Members of the Battersea Bartitsu Club work variations on the canonical set-play “A safe way for one man to disable another when both are equally well armed with sticks” (shown below).
We’re pleased to present this short interview with author Nigel Gordon, who reports that he studied Bartitsu stick fighting as a young teenager in Wednesbury, Staffordshire, UK during the early 1960s.
Given that we have been unable to successfully document any survival of Bartitsu as a named fighting style after early 1902 – with the notable quasi-exception of the “baritzu” exhibitions performed by some Australian soldiers during 1906 – Mr. Gordon’s reminiscences are likely to be of considerable interest to modern Bartitsu enthusiasts. We hope that this interview will spur further research into the possible survival or revival of E.W. Barton-Wright’s system into the mid-20th century.
Please forward any questions for Mr. Gordon to tonywolf@gmail.com.
Above: Church Hill, Wednesbury.
Nigel Gordon: There was a club practising Bartitsu in Wednesbury in Staffordshire as late as 1963. However, it only practiced the stick fighting elements of Bartitsu. It originally met to practice in a school hall on Church Hill in Wednesbury but in 1961 moved to rooms over the Co-op in Union Street and the 5th Wednesbury Scout hut. The scout master of the 5th Wednesbury was a member of the club. In 1963 it lost use of the rooms over the Co-op and the club closed.
How did you become involved with the club?
I attended the club as a 14 year old at the instigation of my scout master. At the time the club had some eight or nine members, the majority of whom were in their sixties. The instructor was a chap called Frank Small.
Are you aware of any other Bartitsu-related activity at that time?
I know that there was also a club in Solihull around the same time and I believe there was a similar club in Tipton but have no information about either other than the fact that on one occasion a couple of members from the Solihull club came over to the Wednesbury club.
I believe that there was some connection between Sensei (Reg) Bleakman, who founded Budo of Great Britain and the Solihull club. In 1980 or ’81 I was discussing stick fighting with Sensei Bleakman and he mentioned having studied it in Solihull in the 1960s and referred to it as the “Barton-Wright’s system of stick fighting”. He also told me that he had taken some ideas from Barton-Wright’s self-defence system when he developed Atemi Jutsu, though he never mentioned Bartitsu (by name).
Do you recall how Bartitsu made its way to the West Midlands?
My memory is, and this may not be accurate as it is over 50 years ago, from what I gathered at meetings was that Frank Small’s uncle brought Bartitsu to the West Midlands after the First World War. To be honest I can’t be sure it if was called “Bartitsu” or “Barton-Wright stick fighting”. It may have been the latter, as that was all that was taught. I think Frank Small taught at all three clubs but can’t be certain of that.
When I mentioned this to Reg Bleakman in 1980 or ’81, he suggested that Frank had revived the system after the war having learnt it from his uncle. I have no insight on that.
Can you describe what you learned at the Wednesbury club?
As far as I can remember we wore street clothes, though as I said I only attended for a few months, so if any special clothing had been required I probably did not stay long enough to require it. We trained with the type of canes that teachers used to use at that time. A light cane with a bent handle. Though some of the older members used heavier sticks for demonstrations. There were two types of combat practiced, one type being cane against cane, the other being cane against an attacker who might be armed or unarmed.
With respect to specific moves I would be hard pressed to say which techniques I learnt then and which I learnt later from other sources, later when I was studying the martial arts and travelling in Europe.
Did the classes include any type of free-fencing or sparring, or just technical drills?
With respect to fencing/sparring it depends how you define this. We had some exercises where we were told to use a limited set of attacks, e.g. strikes to the head, and the other party would defend against these. I was never allowed to do any free sparring or fencing though I recall some of the older members would do what appeared to be free sparring at the end of the training sessions.
