitsu School of Arms, is prepared to box Jerry Driscoll, in the English style, Queensberry Rules, if the National Sporting Club will offer a purse worth competing for. Jerry Driscoll has refused to take Vigny on in the French style.
Two days later:
In answer to Jerry Driscoll’s offer to wager up to £300 that he will beat Vigny in the match to be decided during Coronation Week, Pierre Vigny writes accepting the offer, and is also ready to find the backing for that amount, feeling confident that he will be able to defeat Driscoll inside ten rounds. It Driscoll will make an appointment with his backer the National Sporting Club, Vigny will be pleased meet him, and will be prepared to make the deposit at once.
Driscoll, on April 26th:
In answer to Pierre Vigny, Driscoll says that if Mr. Barton Wright will post £100 at the Sporting Life Office, his (Driscoll’s) backer will wager £300 to £100 that be beats Vigny inside ten rounds, under Queensberry Rules.
Two days later, Driscoll wrote again noting that his backer was then away on business, but that as soon as he returned, the money for the side-bet would be delivered to The Sportsman office.
Then, on the 29th of May, Barton-Wright re-entered the fray:
Mr. Barton-Wright has written calling attention to the fact that the authorities of a certain club, after offering a purse of £300 for a contest between (Vigny and Driscoll) to decide the merits of boxing versus savate and after getting the consent of both men to this arrangement, have suddenly withdrawn their original offer and now are prepared to give only £lOO. Although both men are most anxious to meet each other, naturally they do not intend engage in a serious contest of this kind without some real inducement. The training expenses would cost about £25, so that the loser would practically get his bare expenses paid be receiving 25 per cent of the purse. Mr. Barton-Wright would therefore be very glad to hear from anybody interested this matter, and who, perhaps with others, will be willing to assist in the financing of same, and so to make this match possible.
The Editor of The Sporting Life also quoted Barton-Wright to the effect that the proposed stakes of £100 were too low to represent the fighting worth of either Vigny or Driscoll, and at that point the proposed challenge seems to have fizzled out.
Ironically, the mysterious reduction of stakes by Driscoll’s backers – as well as Barton-Wright’s insistence that Vigny would not fight for less than a £300 stake – may have allowed the Bartitsu Club to dodge a public relations bullet.
Given his persistent efforts to distance Bartitsu from savate, and from the negative fallout of the 1899 Charlemont/Driscoll fight in particular, Driscoll’s challenges clearly put Barton-Wright in a very difficult PR position. Regardless of the outcome (and of the Bartitsu Club’s modifications to the techniques and rules of the French style), a Vigny vs. Driscoll fight would inevitably have been perceived as a “rematch” between savate and boxing. With feelings about the Charlemont/Driscoll fight still raw, English public sentiment would have been overwhelmingly in Jerry Driscoll’s favour, likely casting Vigny, Barton-Wright and Bartitsu as the unpatriotic villains.
Even worse, from Barton-Wright’s point of view, would have been the public perception that he and Vigny were symbolically aligned with Driscoll’s former opponent. In reality, there was seriously bad blood between the Bartitsu camp and the Charlemont camp. Barton-Wright had actually used the outcome of the Driscoll/Charlemont fight as ammunition during his acrimonious exchange of letters with Charlemont, thereby morally aligning himself and the Bartitsu Club with Driscoll.
Thus, if the Driscoll/Vigny fight had gone ahead, Barton-Wright would have been forced into an unenviable position. Even if Vigny had won against Driscoll, in the hyper-partisan social climate of the early 1900s, the “optics” would have been damaging for the Bartitsu School of Arms.
The Bartitsu Club continued to stage assault-at-arms displays in Nottingham, Oxford and other regional locations during early 1902. Ultimately, Vigny’s regular opponent on that tour was the jobbing heavyweight boxer Woolf Bendoff. Though Bendoff’s professional record wasn’t especially impressive, it’s likely that he represented a diplomatic compromise away from the politically fraught possibilities of Pierre Vigny taking on Jerry Driscoll.
Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Wednesday, 5th July 2017
By 1910, the mystique of the Parisian “apache” street gangsters had fully piqued the curiosity of the bourgeoisie via works of tabloid journalism and popular fiction. Middle- and upper-class “slummers” eagerly consumed news reports of the most recent apache outrages, attended classes in “la langue verte” (the colourful Montmartre back-alley argot) and elevated the exploits of gangsters such as “the Panther” and “Golden Helmet” to the status of urban folklore.
Above: a postcard satirising the popular image of the apaches of Montmartre.
Manufacturers were quick to jump on the bandwagon, producing clothing and accessories that fed into (and from) the apache craze. Among these were various gimmicked walking sticks containing secret weapons that might, in theory, be employed against apache muggers, who were infamous for wielding a variety of unusual weapons of their own, including knuckle-duster rings and even porcupine armour.
Despite intimations of an ad-hoc arms race between street gangsters and bourgeois gents, most of these weapons were probably, in reality, more often simply shown off as macho accoutrements. An article in The Sphere of 17 December, 1910 displayed the latest trends in anti-apache weapon canes:
The “bayonet stick” featured a spring-loaded blade which popped out of the handle, transforming the cane into a short spear. A highly similar weapon was used by Sherlock Holmes against a pair of street ruffians in the 1965 movie A Study in Terror:
The “rifle stick” included a lightweight shoulder stock attachment, presumably to be used when fending off apache muggers from a great distance.
The elegant derby handle of the “revolver and dagger” stick pulled out to reveal a six-shot revolver and a stiletto blade.
Posted inEdwardiana, Hooliganism|Comments Off on The 1910 French Craze for “Secret Weapon” Walking Sticks
Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Thursday, 17th January 2019
Tani executes a rear scissor choke submission hold.
This sketch series by Percy F.S. Spence records moments from former Bartitsu Club instructor Yukio Tani’s matches at the Royal Albert Hall on July 2, 1904. The sketches were originally published in the Illustrated London News two days after the event.
The main event that night featured a “best two out of three” heavyweight Graeco-Roman wrestling championship match between George “The Russian Lion” Hackenschmidt and Tom Jenkins, which was won by Hackenschmidt.
Tani won all three of his matches within fifteen minutes.
The “Sinbad” reference may be an allusion to the similarity between Tani’s acrobatic throws and the “knockabout” style of slapstick comedy seen in Edwardian-era pantomimes.
A possibly unique depiction of Tani executing a full handstand.
Posted inEdwardiana, Jiujitsu|Comments Off on Yukio Tani at the Royal Albert Hall (1904)
Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Thursday, 20th December 2018
After some 16 years of intensive research, we now know a good deal about the origins and day-to-day workings of the Bartitsu School of Arms, a.k.a. the Bartitsu Club. One question that remains, though, is whether Edward Barton-Wright – the originator of Bartitsu and the founder of the Club – actually taught there.
By his own account, Barton-Wright possessed a “lifelong interest in the arts of self defence”. Even before spending three years studying martial arts in Japan, he had trained in “boxing, wrestling, fencing, savate and the use of the stiletto under recognised masters”, reportedly testing his skills by “engaging toughs (street fighters) until (he) was satisfied in their application.” By all other accounts, including those of seemingly impartial witnesses such as Captain F.C. Laing, Edward Barton-Wright was, indeed, a rugged and skilled fighter.
We also have evidence that Barton-Wright actively encouraged the Bartitsu Club instructors to teach each other their specialties. In a 1950 interview with London Budokwai founder Gunji Koizumi, Barton-Wright reminisced about trying to teach Yukio Tani to box, though he remarked that Tani “had no aptitude for the sport”. Similarly, wrestler Armand Cherpillod trained with Tani and Sadakazu Uyenishi prior to representing the Bartitsu Club in a much-hyped challenge match against Joe Carroll; Cherpillod later confessed that he believed that the Japanese instructors were withholding some of their more advanced techniques from him.
