Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Thursday, 5th December 2013
The Globe and Sunday Times War Pictorial, Monday, 32 April, 1917 –
In Sir Arthur Pearson’s reminiscences in the January number of Pearson’s Magazine, is his account of how he came to be convinced of the usefulness of jiu-jitsu:
“I well remember the day on which a small man, one Mr. Barton-Wright, appeared in my office and talked to me enthusiastically of the merits of the art which he had studied in Japan and was anxious to write about. I asked him to show me something of it.
He stood before me in a most casual attitude and invited me to throw him down. I have always kept myself very fit, and was in those days rather proud of my strength. Without any further ado I essayed the apparently simple task of putting the little man on the floor. What really happened was that in less time than it takes to dictate these words I struck the wall some 15 ft. away with quite enough force to be unpleasant! Mr. Barton-Wright had sunk before my assault and, as its violence upset my balance, had delicately poised me upon the soles of his feet and shot me into space.
‘That was simple!’ he said cheerily, as I gathered myself up. ‘Now let us go along to some more elaborate …’
‘Thank you!’ I said. ‘Go away and write me something, but I absolutely refuse to be demonstrated on any more.’”
Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Thursday, 28th February 2013
Esme Beringer poses with two of her favourite weapons.
Directly paralleling the revival of Bartitsu, the modern revival of historical fencing as a martial art has become well-established over the past fifteen years. However, a remarkably similar revival of “ancient swordplay” took place in London during the late 19th century, and the actress and swordswoman Esme Beringer was one of its chief proponents.
Born into an artistic London family in 1879, Esme was drawn towards the theatre. Her sister Vera was a popular child actress on the stage, to whom Lewis Carroll dedicated a limerick in 1886:
There was a young lady of station “I love man” was her sole exclamation But when men cried, “You flatter” She replied, “Oh! no matter Isle of Man is the true explanation.”
Esme Beringer had first taken up fencing as a girl, under the instruction of a Sergeant Elliot. As a young adult, in 1896, Esme drew acclaim for her dramatic performance in the “breeches role” of Romeo opposite Vera as Juliet:
Miss Esme Beringer, in figure and appearance, is very suited to boys’ parts, the first in which she appeared being as Romeo to her sister’s Juliet. In Romeo she was called upon to practise the art of fencing, and once having tried it, she became most enthusiastic, and astonished her masters with her aptitude. She is a devotee to all athletic and gymnastic exercises, is fond of riding, bicycling, swimming and walking, and she considers fencing one of the best means of keeping healthy and developing the figure.
– Womanhood, vol. 6, 1901.
Her swordplay instructor for this role was none other than the redoubtable Captain Alfred Hutton. Along with his friend and colleague Egerton Castle, Hutton was devoted to the revival of Elizabethan swordplay, including the use of the rapier and dagger, the two-handed sword and the broadsword and handbuckler.
During her preparations for the role of Romeo, Esme also became fascinated with historical fencing. She continued to practice both ancient and modern forms of the art for many years thereafter, specialising in the rapier and dagger and probably attending Hutton’s classes at the Bartitsu Club between 1900-1902. Her studies included theatrical fencing as well as the competitive/martial use of the weapons.
During the first decade of the 20th century, Esme Beringer participated in numerous historical fencing displays with Hutton, Castle and their other students, and in 1902 she both chaired and bouted during an “ancient swordplay” display for the Playgoer’s Club. A reviewer from the Stage newspaper wrote:
The two performances given by Miss Esme Beringer and Mr. George Silver (an actor who shared the name of the famous Elizabethan-era swordsman) were marked by a keenness and promptness of attack and defence that raised the enthusiasm of the spectators. Their first contribution was a very spirited engagement with rapier and dagger, in which Miss Beringer, though vanquished finally, revealed considerable skill and alacrity. Not less absorbing and stimulating was their encounter with dagger and cloak, in which some very smart play was witnessed, Mr. Silver scoring two points to one.