Indian Police Superintendant Herbert Gordon Lang’s book The “Walking Stick” Method of Self-Defence (1923) is one of the seminal documents of the modern Vigny/Bartitsu stick fighting revival. Lang credited Pierre Vigny – albeit via a misspelling – and offered a few more hints as to the origins of his method in introducing the book:
The System has been carefully built up after several years’ thought and demonstration, and combines a method devised by a Frenchman, Vigui (sic), of which, little is now heard, together with the stick play of tribes of negroes on certain of the West India Islands, called “Bois.”
Additions and ameliorations have been made as the result of experience and close practice under varying circumstances.
H.G. Lang was born in Grenada, West Indies, on December 3, 1887 and it’s likely that he learned the basics of the bois system there as a youth. There are, however, no known records of Lang having studied at the Bartitsu Club, nor at Pierre Vigny’s own London self-defence school, so the questions of exactly when, where and how he learned the Vigny style have been long-standing mysteries of Bartitsu research.
(As an aside, it’s pertinent to distinguish between H.G. Lang of the Indian police and Captain F.C. Laing of the British Army. Although both were Englishmen serving in a uniformed capacity in India during the early 20th century, and both were proponents of the Vigny style of stick fighting, they seem to have had no connection beyond the similarities of their surnames and circumstances.)
Via recent correspondence with the Lang family, we have now discovered the missing link between Vigny and H.G. Lang, and thus between the stick fighting style taught at the Bartitsu Club circa 1901 and the method presented in Lang’s book in 1923.
Lang’s personal papers reveal that, while on leave from India between May 1920 – April 1921, he had travelled to a gymnasium in the East Sussex town of Hove, in order to study boxing and jiujitsu. In conversation with the proprietor, Percy Rolt, Lang demonstrated some of the art of bois, and Rolt remarked that he had learned a similar style, as taught by Pierre Vigny.
Percy Stuart Rolt was born into a family of physical culture enthusiasts. Circa 1900 he joined the London Bartitsu Club and seems to have been a keen member, cross-training between jiujitsu, stick fighting and historical fencing. Rolt participated in several Bartitsu demonstrations alongside Pierre Vigny and exhibited the fence of rapiers and two-handed swords with Captain Alfred Hutton for charity events.
In March of 1904, Rolt lost a Graeco-Roman style wrestling match against the champion Jack Carkeek at the Brighton Alhambra. Then, in 1905 he assisted former Bartitsu Club instructor Sadakazu “Raku” Uyenishi in a well-received display of jiujitsu:
The Japanese athlete was assisted in giving the first series of demonstration by Mr. Percy S. Rolt (of Moss’s Gymnasium) who is the English ju-jitsu champion. Rolt is about 5ft. 9in. in height, and is strongly built.
In ju-jitsu the object seems to be to throw the opponent before he has gripped you round the body. No sooner had Rolt seized Raku by the tunic than he was suddenly thrown to the ground. This operation was repeated time after time by means of various jerks, “locks” and “trips.” As Rolt went down his head and body struck the floor in a manner that seemed positively startling. Nevertheless, he appeared to suffer no damage; and it is stated that the body receives no shock from the fall, because the hands touch the ground first. What is called the collar-lock (a grip round the throat) reduces a man to a state of insensibility in five seconds.
Raku Uyenishi is a master of various “trips”, and he showed how an attack from a boxer may be dealt with. The professor of ju-jitsu suddenly winds his feet round the legs of his assailant and throws him to the ground with the quickness of lightning. Mr. Rolt and Mr. William Williams (a Londoner 5ft. 6in. and 10st. in weight) also engaged in contests; and the final exhibition between the Japanese and Mr. Rolt was most exciting. – Eastbourne Gazette, 28 June 1905
Percy’s brother, police captain Frank Leslie Rolt, was also trained in the Vigny style. According to an article in the London Evening News of Wednesday, March 6, 1912, Captain Rolt of the Hove police had been teaching the the Vigny method of walking stick defence – “devised for the special discomfiture of the Paris Apache” – to the new London volunteer constabulary.
