In contrast to many dojos and gyms, there wasn’t a trace of the testosterone-fuelled machismo often associated with martial arts – in fact, the class was punctuated with bursts of friendly laughter thanks to James’ wonderfully approachable teaching style. Students were encouraged to try techniques on opponents of different heights and sizes, to understand how the techniques can be effective against a variety of opponents.
The Idler Academy’s Bartitsu class comes highly recommended – whether you fancy something a bit different to do on a weekday evening, or as an experienced martial artist you’re interested in the cross-training potential of a martial art with such a mixed background. And if you happen to be a bit of an aficionado of Victoriana, rest assured: this is a martial arts class you can attend in a waistcoat and pocket watch!
Posted inCanonical Bartitsu, Reviews|Comments Off on “The Gentleman’s Martial Art: Bartitsu at the Idler Academy”
Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Tuesday, 27th March 2018
Above: an unarmed Bartitsu class in Germany.
This article assumes that the object is to train in a neo-Bartitsu that is as close as possible to the original style. Therefore, the approach described here is very closely based on the primary, canonical sources, especially E.W. Barton-Wright’s own comments on this subject from late 1901 and early 1902, at which point his “Bartitsu experiment” was fairly well-established. By that time, most of the Bartitsu Club instructors had been working together on an almost daily basis for at least a year, and in some cases for nearly three years.
The evidence overwhelmingly indicates that unarmed Bartitsu was a new, hybrid method drawing primarily from boxing, kicking and an eclectic blend of jiujitsu styles. At a time when Barton-Wright’s club was literally the only place outside of Japan where students could formally study Japanese unarmed combat, jiujitsu was, reasonably enough, considered to be something of a “secret” art. In fact, it was frequently referred to as such by Barton-Wright and others during this period.
The formal, kata-based pedagogy of ko-ryu jiujitsu was, however, typically predicated on defences against single, highly committed attacks. During late 1901, Barton-Wright pointed out that this pedagogy was not necessarily equipped to counter attacks such as the quick, aggressive combinations of a skilled boxer or savateur, nor (perhaps) the unpredictable flurries of strikes that might be made by an untrained street brawler.
As Barton-Wright commented:
In order to ensure, as far as it is possible, immunity against injury in cowardly attacks or quarrels, one must understand boxing in order to thoroughly appreciate the danger and rapidity of a well-directed blow, and the particular parts of the body which are scientifically attacked. The same, of course, applies to the use of the foot or the stick.
He continued:
Ju-do and Ju-jitsu were not designed as primary means of attack and defence against a boxer or a man who kicks you, but are only supposed to be used after coming to close quarters, and in order to get to close quarters it is absolutely necessary to understand boxing and the use of the foot.
The experience of numerous subsequent martial arts and combat sports, notably including modern MMA, has tended to confirm Barton-Wright’s observation in this regard. Without putting too fine a point on it, the defences of boxing and savate are optimised for attacks made in those styles.
As Barton-Wright noted in the 1901 article Bartitsu: Its Exponent Interviewed, however, orthodox boxing/savate defences – as typically taught to middle-class students in commercial schools, geared entirely towards relatively safe competition – could be modified and improved towards the goal of winning a street fight:
The amateur (boxer) is seldom taught how to hit really hard, which is what you must do in a row. Nor is he protected against the savate, which would certainly be used on him by foreign ruffians, or the cowardly kicks often given by the English Hooligan. A little knowledge of boxing is really rather a disadvantage to (the defender) if his assailant happens to be skilled at it, because (the assailant) will will know exactly how his victim is likely to hit and guard.
He then clarified:
Another branch of Bartitsu is that in which the feet and hands are both employed, and which is an adaptation of boxing and Savate. The guards are done in a slightly different style from boxing, being much more numerous as well. The use of the feet is also done quite differently from the French Savate.
As to boxing, we have guards which are not at all like the guards taught in schools, and which will make the assailant hurt his own hand and arm very seriously. So we teach a savate not at all like the French savate, but much more deadly, and which, if properly used, will smash the opponent’s ankle or even his ribs. Even if it be not used, it is very useful in teaching the pupil to keep his feet, which are almost as important in a scrimmage as his head.
Pierre Vigny demonstrates a destructive guard against the opponent’s left lead punch to the body.
Thus, Bartitsu guards represented an aggressive, damaging modification to the standard blocks of boxing and savate. The opponent’s strikes would be met percussively, the defender chopping into punches with elbow/forearm strikes or offering the sharp wedge of an elbow-forward shield, as well as counter-kicking into attacking shins and ankles, as a precursor to finishing the fight at closer quarters.
By his own account, Barton-Wright clearly considered Japanese unarmed combat to be superior to other forms of wrestling as a means of self-defence. This consideration implicitly included the various European folk-styles available at the turn of the 20th century. Thus, whereas an unarmed Bartitsu exponent might square off against an assailant in an orthodox circa 1900 boxing/savate guard stance, and would certainly attempt to damage their attacking limbs with percussive guards, (s)he would be well-prepared to finish the fight with jiujitsu:
If one gets into a row and plays the game in the recognised style of English fair play – with fists – the opponent will very likely rush in and close, in order to avoid a blow. Then comes the moment for wrestling in the secret Japanese way. Instantly the unwary one is caught and thrown so violently that he is placed hors de combat, without even sufficient strength left to retire unassisted from the field.