Esme also developed and starred in a playlet called At the Point of the Sword, based upon a story by Egerton Castle, whose purpose was essentially to justify a “terrific combat” between herself and her co-star:
All were delighted by the grace and skillfulness of Miss Beringer’s fencing, and her thrust and parry were declared excellent. Indeed, the trifle served to show how fine a swordswoman the talented actress is, and her cleverness in the play of rapier and dagger (…) Miss Beringer has made so thorough a study of the art that even during her holiday this year, she and the gentleman who appears with her at the Palace Theatre practised daily with their foils and daggers, much to the astonishment of the quiet neighbours who looked on in horror.
Esme Beringer went on to become an instructor with the Actresses’ Foil Club, which had originated as the “ladies’ branch” of the Actors’ Sword Club. While the Actor’s Club was suspended during the First World War, the Actresses’ Club continued during wartime. Thus, it is not unlikely that Esme continued the Hutton/Castle lineage of historical fencing into the 1920s, and possibly beyond.
Swordswoman Esme Beringer passed away, aged 93 years, in 1972.
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Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Saturday, 2nd March 2013
This short essay on the practicalities and wisdom of stick fighting is excerpted from “The Story of the Stick in All Ages and Lands” (1875), by Antony Réal.
I REMEMBER an armory of the quartier Latin that was very much frequented in 184-, where the art of using the cudgel was especially taught. There were a dozen of us, students, who were almost passionately fond of this kind of fencing.
The name of our fencing-master was Gousset. He was a very strong man, most devilishly irritable, much feared by his equals, but withal a good fellow, and very talkative — especially when we invited him to drink.
“Gentlemen,” he often said to us, “learn how to use the stick with one or both hands — then I will answer for you. In no matter what situation you may find yourselves, no matter how many enemies you may have, you can victoriously repulse their attacks, with this weapon in your hands.” “Why,” he sometimes said, as he twirled his stick, “with this instrument, I could repulse a squad of policemen.” Gousset was a fanatic on the stick question. “Fencing with the stick,” he also said, “develops the body more than any other exercise. It is the best way to acquire strength and suppleness. After six months of this healthful exercise, you will be proof against diseases of the chest.”
Gousset’s aphorisms on this subject occur to me:
“The knowledge of the stick is the knowledge of life.” “Aim at the breast, but strike at the head.” “Beware of your own eyes; let no one know where you are going to strike.” “Man is only successful through audacity. Be expert with the stick, and you will be audacious.” “Have confidence in your stick, and you will have confidence in yourself.” “To be feared is better than to be loved; and nothing inspires fear so much as a good, solid stick.” “We ought to know how to use the stick, and how to shake hands.”
These aphorisms of Gousset seem to have been put in practice principally by a celebrated society formed in 1850, and which was christened by the public Decembraillards.
“The organization of this society was formidable,” says M. Ernest Hamel, in his patriotic Histoire du second Empire. It was a whole army recruited from the soldiers, and men of no profession or trade, who were ready for anything. Its members were armed with long, iron-pointed sticks, which they were always ready to use on those who were not as enthusiastic as they.
It was on the plain of Satory, near Versailles, on the 10th of October, 1850, that the Decembraillards appeared for the first time, armed with their clubs. They were reviewed by Louis Napoleon, at that time president of the republic.
On that day the aphorism of our master, Gousset, was realized. “You should know how to strike with a club, and how to shake hands.” Here the hand-shakings were bottles of wine distributed among the soldiers.
“When,” said an eye witness, “partisans of the new empire were seen exciting the enthusiasm of the troops, and provoking the cries of ‘ Vive l’Empereur!’”, a bottle in one hand, and a club in the other.
And the empire arose!
In 1869, when this power which M. de la Gueronniere called in a journal the club empire, was about to fall, the stick again tried to play its political part.
Unfortunately for the men who still dream of the feudal stick, the people of to-day no longer allow themselves to be cudgelled, and the society of the cudgellers had its trouble for its pains.
And the empire fell!!!
It is the fate reserved to all nations whose principle is not The Right, that they can only rise and be maintained by force.
If, in all ages and with all nations, cudgelling has been practiced —as we shall see it has, in the next book of this history — it belonged to our epoch to make an art of this practice. But happily for our generation, this art is only exercised to-day in a platonic way, although there are still backs ready to bend before the first stick that comes along.
In Gousset’s time only forty to fifty blows were given in thirty seconds. Our cudgellers of to-day can administer from seventy to eighty.