The Holland Road gym in Hove was an impressive institute, which had been managed by the strapping Staff Sergeant Alfred Moss since 1883. Percy Rolt seems to have taken over the operation of the gym at some point between 1900-1910, and he and his family quickly became established as local authorities on physical culture and antagonistics.
We have no records as to whether the Rolt brothers taught public classes in the Vigny style at their gym and it may be that H.G. Lang’s status as a visiting fellow police officer afforded him unusual access to the style. In a letter to the publisher of The “Walking Stick” Method of Self-Defence, Lang mused that he should have given Percy Rolt credit for his instruction, which would certainly have saved modern researchers a good deal of wondering.
In any case, it’s clear that Rolt perpetuated the jiujitsu and Vigny stick fighting aspects of his Bartitsu Club training at his own gym in Hove, and thus served as the link between Vigny and Lang.
Lang’s manuscript was, in fact, rejected by a number of publishers on the grounds that such self-defence books were not (then) popular enough to justify the expense of publishing a book containing so many photographs. Lang had, incidentally, taken all of the photos himself, using his police trainees as models. Fortunately for both Lang and posterity, Athletic Publications eventually agreed to print The Walking Stick Method and it was published, complete with 60 illustrations, in 1923.
Re. the misspelling of Pierre Vigny’s surname as “Vigui” in the introduction, it’s worth noting that it is very difficult to distinguish between the letters “n” and “u” in Lang’s handwriting. Therefore, it’s highly probable that he had actually written “Vigni” – suggesting that he’d heard the name spoken by Percy Rolt, but had not seen it in print – and that a typist then made a transcription error in working from his handwritten draft.
Correspondence between Lang and his publisher also reveals that the attribution of authorship of The “Walking Stick” Method to an anonymous “Officer of the Indian Police” was due to Lang’s belief that this title would carry more authority and therefore sell more books.
H.G. Lang found himself in some hot water soon after his book appeared on the market, due to its inclusion of a number of letters of endorsement from various notables. Apparently these letters had been added to the manuscript by the publisher without Lang’s knowledge, and without the various authors’ consent. Lang then wrote a suitably contrite letter to the Inspector General of Police in Poona, which was graciously accepted.
In 1926 there was some correspondence between Lang and third parties towards producing a newsreel film on the method. Lang even mentioned the idea of having Percy Rolt demonstrate the art for the film project, but unfortunately it was never produced – robbing us of the possibility of watching the Vigny style in action as performed by a first generation student.
The “Walking Stick” Method of Self-Defence was only a modest success when it was first published, despite Lang’s highly enthusiastic promotions, which included sending unsolicited copies to various parties and the idea of presenting the book as a prize during awards ceremonies at boys’ schools. He was also very keen to see the method adopted by the Boy Scouts.
While H.G. Lang’s book never became a best-seller, for many years thereafter it remained, effectively, the only comprehensive written work on the subject of stick fighting available in the English language. Significantly, this meant that the Vigny system could be transmitted beyond Lang’s own students in India.
During the early years of the Second World War, his book was translated into Hebrew and became the basis for the stick fighting training of the Haganah paramilitary organisation in Palestine. It’s estimated that many thousands of students learned Lang’s method, which was was widely assumed to be of Indian origin and was referred to within the Haganah as the “long stick” style.
Also in the early 1940s, the “Walking Stick” Method was adopted by Charles Yerkow as the basis of the stick fighting instruction in his own book, Modern Judo: The Complete Ju-Jutsu Library (Volume 2).
Today, H.G. Lang’s book forms part of the foundation of the Bartitsu and Vigny stick fighting revivals, offering a systematic set of lessons to supplement the scenario-based set-plays in E.W. Barton-Wright’s Pearson’s Magazine articles. After many years of speculation, it’s good to know that we have Percy Rolt to thank, in part, for that resource.
With special thanks to the Lang family for generously sharing H.G.’s files and photographs.
