- Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Sunday, 9th March 2014
A short account and illustration of the famous Bartitsu and historical fencing exhibition at the London Bath Club, courtesy of the The Sussex Agricultural Express, 17 March 1899:
One of the most popular clubs in the West End is the Bath Club, which has been holding its Ladies’ Night, when a curious and amusing entertainment was provided. Swordsmanship, swimming and Bartitsu were the special features. The great bath, with its clear water shining beneath the lights, the platform extending across it and roped round to form a ring for athletic display, the galleries crowded with fashionable people in full dress, all made up a picturesque and unique scene such as cannot be witnessed elsewhere.
Bartitsu is a new style of self defence, which embodies all the best and most practical points in boxing, la savate, the use of the dagger and of the walking stick, combined with a most scientific and secret style of Japanese wrestling. The whole principle is based upon balance and leverage, and the art of throwing an adversary by yielding, and not by resisting; in other words, to make use of your adversary’s strength against himself.