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“The Brutal World Of Bare-Knuckle Boxing In Victorian Britain”
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“What is the mysterious Western martial art Bartitsu, used by Sherlock Holmes?”
Martial artist Niimi Satoshi offers some creative interpretations of neo-Bartitsu techniques.
Posted in Boxing, Video, Vigny stick fighting
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“The Police (of the Future)”, 1886
The letter to the editor of the Daily Chronicle that inspired this cartoon referred to the advantages of wicker-work shields (which actually were in use by some police departments during the late 1880s) and noted that the quarterstaff should be studded with nails to prevent it from being seized by opponents. The fireworks and squibs, electric rattle, shocking wires, water tank etc. were embellishments by the cartoonist.
Posted in Antagonistics, Hooliganism, Humour
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Light Unarmed Sparring
Some more light, speculative Bartitsu-style unarmed sparring from the Highland Broadsword Society. Note the savate inflections and the moment of standing grappling.
Milling the fists and destructive elbow blocks are characteristic of the “secret style of boxing” believed to have been developed by Barton-Wright and Vigny.
Sans kicks, an edited compilation of key moments from a bout at vintage fisticuffs.
“Bartitsu” in Street Fighter 6
The incursion of Edward Barton-Wright’s New Art of Self Defence into modern pop-culture continues via the new Street Fighter 6 fighting game, in which the main villain, known as “JP”, is portrayed as a Bartitsu expert.
This isn’t the first time Bartitsu has been incorporated into a video game – that happened back in 2013 when the game Urban Rivals introduced a dapper Bartitsu-trained flamingo character named Flint, and again in 2016 when the Mortal Kombat franchise added a highly stylized version of Bartitsu cane fighting to the arsenal of Drunken Kung Fu stylist Bo Rai Cho.
JP’s “Bartitsu” bears a similarly tangential relationship to the real fighting style, not least because JP also possesses magical or psionic powers that enable him to do significant damage without ever getting close to his opponents. That said, his kicking attacks are reasonable approximations of both high and low savate kicks, some of his cane attacks are at least in the real-world ballpark and he occasionally pulls off a jujutsu-like throw. It’s even possible that his idiosyncratic kneeling defensive posture may have been loosely inspired by actual Vigny cane fighting techniques:
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Historical Pugilism
These bouts of light, technical pugilism sparring are also a good approximation of Bartitsu boxing as alluded to and partially described, but unfortunately never detailed, by E.W. Barton-Wright. Note especially the use of “chopper” (hammerfist) punches and destructive elbow guards.
For further technical details on the speculative reconstruction of Bartitsu boxing, see The Bartitsu Compendium, Volume III.
“Mrs. Pankhurst’s Bodyguard: On the Trail of ‘Kitty’ Marshall and the Met Police ‘Cats'”
Self-defence historian Emelyne Godfrey’s long-awaited new book is now available from Barnes and Noble and other booksellers.
Some of the most extraordinary narratives of the radical women’s suffrage movement are those of the Bodyguard – a secret society of martial arts-trained women who protected fugitive suffragettes from arrest and assault. Notorious in their day, their story was largely forgotten during the cultural chaos of the First World War, only recently re-emerging into popular awareness.
Drawing substantially from bodyguard Kitty Marshall’s unpublished memoir Suffragette Escapes and Adventures, Emelyne Godfrey skilfully conveys their many escapades of evasion, deception and – when necessary – confrontation with much more powerful opponents:
Kitty Willoughby Marshall broke with convention. In 1901, she daringly divorced her husband and joined the WSPU, campaigning for women’s suffrage. She married Arthur Marshall and the couple soon became a powerhouse team in the movement, Arthur defending the suffragettes in court while Kitty, trained in ju-jitsu and a member of the elite team ‘the Bodyguard’, helped her close friend Mrs Pankhurst evade the clutches of the authorities under the Cat and Mouse Act. All this took place under the watchful eye of the Metropolitan Police and Special Branch detective Ralph Kitchener, who frequently came into contact with the Marshalls in his work trailing suffragette ‘mice’. This gripping new book by Dr Emelyne Godfrey follows events on both sides as the ‘cats’ hunted the ‘mice’, making extensive use of unpublished material and unseen images.
Posted in Academia, Antagonistics, Biography, Edwardiana, Jiujitsu, Suffrajitsu
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Antique English jujutsu gi discovered
Thanks to David Brough for passing along these images of an extremely rare antique English jujutsu gi, which was discovered inside a suitcase in an English antiques shop. The suitcase also contained a 4th-edition copy of the Text-Book of Ju-Jitsu, As Practised in Japan, by former Bartitsu Club instructor Sadakazu Uyenishi, Bruce Sutherland’s book Ju-Jitsu Self Defence, a rubber practice knife and a collection of correspondence courses sold by The Kodokwan Ju Jitsu Association run by H. Johnston, who was based in South Africa.
Photos courtesy of Gary Harper:
Posted in Academia, Edwardiana, Jiujitsu, Physical Culture
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