Bartitsu instructor James Garvey and historian Emelyne Godfrey appear on screen and instructor Tony Wolf served as a consultant for this One Show presentation on the life of Edith Garrud, the pioneering female martial arts instructor who trained members of the suffragette movement. The item was produced by Icon Films.
Edith Garrud is the subject of Tony Wolf’s book for young teenage readers, Edith Garrud: the Suffragette who knew Jujutsu. She also makes a cameo appearance in Wolf’s upcoming graphic novel trilogy about the adventures of the secret society of female bodyguards who protected suffragette leaders circa 1914.
One of the first modern female martial arts icons, presenter Honor Blackman – a real-life judo enthusiast and the author of Honor Blackman’s Book of Self Defence – made good use of her judo prowess in playing Dr. Cathy Gale, John Steed’s partner in The Avengers. She later took on James Bond himself as Pussy Galore in the movie Goldfinger.
This illustration by artist L. Daviel represents a jujitsu exhibition by former Bartitsu Club instructor Sadakazu Uyenishi at the Public Schools Gymnasium, Aldershot.
It’s difficult to parse exactly which technique the artist was trying to illustrate here, unless Uyenishi was turning a back somersault in response to his “lady pupil” shoving him back with her leg.
An alternative caption for the same drawing refers to Uyenishi as coming from “Seiboukan, Japan”, which was presumably a misspelling of Senboku District, Osaka, in that Uyenishi was a native of Osaka.
With the outbreak of the First World War, many British men enlisted as soldiers and many British women took occupations that had, until then, been considered strictly “men’s work”. Suffragettes were among the first to volunteer and the group of policewomen shown above were among the first of their kind. Initially, their duties were restricted to tasks such as caring for lost children and escorting prostitutes into cells – hence the jiujitsu armlock demonstrated above.
Please see this page for more information, including rates and registration details.
On Sunday, May 25 instructors Tony Wolf, Nathan Wisniewski and Treyson Ptak co-taught a five-hour introductory Bartitsu seminar at the Forteza Western martial arts studio in Chicago’s Ravenswood neighbourhood.
The seminar began with a discussion of Bartitsu history and then a series of rotating warm-up exercises teaching the skills of synergy (tactile sensitivity) and alignment (triangulating posture). Participants were then taught a simple two-person jiujitsu kata taken verbatim from E.W. Barton-Wright’s articles published in Pearson’s Magazine in 1899.
This was followed by a series of boxing drills teaching the fundamental left lead and straight right punches and the chopper/right hand counter combination following a folding elbow cover guard against the opponent’s left lead punch. To this sequence was added the coup de pied bas (low, swinging “chop” kick) to the opponent’s knee or shin.
After loosening up with some spirited rounds of purring (an old English low kicking game/sport), we returned to the canonical jiujitsu kata, this time allowing the “attacker” to defend against the scripted counter-attack at one key point. The defender was then challenged to recover the initiative by flowing with the interruption and employing boxing punches and low kicks.
The instructors then introduced a second canonical kata, to which was applied the same process of unscripted interruption and spontaneous recovery.
Stick fighting training began with the three basic guard positions (left/rear, right/front and double-handed) and a look at the unusual “forehand/backhand” strike as a way to either strike over an opponent’s guard or to force them to guard very high. That was followed by a drill in ambidextrous striking from the double-handed guard and then a canonical Bartitsu set-play incorporating a lunging forehand/backhand, an elbow trap, use of the butt end of the cane as a “dagger” in close quarters and then a parting shot to the knee.
The next stick set-play involved a Bartitsuka armed with a stick opposed by a boxer, elaborated by allowing the boxer to deflect or trap the Bartitsuka’s scripted stick thrust, at which point the Bartitsuka could either regain the initiative via unarmed combat or attempt to wrest the cane back into their own possession.
The seminar wrapped up with a development of the synergy and alignment exercises to incorporate any of three canonical jiujitsu takedowns.
Note: with the outbreak of the First World War, jiujitsu instructor William Garrud became the self-defence instructor for the Special Constables.