The overall strategy Barton-Wright advocated for unarmed Bartitsu is, therefore:
To assume a boxing/savate guard stance if possible, encouraging the opponent to attempt to punch or kick in the “orthodox styles”
If the opponent does attempt to punch or kick, counter in the first instance by striking into the attacking limbs
Alternatively:
If the opponent attempts to break through the defender’s guard with a grappling attack, allow it
And then, in either case –
Finish the fight with jiujitsu throws and/or jointlocks.
Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Thursday, 2nd January 2014
… if only as the second of thirteen possible life-saving, death-faking scenarios worked out in painstaking detail prior to Sherlock’s confrontation with Moriarty atop the St. Bart’s Hospital roof.
Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Wednesday, 1st January 2014
Fans around the world are eagerly awaiting Episode 1 of the third season of Sherlock, in which the mystery of how the consulting detective faked his own death will be revealed …
After a dramatic rooftop confrontation with his nemesis, Jim Moriarty – during which Moriarty apparently killed himself – Sherlock seemingly plummeted to his destruction in order to save his friends from assassination at the hands of Moriarty’s snipers.
Although it’s clear that he did not actually die, the puzzle of how Sherlock faked his suicide has been the subject of intense and wide-ranging speculation. In 1893, though, for readers of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Final Problem, the question was not so much “how?” as “why” Doyle would kill off his most popular character during his confrontation with Moriarty at the brink of the Reichenbach waterfall, as recorded by Dr. Watson:
A few words may suffice to tell the little that remains. An examination by experts leaves little doubt that a personal contest between the two men ended, as it could hardly fail to end in such a situation, in their reeling over, locked in each other’s arms. Any attempt at recovering the bodies was absolutely hopeless, and there, deep down in that dreadful caldron of swirling water and seething foam, will lie for all time the most dangerous criminal and the foremost champion of the law of their generation.
The prosaic reality is that Doyle was simply tired of writing about Sherlock Holmes and wanted to engage with more personally interesting subjects, which he did for the best part of the following decade. However, the public pressure (and financial incentives) to revive the Holmes character continued to mount and in 1903 Doyle capitulated, resurrecting Holmes in The Adventure of the Empty House.
As Holmes himself explained to the considerably startled Dr. Watson:
Well, then, about that chasm. I had no serious difficulty in getting out of it, for the very simple reason that I never was in it.”
“You never were in it?”
“No, Watson, I never was in it. My note to you was absolutely genuine. I had little doubt that I had come to the end of my career when I perceived the somewhat sinister figure of the late Professor Moriarty standing upon the narrow pathway which led to safety. I read an inexorable purpose in his gray eyes. I exchanged some remarks with him, therefore, and obtained his courteous permission to write the short note which you afterwards received. I left it with my cigarette-box and my stick, and I walked along the pathway, Moriarty still at my heels. When I reached the end I stood at bay. He drew no weapon, but he rushed at me and threw his long arms around me. He knew that his own game was up, and was only anxious to revenge himself upon me. We tottered together upon the brink of the fall. I have some knowledge, however, of baritsu, or the Japanese system of wrestling, which has more than once been very useful to me. I slipped through his grip, and he with a horrible scream kicked madly for a few seconds, and clawed the air with both his hands. But for all his efforts he could not get his balance, and over he went. With my face over the brink, I saw him fall for a long way. Then he struck a rock, bounded off, and splashed into the water.
“Baritsu” was Doyle’s idiosyncratic spelling of Bartitsu, the eccentric and eclectic self defence art that had, in fact, been introduced to London in 1899 by Edward Barton-Wright. Many theories have been advanced as to why he misspelled the word; perhaps the most plausible is that he simply copied it verbatim from a London Times report on a Bartitsu exhibition, which included the same misspelling and was sub-headed Japanese Wrestling at the Tivoli (Theatre).
Thus, Conan Doyle’s hero saved his own life, and then faked his own death, via the deus ex machina device of an obscure Anglo-Swiss-Japanese martial art, the details of which were largely forgotten over the course of the 20th century until, almost exactly one hundred years later, curiosity over his “baritsu” reference spurred a revival of Bartitsu …
Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Friday, 17th January 2014
Fashionistas were recently treated to an exhibition of stylish Bartitsu stick fighting during an innovative presentation by the Duchamp London men’s clothing company.
Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Saturday, 18th January 2014
From the Manchester Evening News, April 1899:
Two or three recent cases have served to draw attention to the dangers of London streets after dark. It is seldom that the victim of violent robbery is able to being his assailants to justice, and as vigilant as they are the police cannot provide a uniformed Sherlock Holmes to walk in the footsteps of every (indecipherable) citizen in the West End. If the said citizen has been dining too enthusiastically, he is far more likely to meet a policeman than to be pounced on by a gang of desperate thieves. Mr. Barton-Wright declares that, by studying his Anglo-Japanese system of self-defence, the least muscular and most timid may dispose of several enemies, but so far the highway robbers have escaped from the dodges of Bartitzu (a feature of the system mentioned); the latter are, moreover, likelier pupils at that school than the man in the street whom they convert into the man in the gutter.
Posted inCanonical Bartitsu|Comments Off on “The Dodges of Bartitzu” (1899)
Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Sunday, 19th January 2014
From the San Francisco Call newspaper, August 1904.
The young lady demonstrating these self defence techniques is believed to be Mademoiselle Marie Gelas.
TIME and time again when some account appears in the papers describing a ruffianly attack upon a woman on the streets you have heard the women folks of your household exclaim: “I know I should faint if that happened to me.” Now, in nine cases out of ten they don’t faint, but put up a struggle, with overwhelming odds of strength against them, that is really to be admired.
The average woman in a desperate situation is more to be depended upon then the average man. Taking this fact for granted, the average woman, with the knowledge of a few defensive tricks, can easily handle the ruffian to be met with on the streets and prevent harm to herself.
At the present time San Francisco enjoys a reputation which it is safe to say no other city can boast of. It is that its women are safe to travel its streets at all hours unmolested, if they will go strictly about their business. It does happen sometimes that a women is accosted and, if she is in hearing distance of any one, no matter how bad the neighborhood, a cry for help will be answered.
This is in striking opposition to New York, the greatest city in the United States, where a woman cannot walk two blocks, after dark, without having some one speak to her. There may be occasions even here when a woman may meet a ruffian who is intent on robbery or under the influence of liquor. It is at such times that her presence of mind must outwit his strength. It is for that purpose that these few simple instructions are given.
First and foremost it must be remembered that to commit the instructions to memory is not all that is necessary. A woman must practice them and keep in practice, for this is the only keynote to a successful application. It will be found after practice that almost unconsciously when any one’s hands are placed on you, suddenly you will at once assume a defensive attitude, which if it is a serious case will give you an advantage, which will make you mistress of the situation. But without practice you will not be able to cope with your assailant.
Take the ruffian who attempts to steal your brooch or grasp you by the throat. Up go your hands and you take a grip of his forearm near the wrist and with a quick turn you bring his arm over your shoulder, making a fulcrum, and with a sudden jerk downward you will break his arm. In practice do this slowly, for it is most powerful and if you are not careful you will make your subject a candidate for the hospital.
In traveling alone on the streets at night it is a splendid idea to carry a parasol or umbrella. Keep it unlatched with the right hand on the slide at the ribs. If you are attacked and the ruffian tries to grasp you, it is very easy to open it in his face. You will find that the sudden opening of it will cause him to try and grab you, umbrella and all, but by shoving it into his face with the right hand extended you will be able to duck past him to one side and out of danger while he is trying to get the parasol or umbrella out of his way.
Another defense in the use of the hat pin when attacked from behind. The mere act of raising the arm will cause the ruffian to press downward instead of grasping you tighter around the throat. But he will not be able to stop you from getting your hat pin; then you can twist around and his face will be at your mercy.
Another good source of protection is to carry a good stout stick pin in your collar. This is easier to find and will allow of quicker action.
There is one way to place a ruffian, especially one who is under the influence of liquor, at your mercy, and that is the well-known trick of pulling the coat down off the shoulders. You then have his arms tied and he is powerless to do you any harm.
A trick which is likely to give one a shudder when it is considered, but yet one which is permissible when one feels that it is to be used in self-defense, is to grasp the face, gouging the thumb deep into the eye. There la no human being that can stand the pain and it will result in throwing the ruffian flat on his back. It will take all the fight out of a man. It is a game not to his liking.
There is another of the same order that will throw a ruffian. It is to grab the back of the neck with the left hand and shove the right in his face so that the fingers come under his nose. An upward pressure against the nose will throw him off his balance in a second and he will go down. There is no stopping; the strongest man in the world cannot stand the pain. It makes him as helpless as a child.
An act which requires a great deal of practice, but is very effective when accomplished, is to grab the wrist when one is being struck and jerk it in the direction of the blow. This, in many cases, will pull the arm out of the socket at the shoulder, but to accomplish it one must be exceedingly quick with arms and feet, for it means that you must sidestep out of range as you grab the wrist.
Another thing that is done under the same circumstance is to sidestep and grasp the wrist with both hands and quickly turn the arm outward. This will also throw him off his balance and more than likely will bring him to the ground. Always remember one thing: never step backward, for you lose your balance and put yourself at a disadvantage. Practice stepping sideways out of danger. By practice you will find which hand is going to be used and you can take the other side.
Another thing to remember is to watch the eyes of your assailant. He has got to look where he is going to grab and you will be able to forecast his move. Just as soon as you down your ruffian get away, using all your powers of speech to summon help.
Posted inAntagonistics|Comments Off on “How To Defend Yourself” (1904)
