“Master of Men: the Life’s Work of William Muldoon, Champion and Trainer of Champions”

  • Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Friday, 7th January 2011

“Master of Men” is an anthology of books, articles and essays about the remarkable Irish-American combat athlete and coach, William Muldoon. After numerous adventures as one of “New York’s finest”, he left the police force to become one of the first American professional wrestlers, taking on all comers in rough and tumble saloon matches and working as an actor/stuntman on the Vaudeville stage.

In 1889, Muldoon’s radical training methods brought the out-of-shape, alcoholic bare-knuckle boxing champion John L. Sullivan back into form for his legendary title fight with Jake Kilrain. Muldoon later became the inaugural chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission and a personal trainer for some of the richest and most powerful men in America. Includes 29 rare illustrations and a special bonus interview with Scott Burt of the Bare Knuckle Boxing Hall of Fame.

The 316 page book is available in print or e-formats from the Antagonistics Emporium, which also features a free instant preview.

Posted in Antagonistics, Biography, Boxing, Physical Culture, Wrestling | Comments Off on “Master of Men: the Life’s Work of William Muldoon, Champion and Trainer of Champions”

Introduction to Bartitsu seminar in Vancouver

  • Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on January 1, 2011

The Academie Duello is offering an introductory Bartitsu class on Saturday, January 8th:

“If one gets into a row and plays the game in the recognised style of English fair play – with fists – the opponent will very likely rush in and close, in order to avoid a blow. Then comes the moment for wrestling in the secret Japanese way. Instantly the unwary one is caught and thrown so violently that he is placed hors de combat, without even sufficient strength left to retire unassisted from the field.”
– E.W. Barton-Wright, “Black and White Budget” magazine, December 1900

Learn the mixed martial art of the Victorian English Gentleman. In this four-hour workshop, you’ll acquire the essential Bartitsu skills of Boxing, Jujitsu, Savate and Cane fighting:

-the basic punches of scientific boxing and the first defensive moves of pugilism,

-the first throw from jujitsu and how to land without hurting yourself when thrown,

-the foundations of walking stick self-defence, and the essential kicks of savate.

This Introduction to Bartitsu is a pre-requisite for the ongoing Bartitsu class. We want all newcomers to the weekly class to have some familiarity with the core techniques, and to get some practice in an easy environment where all of the students are learning the skills together.

Saturday, January 8, 2011 1pm-5pm

So, whether you’re interested in studying Bartitsu on an ongoing basis, or if you just want to learn the essential elements, the Introduction to Bartitsu covers the fundamentals. Fun and self-defense without getting your spats dirty!

$60 (15%off for members

* Location: Academie Duello, 412 W. Hastings St., Vancouver

You can sign up online via this link.

Posted in Canonical Bartitsu, Seminars | Comments Off on Introduction to Bartitsu seminar in Vancouver

“Bartitsu Boxer”

  • Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Thursday, 30th December 2010

This unique Bartitsu-inspired artwork, incorporating a page from an 1880s book on gentlemanly etiquette, is available from this site.

Posted in Boxing, Edwardiana | Comments Off on “Bartitsu Boxer”

Season’s Greetings

  • Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Friday, 24th December 2010
Posted in Humour | Comments Off on Season’s Greetings

Bartitsu on Russian TV

  • Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Wednesday, 15th December 2010

An item from a Russian youth news show, featuring the activities of Bartitsu Club Russia under the guidance of Ran Braun and Sergey Mishenev.

Posted in Canonical Bartitsu, Seminars | Comments Off on Bartitsu on Russian TV

“Society Women Wrestlers: Ladies’ Craze for Japanese Ju-jitsu” (Daily Mirror, April 4, 1904)

  • Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Monday, 13th December 2010

Impressed by the success of the Japanese system of wrestling – the Ju-jitsu — President Roosevelt has ordered it to be adapted in the. Naval Academy, where it is to be practised, in addition to the ordinary athletic exercises.

President Roosevelt is said to be devoted to this style of wrestling, and many American society ladies have taken it up as a new diversion.

But Americans are not alone in their enthusiasm for the new sport. I In England women are taking great interest in Ju-jitsu. Yukio Tani, the great Japanese exponent of the art, who is quite confident of beating his English opponent in the great match for £200 a side, puts in several hours a week instructing the dames and damsels of Mayfair in the noble art of (Japanese) self-defence. Lady Clara Vere de Vere has taken up Ju-jitsu , as the science is called, with vigour, and is rapidly making herself competent to tackle the burliest hooligan who ever donned cap and muffler. The writer on Saturday received the testimony of “Apollo,” the Jap’s manager, on the subject.