It was the special terms to Special Constables that tempted me —and I fell.
I don’t just remember how many times I fell, but it was pretty nearly as often as the “Professor” of the wily art took hold of me. Before the first lesson was over, falling became more than a mere pastime with me, it grew into a serious occupation.
So I left the jiu-jitsu school at the end of the second lesson with a nodding acquaintance with some very pretty holds and a very firm determination to practise them on Alfred when he got back to the office next day from Birmingham.
I suppose I ought to have persevered with my lessons a little longer, but I was losing my self-respect, and felt that nothing would help me to gain it better than to cause somebody else to do the falling for a bit.
Alfred is six-foot-two, but a trifle weedy-looking, and so good-tempered that I knew he wouldn’t resent being practised on.
As he came in I advanced with outstretched hand to meet him.
“How goes it?” he said cheerily, holding out his hand.
“Like this,” I said, as I gripped his right wrist instead of his fingers, turned to the left till I was abreast of him, inserted my left arm under his right, gripped the lapel of his coat with my left hand and turning his wrist downward with my right, pressed his arm back. To attack unexpectedly is the great thing.
“Don’t be a funny ass,” said Alfred, as I lifted myself out of the waste-paper basket.
How I got there I wasn’t quite sure, but concluded that I had muffed the business with my left arm by not inserting it well above his elbow for the leverage.
“Sorry,” I said; “the new handshake. Everybody’s doing it.”
“Are they?” said Alfred. “Well, I’ve been having some lessons in etiquette myself the last few days from a naval man I met down at Hythe. Seen the new embrace?”
“Er—no,” I said, putting a chair between us, “I don’t think I have; but I’m not feeling affectionate this morning. I’m going to lunch.”
Thank goodness, if I do meet a spy, I’ve got a truncheon and a whistle.
Umbrella fencing, also known as umbrella dueling, is a sport or game that has been played at some steampunk gatherings in the UK and USA. The purpose of this article is to encourage umbrella fencers to enjoy this activity safely, in the light of many years of experience in martial arts, fencing and related areas.
Quoting the authors of a 1990 report on umbrella injuries, “We hope the fact that umbrella tips can easily become life-threatening objects will come to the attention of the general public so that similar cases may be avoided.”
A little history
The concept of umbrella fencing as a sport was first proposed in 1897 by satirist J.F. Sullivan, in his tongue-in-cheek article The Umbrella: A Misunderstood Weapon. The actual teaching of umbrella fencing as self-defence, however, has a pedigree extending back to the earliest years of the Victorian era, reaching a pinnacle in the first decade of the 20th century.
Ominously, 19th and 20th century newspaper archives contain numerous reports of serious injuries and even deaths reported as the result of umbrella thrusts, delivered both accidentally and deliberately.
Parasol dueling: no contact, no problem
For the sake of clarity, it’s necessary to distinguish umbrella fencing/dueling from parasol dueling. The latter, which also features at steampunk gatherings, is a strictly non-contact game, similar to “rock, paper, scissors”, in which players compete by performing various poses and flourishes with their parasols. Because it’s played without contact, parasol dueling is essentially safe.
Making contact
In umbrella fencing/dueling, on the other hand, players attempt to score points by making contact with their opponents. As such, it’s directly comparable to foil fencing, Bartitsu stick fighting and similar combat sports. Unfortunately, the fact that umbrella fencing is played in the fun, friendly context of a steampunk gathering doesn’t lessen the potential danger of thrusting a rigid, pointed object at another person.
There are currently two distinct steampunk umbrella fencing styles or rule-sets, alternately described as “umbrella fencing” and “umbrella dueling”.
It’s OK, I have a sieve
In the first variant, players must stand at a prescribed distance from each other, as delineated by markings on the floor or ground. They are equipped with small umbrellas and with sieves, which are held up in front of the players’ faces in the manner of fencing masks. Two small balls are balanced on the sieves, attached with short cords, and the object is for each player to attempt to knock the balls off his/her opponent’s sieve, while avoiding their attempts to do the same thing. Contact is made with the opponent’s umbrella, the sieve, or the balls themselves.