Captain Alfred Hutton was rather a special case, in that although he was a Bartitsu Club instructor, his fencing classes were very likely not considered to be part of the “Bartitsu curriculum” (such as it was). Hutton himself was, however, an enthusiastic student of Pierre Vigny’s stick fighting and of Tani and Uyenishi’s jiujitsu. Hutton commented that while he was too old to practice jiujitsu as “free play” or sparring, he had nevertheless learned “about 80 kata, or tricks, which even at my age may one day or another come in useful.”
Direct evidence for Barton-Wright himself actually teaching classes is, however, scanty. English self-defence authority Percy Longhurst referred to learning a particular throw directly from Barton-Wright, while the anonymous author of the 1901 article Defence Against “Hooligans” referred to Barton-Wright keeping “an admonishing eye” over the classes instructed by Tani, Vigny et al. Allowing for journalistic license, one imagines that the instructors might rather have resented the admonishment.
The anonymous author of an interview with Barton-Wright that appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette of 5 September 1901 also described Barton-Wright teaching jiujitsu at the Club, although it isn’t entirely clear whether this was a matter of regular practice or whether a special case was made for the reporter.
While Barton-Wright was, in fact, the only Bartitsu Club principal who had active prior experience in all of the key methods taught at the Club, his own experience on a per-discipline basis paled in comparison with that of the specialist instructors. Pierre Vigny was clearly the best-qualified to instruct students in the fine points of savate and of his own method of walking stick defence, and although Tani and Uyenishi were very young men at the time, they had both started training as children and their practical jiujitsu experience clearly far surpassed Barton-Wright’s.
If you have a club where there are Japanese jiujitsu instructors teaching jiujitsu, people teaching French boxing, people teaching boxing – how do you bring those together? Well, the problem is that the instructors themselves can’t bring it together. The jiujitsu teachers can’t engage with the students in boxing, the savate people or the boxe Francaise people can’t engage with the jiujitsu people in terms of jiujitsu, because they don’t have the experience. So (Barton-Wright) was probably, initially, the only one who understood what his system was! He was probably the only “master of Bartitsu”!
So we have an embryonic art. The only way that art can develop is if you develop a body of students who can then compete against each other.
Speculatively, therefore, it may be that Barton-Wright’s main role as an instructor was to supervise the preliminary training required of all new members of the Club. The Bartitsu School of Arms offered an unusual pedagogical system in that beginners had first to complete a course of private lessons before being permitted to join the group classes. Journalist Mary Nugent noted that “no class-work is allowed to be done until the whole of the exercises are perfectly acquired individually”.
We know little about the nature of these private classes except that they included a course of physical culture exercises to prepare students for the demands of Bartitsu training. Given his “jack of all trades” status, Barton-Wright himself would, perhaps, have been the best-qualified instructor to devise and implement such a course, which may have included preparatory exercises drawn from each of the key styles; thereby also freeing the specialist instructors to concentrate on their more advanced sessions. Thereafter, Barton-Wright might have supervised classes (or simply offered tips) in blending the various specialisms together, as in his collaborations with Vigny.
We await the discovery of further details on the practical role Barton-Wright played in developing his “New Art of Self Defence”.
Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Monday, 7th May 2018
Bartitsu founder Edward Barton-Wright claimed “the use of the stiletto” among the variety of fighting styles he had studied during his many years as an itinerant mining engineer. Bartitsu itself, however, does not appear to have included any dagger nor knife techniques per se. Indeed, apart from some ambiguous comments by third parties who witnessed Bartitsu demonstrations, the only references to edged weapons in the Bartitsu repertoire were in terms of defending against them, via Barton-Wright’s “coat trick” or the Vigny cane system.