The strong man was at breakfast when our reporter called at his cozy flat in Shaftesbury avenue, but he readily consented to talk.

Makes Women Graceful

“Ju-jitsu”, said he, “is particularly adapted for ladies for several reasons. In the first place, no muscular strength is required, for it is all a question of ‘knack’ and quickness. In the second the science, apart from its usefulness as a means of self-defence, induces grace of carriage and develops the’ figure. You see, to be a competent ju-jitsuist you must hold yourself upright. Whereas, in other styles of wrestling, one has to adopt a crouching attitude, which contracts the chest and makes the figure ugly.”

The fad, it appears, commenced when Tani began to take engagements to appear at private houses and give exhibitions’ of wrestling in the Japanese style. Fashionable hostesses began to vote Hungarian fiddlers and Polish tenors altogether out-moded after they had seen the lithe and graceful Jap and his manager give a glimpse of ju-jitsu. Sometimes, at dances, the wrestling-mats were spread on the ball-room floor between waltzes, and looking on at a bout of ju-jitsu gave the dancers a rest. The grace, the quickness, and the absence of violence which are the distinguishing marks of
ju-jitsu fascinated Lady Clara Vere de Vere, and from seeing it done to wanting to do it herself was but a step. Now, Tani has his hands full putting fair and aristocratic aspirants up to the various locks and holds which constitute the Japanese art of self-defence.

Keenness of the Ladies

“A girl,” says the authority, “will learn ju-jitsu in one-third of the time, and with one-half the trouble, compared with a man. For one thing, they are keener about it; and for another, we cannot get the men to take it seriously enough to moderate their drinking, smoking and late hours – all of which are not conducive to excellence in ju-jitsu.

“Again, a girl is more anxious to improve her general physique than the male thing – and there is no doubt that this style of wrestling is a first-class thing for health and beauty.

An ever-present terror to women living in the country is the prowling tramp. But, armed with a knowledge of ju-jitsu, madame or mademoiselle may take her unattended walks abroad, and in the event of an encounter with the ‘hobo,’ may give him the alternative of crying quarter or having an arm broken.”

So fashionable is the new craze becoming that some West End stationers are printing invitation cards with “Wrestling” in the corner where “Dancing” or “Music” was wont to stand.

Posted in Edwardiana, Jiujitsu | Comments Off on “Society Women Wrestlers: Ladies’ Craze for Japanese Ju-jitsu” (Daily Mirror, April 4, 1904)

Bartitsu (from the Daily Express, June 16, 1900)

  • Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Friday, 10th December 2010

BARTITSU

Some of my readers may have been present at the very interesting exhibition of bartitsu given last summer by the well-known athlete, Mr. Barton-Wright. Since then the apostle of this most useful form of self defence has been striving to force his pastime to the front, and so successful have his efforts proved that in several of our leading schools the “game” has already been regularly adopted.

Briefly, bartitsu is a form of self-defence in which the only weapon employed is a common walking stick, preferably a malacca-cane. The theory of bartitsu is based upon the theory of fencing and of single-stick in combination with just a suspicion of the “savate.”
The work is done almost entirely with the wrists, the hands being used alternately.

Perhaps the most fascinating stroke of all is a sort of “forward backhander,” if I may so describe it, the cane being suddenly brought down to “guard.” and then unexpectedly swung back over the shoulder.

It is not to be wondered that so practical a form of self-defence should be appealing to many of our athletes, and when it becomes more generally known it will, in all probability, secure a large following.

Posted in Canonical Bartitsu, Vigny stick fighting | Comments Off on Bartitsu (from the Daily Express, June 16, 1900)

More Screenshots from “Bartitsu: the Lost Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes”

  • Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Wednesday, 8th December 2010

Some more images from our upcoming documentary:

Posted in Documentary | Comments Off on More Screenshots from “Bartitsu: the Lost Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes”

“Defence Against ‘Hooligans’: Bartitsu Methods in London” (1901)

  • Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Thursday, 25th November 2010

An article by “S.L.B.” from “The Sketch”, April 10, 1901:

Last year, a very interesting exhibition of self defence was given at St. James’s Hall, and was the subject of prolonged discussion by many of the people present. Mr. Edward Barton-Wright, who gave the demonstration, was honoured with an invitation to repeat it before the Prince of Wales, but he met with a bicycle accident and the exhibition became impossible. It may be that the style of self-defence introduced to public notice would have failed to attract attention by reason of its novelty alone, but Mr. Barton-Wright had not mastered it without the firm intent to give it a fair chance before the public. He proceeded to found a Club at 67b, Shaftesbury Avenue, where physical culture may be studied under Professors of all nationalities, some of the best of the world’s athletes and sportsmen being engaged as instructors. To-day the work is in full swing, stimulated by the uprising of the “hooligan”.