Such progress in the art of cudgelling makes me muse!
To all cudgellers, past, present, and to come — to all stick-bearers, kings, emperors, or prelates, I prefer the inoffensive cudgeller who lately performed tricks with his stick on the Place de la Madeline, and on the great boulevards, and whom all Paris has seen throw in the air, with the end of his stick, a small coin which always fell into his vest pocket, amid the deafening shouts of the people. This cudgel-player modestly called himself the first stick-juggler of Europe.
We can forgive him for this feeling of pride, for his stick never tyrannized over nor hurt any one. It knew how to command respect without inspiring fear.
Posted inAntagonistics, Video|Comments Off on The “Knowledge of the Stick” in Napoleonic France
Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Saturday, 9th March 2013
Although the woman known as “Miss Sanderson” was a prominent fencer and self defence instructor in Edwardian London, regrettably little is known of her life – including her first name. At some point in the early 1900s she married Pierre Vigny, who had begun his own career in London as the chief instructor at the Bartitsu Club. Miss Sanderson, who continued to use what was presumably her maiden name for professional purposes, became Vigny’s assistant instructor when he opened his own school in Berner’s Street during 1903. By 1908 she was teaching her own unique system of women’s self defence, based on Vigny’s method but concentrating on the use of the umbrella and parasol.
Here follow some excerpts from newspaper reports on her exhibitions:
Then Miss Sanderson came to the attack, and the demonstration showed her to be as capable with the stick as the sword. She passed it from hand to hand so quickly that the eye could scarcely follow the movements, and all the while her blows fell thick and fast. Down slashes, upper cuts, side swings, jabs and thrusts followed in quick succession, and the thought arose, how would a ruffian come off if he attacked this accomplished lady, supposing she had either walking-stick, umbrella, or parasol at the time? In tests, she has faced more than one Hooligan, who was paid to attack her, and each time he has earned his money well.
The contest between the Professor and Madame (Vigny, i.e. Miss Sanderson), which mingled the English art of Fisticuffs with the French Savate, was also intensely interesting, as proving the quickness, endurance and hitting power which can be developed as readily by members of the fair sex, as by those of the male persuasion, provided only that they be suitably trained.
– J. St. A. Jewell, “The Gymnasiums of London: Part X. — Pierre Vigny’s” Health and Strength, May 1904, pages 173-177.
It is certain, after seeing Madame’s performance, that every lady would wish to study the art as, were she acquainted with it, and provided with a hooked umbrella, she could penetrate into the roughest districts, and yet feel sure that any assailant, however formidable, who ventured to molest her, would bitterly regret having done so.
– “Professor Pierre Vigny’s Sixth Great Annual Tournament,” Health and Strength, January 1906, pages 38-39.
Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Tuesday, 12th March 2013
Detective Inspector Archibald “Archie” LeBrock (left), the protagonist of the Grandville graphic novel series, assumes the Bartitsu “rear guard” position.
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Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Thursday, 21st March 2013
This 1912 vintage newsreel footage is among the earliest film recordings of Japanese martial arts techniques.
The film, which was probably shot in Paris, begins with a demonstration of formal jiujitsu waza (techniques) performed by Takisaburo Tobari, who had apparently travelled quite widely in Europe, visiting Germany and Austria between 1907-10. His partner in the demonstration is Taro Miyake, who had famously defeated former Bartitsu Club instructor Yukio Tani in 1905. Thereafter, Miyake and Tani continued to work as music hall challenge wrestlers, established the Japanese School of Jujitsu in London’s Oxford Street, and participated in the creation of the book The Game of Jujitsu. Both men also worked as challenge wrestlers and jiujitsu instructors in Paris, Miyake in particular being associated with Ernest Regnier’s dojo at 55 Rue de Ponthieu.
The second part of the newsreel features a spectacular and highly polished display of jiujitsu as gentlemanly self-defence against villainous “apaches” (French street gangsters). It is very probable that the participants in this display are S.K. Eida, Shozo Kanaya and Yuzo Hirano, all of whom also taught at the Oxford Street school. Possibly uniquely, it includes a demonstration of a jiujitsu defence against the infamous coup du père François strangulation trick.
The “apaches” evidently had a terrific time performing for the camera …
