“Self Defence with a Walking Stick, Revisited”

Click here to read jujutsuka/researcher David Brough’s peer-reviewed article for Issue #11 of Martial Arts Studies, tracing the development of walking stick self defence back into the early 19th century, through Pierre Vigny’s innovations at the Bartitsu Club circa 1900 and then into sporadic revivals via the English jujutsu scene during the late 20th century:

In Barton-Wright’s second article in 1901, also titled ‘Self-defence with a Walking-stick’ [Barton-Wright 1901b], we see more use of guards, strikes, and parries, with a straight cane. However, we also see defences using a hooked walking stick, where the crook of the handle is used to pull an opponent off balance by either pulling round their neck, or round their ankle. In this article, we also see an interesting evolution, which is the appearance of jujutsu techniques applied with the cane. For example, technique number 7 shows the bent arm lock, ude-garami, applied after a parry (Figure 4 overleaf). Do these techniques show that Vigny and Barton-Wright, who trained intensively with jujutsu experts Tani and Uyenishi, started to hybridise use of the cane with jujutsu techniques?

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