In his early days, Mr. Barton-Wright was an engineer, and his duties took him into strange lands and among ill-disposed people. He had to go slowly, and to learn that the knowledge of boxing under the Queensberry rules, his sole accomplishment then among the arts of self-defence, is of little or no use against men who attack their opponents with feet as well as hands, from below the belt as well as above it, from the back as well as face-to-face, and with bludgeons, life-preservers, knives and other persuasive weapons. The straightforward stroke that, catching the ruffian upon the “point” or “mark”, disables him from further attempts, is of little or no good when it cannot be delivered, and in every city he visited the young engineer found more and more to learn.

Soon he was seized with the bright idea of combining the self-defence of all nations into a system that, when properly acquired, should enable a man to defy anything but firearms or a sudden stab in the dark.

The chief point to bear in mind was that an adequate system of defence must be able to meet any form of attack; the man who endeavours to disable you by kicking you in the stomach is entitled to as much respect and consideration as he who strives to garrote you, or to try the relative resisting powers of a loaded stick and your skull.

The Bartitsu Club, through its Professors, over whom Mr. Barton-Wright keeps an admonishing eye, guarantees you against all danger. In one corner is M. Vigny, the World’s Champion with the single-stick: the Champion who is the acknowledged master of savate trains his pupils in another. He could kill you and twenty like
you if he so desired in the interval between breakfast and lunch – but, as a matter of fact, he never does. He leads you gently on with gloves and single-stick, through the mazes of the arts, until, at last, with your trained eye and supple muscles, no unskilled brute force can put you out, literally or metaphorically.

In another part of the Club are more Champions, this time from far Japan, where self-defence is taken far more seriously than here. The Champion Wrestler of Osaka, or one of the shining lights among the trainers for the Tokio police, dressed in the picturesque garb of his corner of the Far East, will teach you once more of how little you know of the muscles that keep you perpendicular, and of the startling effects of sudden leverage properly applied. The Japanese Champions are terribly strong and powerful; at a private rehearsal of their work, given some two months ago on the Alhambra stage, I saw a little Jap. who is about five feet nothing in height and eight stone in weight, do just what he liked with a strong North of England wrestler more than six feet high, broad, muscular and confident. The little one ended by putting his opponent gently on his back, and the big one looked as if he did not know how it was done.

There is no form of grip that the Japanese jujitsu work does not meet and foil, and in Japan a policeman learns the jujitsu wrestling as part of his equipment for active service. One of the Club trainers was professionally engaged to teach the police in Japan before he came to England to serve under Mr. Barton-Wright.

When you have mastered the various branches of the work done at the Club, which includes a system of physical drill taught by another Champion, this time from Switzerland, the world is before you, even though a “Hooligan” be behind you. You are not only safe from attack, you can do just what you like with the attacking party. He is as helpless in your well-trained hands as a railway-engine in the hands of its driver. The “Hooligan” does not understand the principles on which he works; you do, and, if it pleases you to make his machinery ineffective for further assaults upon unoffending citizens, you can do so in a way that cannot be believed until it is seen. No part of South London need have terrors for you; Menilmontant, La Vilette and the shadier side of the Bois are as safe for you in Paris as the Place de l’Opera. I find myself wishing that the Bartitsu Club had been in Shaftesbury Avenue as recently as some five or six years ago, when shortly after midnight the slums of Soho would send forth ruffians at whose approach wise men sought the light.

The work of the Club makes a strong appeal to Englishmen, because they are naturally of an adventurous disposition and have a great aversion to the use of any but natural weapons of defence in the brawls that they are bound to encounter now and again. There is a keen pleasure in being able to turn the tables on a man who tries to assault us suddenly and by means that he relies upon to give him an unfair advantage. I am well assured that a few of Mr. Barton-Wright’s pupils sent into a district infested by “Hooligans” would do more to bring about law and order than a dozen casual arrests followed by committal with hard labour, with or without the “cat”. And there is an element of sport in the Bartitsu method that should appeal to any “Hooligan” with a sense of humour.

