“The Secret Martial Art of Charlie Chaplin’s Cane”

The AgelessExplorer YouTube channel offers an entertaining angle on cane-fighting and on Charlie Chaplin’s physical comedy genius in this mini-documentary.

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“Self-Defence from 1920” (The Wrinkle Book)

Nice to see some of these techniques in action, particularly in that the self defence section of The Wrinkle Book was possibly my first ever exposure to the notion of “early 20th century martial arts/self defence”. My late father had a first edition copy of this book and I came across this section while leafing through it sometime in the late 1970s or early ’80s; note to younger people, this is the sort of thing that sometimes happened long before the Internet.

Much later, the Wrinkle Book‘s page of self-defence illustrations may well have been the very first image I ever scanned for online republication, and in 2006 I used a lightly modified version of the same page as the cover image for my augmented republication of Andrew Chase Cunningham’s book, The Cane as a Weapon.

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“The Repair Shop” restores Yukio Tani’s portrait

This episode of the BBC’s Repair Shop series features the painstaking restoration of a 1930s oil portrait of former Bartitsu Club instructor Yukio Tani, which had hung for many years on the wall of the venerable London Budokwai martial arts school. Tani had been among the dojo’s original instructors and taught there until his death aged 69 on January 22nd, 1950.

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Yuki Tani watches catch-as-catch-can wrestling in 1926

A few seconds of footage of former Bartitsu Club instructor Yukio Tani watching a catch-as-catch-can wrestling championship in Finsbury Park, Middlesex. Tani would have been around 49 years old at the time this film was shot; about a decade later he suffered a debilitating stroke that ended his athletic career, though he recovered well enough to be able to coach judoka and jujutsuka from the sidelines of the famous London Budokwai.

In 1913 Tani had starred in a short silent film called Ju-Jitsu to the Rescue, now believed lost; he also (very likely) appeared on camera demonstrating Japanese unarmed combat as part of a display at London’s Kensington Palace Field in 1928 and as part of the audience watching a Budokwai judo and kendo demonstration in 1937.

Aside from a short 1905 documentary film starring Tani’s fellow Bartitsu instructor Sadakazu Uyenishi – now believed lost except as a reconstruction from the cinematographic stills featured in Uyenishi’s book – these snippets are the only known moving images of Bartitsu Club instructors.

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“Guards of Bartitsu” with Oliver Janseps

A Christmas treat from German Bartitsu instructor Oliver Janseps, teaching the fundamental guards of the Vigny/Lang stickfighting style.

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“The Suffragette That Knew Jiu Jitsu”

A fairly well-researched presentation on Edith Garrud’s role in the jujutsu training of the WSPU Bodyguard unit, contextualised with some background on Barton-Wright’s Bartitsu.

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“Bartitsu Basics – How to thrust with a cane & the hand guard”

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Experimental Vigny/Bartitsu stick sparring

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.

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Bartitsu with Team TE-MA Combat

Experimental Vigny/Bartitsu stick sparring from Team TE-MA Combat, with an active group class shown below. Nice to see a variety of guard positions (front, back and double-handed variations) as well as ambidextrous attacks being employed.

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“Parry and Fight Back” in the Vigny style with Oliver Janseps

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.

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