Barton-Wright’s remark that learning his New Art of Self-Defence should relieve students of “the feeling of disgust at having a dagger about (them)” was typical of English sentiment at the turn of the 20th century. Given that cultural bias against bladed weapons, he was careful to frame his discussions of knife attacks as being committed by “foreigners”. That said, knives were, in fact, widely used in Southern European and Mediterranean criminal subcultures.
The following is excerpted from Chapter IV of “The Pillars of Hercules, or, A narrative of travels in Spain and Morocco in 1848”. It offers a unique technical description of Spanish knife fighting/training, written by David Urquhart, an Englishman who learned the art from a Spanish master in Seville.
CHAPTER IV.
PELEA DE NAVAJA. THE OLD SPANISH SWORD.
A Sevillian whom I was questioning about the frequent assassinations, astonished me by denying that there were any. “What you hear of,” said he, “as murders are duels.” I objected the knife;—he said, “Well, the knife, that is our weapon; we fence, we do not stab; the duel has its laws, the weapon its science.” I thought this must be a figurative manner of describing some rude point of honour, and asked him to show me in what consisted the science. “I am not expert,” he said; “but if you are curious I will take you to a friend of mine, whom you can engage, as he is the best player in Seville; and, since the death of Montez, in all Andalusia.”
I begged immediately to be conducted to the yuecador, and was introduced to the inner apartment; which—as he united the calling of contrabandist to that of fencing-master—was filled with bales of tobacco. The subject was broached as a matter of business. He was willing to give me lessons, but would not undertake to teach me. If I had natural dispositions I might learn “to play” in three months, taking Time by the forelock. I proposed commencing at once; and next morning he came to me by day-light, at the inn— for it required a large room.
A wooden dagger is used for a foil: it is about eight inches long, and in form like the old sacrificial knife: it is held by the closed fingers, the thumb stretching along the blade, and the edge turned inward. Round the left arm is wound the jacket as a shield. My teacher, putting himself in attitude, at once reminded me of the fighting Gladiator. He thus commenced: “You must hold your right hand down upon your thigh; you must never raise it till sure of your blow. Your feints must be with the eye—the eye, hand and leg must move together. When you look here, you must strike there, and spring when you have cut, corta y huya. The left arm must be kept high, the right hand low, the knees bent, the legs wide, the toes forward, ready to spring back or forward. There are three cuts and three parries; one point,—the point is low and at the belly—St. George’s au bas venire: the cut must be across the muscle on the shoulder or the breast, or down well into the groin, so as to let out the bowels. Unless you know how to cut, it is of no use knowing how to fence.”
He knew nothing of our fencing, and was much surprised when I made application of it, and attributed the advantages it gave to a natural instinct for the art. The result was, that in a week he had gone through the whole course, and the last day of my stay at Seville, he brought two of the proficients, and we had a regular assault d’armes, the guests at the hotels being spectators. He honoured me at the introduction by saying, that he feared me more than either of his two compeers, because I sprang better than the one, and cut better than the other.
The attitudes are a study for an artist. There are not the stiff figures and sharp angles of our fencing; but the rounded limb, the gathered-up muscle, the balanced body:—instead of the glance of the steel there is that of the eye. The weapon is concealed under the hand, and pointing down, so that not a ray betokens it. There is no boxer’s fist or cestus, no crusader’s helm or hauberk, no Roman’s sword or shield. It seemed as if the hands and the eye of the man were equal to the claw of the tiger, or the tusk of the boar. It was a combat of beasts rather than a contest of men. There was the ambling pace, the slouching gait of the panther or the lion, or, rather, it was a mixture of the snake and the frog; gliding like the one and springing like the other. This is the war of the knife, the Pelea de Navaja, falsely interpreted war to the knife.