Posted in Antagonistics, Boxing, Canonical Bartitsu, E. W. Barton-Wright, Jiujitsu, Savate, Vigny stick fighting | Comments Off on “Defence Against ‘Hooligans’: Bartitsu Methods in London” (1901)

“An Englishman’s discretion …”

  • Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Tuesday, 23rd November 2010

Jujutsu can not escape the mania of would-be inventions and discoveries. In the formation of the various schools of defence, undoubtedly there has been much eclectic work done. Several methods of attack and defense are borrowed from various schools and then combined into one. It is probable that some schools distinguish themselves mainly by name.

(Footnote) – Barton-Wright did this, although not by Japanese, but by an Englishman’s discretion; the Shinden Fudo school (style), at which I, as well as he learned in Kobe with Terajima, he called “Bartitsu” in the United Kingdom.

The school, whose basics I learned under Terajima Kunichiro, is called Shinden Fudo Ryu, which freely translates as, “Divine School of the Unshakable Heart”.

My teacher was first taught in the art of Ju Jutsu by Yata Onseisai, in Shimagawara in Miyako (Kyoto), now almost 50 years ago. I already pointed out that Bartitsu is nothing else than Shinden Fudo Ryu.

These passages are quoted from the article “Jujutsu, de Zachte Kunst”, originally published in issue # 69 of a Dutch journal, “De Gids”, in the year 1905. The author, Herman ten Kate (1858-1931) had met E.W. Barton-Wright on a steamship between Batavia and Singapore, and both men trained at the same Shinden Fudo Ryu dojo in Kobe circa 1896. Incidentally, this was apparently not the same SFR that is today associated with the Bujinkan lineage.

Ten Kate subsequently read Barton-Wright’s “New Art of Self Defence” articles, which had been published in Pearson’s Magazine in March and April of 1899. In the introduction to his second article, Barton-Wright had written:

Readers of the March Number will remember that I described therein a few of the three hundred methods of attack and counter attack that comprise my New Art of Self-Defence, to which I have given the name – “Bartitsu.”

It’s evident from Ten Kate’s article that he had taken some umbrage at this, apparently concluding that Barton-Wright was an opportunist who had simply appropriated Shinden Fudo Ryu jiujitsu and then had the gall to re-name it after himself.

This strongly suggests that Ten Kate had not seen any of the subsequent articles written by and about Barton-Wright in the English media. Those articles clearly demonstrate that Bartitsu was, in fact, intended as an eclectic combination of several different martial arts and combat sports, including jiujitsu as well as other methods:

Bartitsu has been devised with a view to impart to peacefully disposed men the science of defending themselves against ruffians or bullies, and comprises not only boxing but also the use of the stick, feet, and a very tricky and clever style of Japanese wrestling, in which weight and strength play only a very minor part.

(“The Bartitsu Club”, article in “Black and White Budget” magazine, December 1900)

When he spoke of Bar-titsu, he therefore meant real self-defence in every form, and not in one particular branch. Under “Bar-titsu” he comprised boxing, or the use of the fist as a hitting medium, the use of the feet both in an offensive and defensive sense, the use of the walking-stick as a means of self-defence in such a way as to make it practically impossible to be hit upon the fingers. Ju-do and Ju-jitsu, which were secret styles of Japanese wrestling, he would call close-play as applied to self-defence.

(“Ju-jitsu and Ju-do” – lecture by B-W for the Japan Society of London, published in “Transactions of the Japan Society,” 1902, v. 5, pp. 261-264.)

In the hundred-odd years since Ten Kate wrote his article for De Gids, the same false conclusion has been reached by a number of jiujitsu-oriented researchers. For example, Ralph Judson’s 1958 article The Mystery of Baritsu likewise missed the significance of Bartitsu as an eclectic, cross-cultural martial art, describing it simply as “a number of selected methods of ju-jutsu, adapted to European needs and costume”.

Simultaneously, throughout the early and mid-20th century, Barton-Wright was marginalised in the introductions to books on judo, which typically credited him with having introduced Japanese martial arts to England and with having been Yukio Tani’s manager, but failed to acknowledge Bartitsu as having been more than a re-branded jiujitsu. The same misapprehension occasionally appears in current Internet forum discussions about Barton-Wright and Bartitsu.

It was not until the post-Jeet Kune Do 1990s, when Richard Bowen and then Graham Noble began to look deeper into the history, that the full significance of Bartitsu as an “Edwardian MMA” began to emerge. By devising a form of martial arts cross-training between Asian and European fighting styles, Barton-Wright had actually anticipated, by about seven decades, what is arguably the single defining characteristic of the modern international martial arts movement.

Credit where it is due …

Posted in Canonical Bartitsu, E. W. Barton-Wright, Editorial, Jiujitsu | Comments Off on “An Englishman’s discretion …”