Even though deliberate contact with the opponent’s face and head is not allowed, accidental contact could still be extremely dangerous. A stray or redirected thrust could easily bypass the sieve, or an inexperienced player could inadvertently lower his/her sieve at exactly the wrong moment, as happens at 0.31 in the video above. Essentially, as fun, silly and ironic as it is, a hand-held sieve is not adequate protection for a game that involves thrusting and striking towards someone else’s head and face with a rigid, pointed object. Whereas a light downward blow to the crown of the head would probably be harmless, a thrust accidentally entering the eye socket could cause horrific injuries.
The best way to keep the spirit of this game intact while ensuring safety will be to have the players wear fencing masks and reposition the balls so that they are balanced on the mask. A similar game is played at Renaissance Faires and is safe enough for young children to take part:
Even a sieve is better than nothing
The second variant (most commonly referred to as “umbrella dueling”) is played with full-size umbrellas. It involves no prescribed fighting distance and may include no protection at all, apart from a rule that any contact with the opponent’s head or face will be grounds for disqualification. Some players also wear steampunk goggles, whose actual protective value against umbrella thrusts is questionable. In any case, the object is to score a thrust with the tip of the umbrella against the opponent’s body.
This variant is essentially limited-target thrust fencing using umbrellas – which are actually heavier and more rigid than fencing foils, and are just as apt to cause serious and even life-threatening injuries if accidentally thrust into an opponent’s eyes, ears, nose, mouth or throat. The hands, unprotected by either padded gloves or guards on the umbrellas, are also extremely vulnerable.
Click these links if you wish to view GRAPHIC photos of eye and nose injuries caused by impalement on umbrella points.
Again, accepting that players genuinely don’t intend to risk their opponent’s safety, this is still a very dangerous game. It’s hard for a novice fencer to accurately judge and control their own speed, power or aim. The issue of aim is especially difficult in facing the unpredictable movements of an active opponent who may suddenly duck, trip or slip, lunge forward, etc., lowering his/her face into the space that was occupied by their torso an instant before.
It’s also far too easy for a thrust that is accurately aimed at the opponent’s body to be accidentally redirected into their face by the opponent’s own parry or bind (a defensive action in which one weapon pushes or presses the other).
A hidden danger
The type(s) of umbrellas used should also be considered from the safety point of view. Umbrellas with hollow steel, wooden, bamboo or hollow fiberglass shafts can all crack unexpectedly, leaving a jagged, dagger-like splinter projecting from the handle.
The same thing can (and does) happen even with actual fencing foils, which is why fencers wear jackets made of puncture-resistant fabric. The most dangerous scenario in this vein is when a weapon breaks on contact with the opponent’s weapon or body and then continues thrusting forward, allowing no time for anyone involved to realise the sudden danger, as in the tragic death of fencer Vladimir Smirnov in 1982.
According to this article, umbrella duelists at the Steampunk Symposium event in Cincinnati, Ohio used Unbreakable Umbrellas in their duels. Designed and manufactured for real self-defence, the Unbreakable Umbrella features a solid fiberglass shaft. It will not break, but its weight and rigidity are far greater than those of ordinary umbrellas, presenting an additional set of safety concerns. On the bright side, the article notes that future umbrella fencing competitors at this event will be required to wear protective vests and proper fencing masks.
In conclusion
Despite the signing of waivers and the issuing of safety warnings, it’s irresponsible for event organisers to allow umbrella fencing matches without proper protection. The playful, anarchic steampunk ethos should not extend into ignoring or laughing off serious safety concerns. Aside from the immediate physical dangers, a successful lawsuit could easily bring about the permanent end of an otherwise successful and enjoyable conference.
With a very small investment into basic safety equipment, however, umbrella fencing has the potential to continue as an enjoyably silly steampunk sport.