After missing a blow with the right hand, the knife, by a dexterous player, may be jerked into the left; but this, if unsuccessful, is inevitable death. To jerk it at your antagonist is not permitted by the rules of the game. By a sudden spring an adversary’s foot may be pinned after he has failed in a blow. The most deadly of these feints is to strike the foot of your adversary sideways and so bring him down. A celebrated Juccador named Montes (not the Torero), killed in this manner eleven men, and was at last so killed himself.
The mantle or jacket round the left arm is used, not for the purpose of catching the blow, but of striking off the adversary’s arm so that he may not reach. The guarding arm is always within reach, but always avoided; for to strike at it would leave your side open, and the safety consists in keeping under your adversary. The arms of the players were all scarred; but that was in ” love fights.” The edge of the knife is then blunted, or a shoulder is put to it, as in the case of the lances which they use with the bulls.
The Sevillian was right. This is not simple assassination: it is not the stab given in the dark, though of course we could only so understand a man being killed by a knife. A popular song at Seville is, the lamentation of a man imprisoned for “stabbing” another :—he exclaims against the wrong ; justifies his legitimate defence of his maja; calls upon the gaoler to testify to his treatment; and, failing to obtain sympathy, rushes to the grates and appeals to the people:—
“Si venga gente pora aca!”
There is no song sung with more fervour by the ladies.
This is the most deadly weapon I know; the dirk, the cama, the dagger, are grasped in the hand, and impelled by the leverage of the arm. The navaja may be so used, or plunged right on end like the Hindoo dagger, and also by the motion of the wrist alone: it more resembles mowing with the scythe than thrusting with a poniard: it is accompanied by the action of the sword, in which, as in fencing, the limbs come into play, and thus serves the purpose of a defensive weapon. It is the origin of our fencing; and against adversaries not acquainted with that art, or not armed for it, it still retains all its ancient superiority:—in all cases it would be a valuable accessory to other weapons, without being an encumbrance, and serving for all the ordinary purposes of a knife.
The navaja (pronounced navakha) is a clasp knife, —those worn by professed players are a foot long when closed. There is a spring to catch it behind, to prevent it closing on the hand. When opened there is the click as in cocking a pistol, and the sound is said to delight Andalusian equally with Irish ears. The art of fencing with it is called pelea de navaja.
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Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Sunday, 6th May 2018
Like the shepherd’s crook-type weapon introduced to the London police circa 1904, the police shields described in the article represent an interesting local solution to a local problem. Very similar designs were, however, widely used in India and South Africa during the 20th century. They are also, perhaps, among the early ancestors of the high-tech riot shields commonly used by contemporary police forces.
The Stafford county constabulary are about to be supplied with an ingenious though simple addition to their present means of defence. Mr. Oswell, the deputy chief constable of the county, whose experience of the risks run by the police in hand to hand encounters with the rougher elements of a mining and agricultural population extends over upwards of 20 years, has invented a light wicker shield to worn by police when on night duty or under circumstances which they are likely brought into conflict with the more desperate characters of the Staffordshire districts.
The shield is oval in form, and though very light is so constructed of carefully woven willow twigs as to be at once strong and serviceable. The willow work strengthened a backbone of 1/4 inch ash, running through the centre of the shield and projecting an inch or two at each end. The dimensions of the shield are 23″ x 13″ and on the inner side there are two semi circular pieces of roundel leather, so fixed that while the forearm thrust through one the other is grasped the hand.
The shield is slung at the back by a strap passing over the right shoulder and under the left arm, in such a way that it can be instantaneously hitched round to the front. The arm having been put through the leather handles, a single pull detaches the strap supporting the shield, which can then be elevated to cover the head in case assault with stones or bludgeons.
Mr. Oswell thinks that, if padded on inner side with cotton wool, the shield would resist the ordinary gun-shot used by poachers at as short a distance as 15 yards. Two small holes left the basket work afford the constable, while protecting his head, the opportunity seeing movements of his assailants.
Posted inAntagonistics|Comments Off on “Shields for Police Constables” (Edinburgh Evening News, 15 September 1882)
