Researcher/jujitsuka David Brough has produced this video demonstrating the first five jujutsu techniques from Edward Barton-Wright’s pioneering Pearson’s Magazine article “The New Art of Self Defence”, originally published in 1899.
Former Bartitsu Club jiujitsu instructor Yukio Tani as sketched by a Weekly Dispatch artist during June of 1904, just prior to Tani competing in a wrestling tournament at London’s Albert Hall.
Tani was busy during this period, regularly taking on all manner of opponents (albeit usually, though not always, in his own style) on the music hall circuit and preparing to launch his own dojo, the Japanese School of Ju-jitsu, in collaboration with fellow jiujitsuka Taro Miyake.
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Assane Diop (Omar Sy) – a disguised master thief on a righteous mission, whose playbook is inspired by the legendary gentleman-burglar Arsene Lupin – takes on multiple opponents in this scene from the action/drama series Lupin.
Bartitsu aficionados will appreciate the use of several techniques verbatim from the canon, including the hook around the neck, a hook to the ankle takedown and the famous “bayonette”.
The original Bartitsu Society website – www.bartitsu.org – was established by James Marwood in October of 2008, and that site served as the premiere online resource for the contemporary Bartitsu revival until it suffered a catastrophic technical failure in April of 2019.
The recovery, restoration and reconstruction process was a laborious task, but by January of 2021 the great majority of the items posted on Bartitsu.org between 2008-2019, including all of the significant technical and historical articles, had been reconstituted at www.bartitsusociety.com.
During the reconstruction the archived posts unavoidably became chronologically disordered and most of them now begin with a note recording the date when they were originally posted.
This event highlighted the fragility of electronic media and inspired the production of a third volume of the Bartitsu Compendium, in order to further preserve the best of the research presented here since the publication of the second volume in 2008. The Bartitsu Compendium, Volume III was published in December of 2022.
We hope you enjoy the Bartitsu Society website 2.0!
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It is always most desirable to try to entice your adversary to deliver a certain blow, and so place yourself at a great advantage by being prepared to guard it, and to deliver your counter-blow.
– E.W. Barton-Wright, Self-Defence With a Walking Stick (1901)
The Vigny method of stick fighting is notable for its variety of invitations, or guard positions that close off certain lines of attack while deliberately exposing a particular target so as to provoke an opponent’s attack to that target. Of the twenty-two set-plays detailed in E.W. Barton-Wright’s stick fighting essays, thirteen make use of the tactic of invitation from a wide range of guards. The remainder all employ variations of feinting and preemptive striking.
This article highlights the various applications of “baiting” within the canonical Bartitsu stick repertoire and underscores the practical utility of fighting tactically and ambidextrously.
The Double-Handed Guard
The unmodified double-handed guard invites an attack to the body, or it may be adjusted to bait the opponent into attacking the defender’s lead hand or head.
The Front (Right) Guard and variations
By slightly lifting the front guard so that it doesn’t directly threaten the opponent’s face, the defender invites an attack to the midsection.
This lowered version of the front guard, sometimes mistaken for an orthodox fencing-style guard in tierce or quarte, is intended to bait the opponent into attacking the head or face.
This low rear version of the front guard dramatically reduces the visual threat of the cane and invites an attack to the head.
Widening the front guard also invites an attack to the head.
The Rear (Left) Guard and variants
The defender baits an attack to his left hand, setting the opponent up for a “guard by distance” counter-attack to the head.
By widening the rear guard and extending his head forward, the defender baits a head attack, preparing the “guard by distance” as a counter-strike to the attacker’s weapon hand.
By dramatically lowering the cane while guarding his torso with his left arm, the defender invites the attacker’s left lead punch to the head.
Guards and invitations in action
Notice the wide range of guard positions and tactical invitations in this Bartitsu stickfighting free-play session from the Alte Kampfkunst school.
Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Wednesday, 3rd September 2008
Robert Downey, Jr., who is to star in an upcoming Sherlock Holmes feature film being directed by Guy Ritchie, was quoted in Premiere Magazine as saying:
“We’re both martial arts enthusiasts and historically, in the real origin stories of Sherlock Holmes, he’s kind of a bad-ass and a bare-knuckle boxer and studies the rare art of baritsu [fictional martial art created by Doyle for the final Holmes story, 1901’s The Adventure Of The Empty House]. If you look baritsu up, they can’t even really tell you what it is, so it gives us a lot of leeway.”
“Baritsu”, of course, was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s misspelling of Bartitsu. Since Mr. Downey is a Wing Chun kung fu enthusiast and director Ritchie is a brown belt in Brazilian jiujitsu, their cinematic version of Holmes’ martial art may well pack quite a punch …
Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Saturday, 20th September 2008
A new 6.5 minute mini-documentary on the history and mixed fortunes of Bartitsu, from E.W. Barton-Wright’s training in Japan in the late 1800s to the modern Bartitsu revival.
Originally posted on the Bartitsu.org site on Thursday, 25th September 2008
This footage was recorded at the International Swordfighting and Martial Arts Conference in Michigan, USA, between July 12-15, 2007. It features a series of mostly canonical Bartitsu unarmed combat and cane demonstrations by myself, with Kirk Lawson assisting.
The theme of the seminar was to use a small selection of canonical and some neo-Bartitsu techniques and sequences to explore two major principles:
1) alignment control, or using your own weight and skeletal structure to disrupt the opponent’s balance and 2) initiative control, either by inviting a particular attack or by executing a pre-emptive attack to control the opponent’s options and movement.
Thus, we were primarily using these sequences as academic examples of certain technical and tactical options, rather than as self defence or competition sequences per se.
The defence between 00.56 and 01.00 is a neo-Bartitsu improvisation combining a number of techniques (palm-heels, a trachea grab, low stamping kick etc.) to reinforce the theme of controlling the opponent’s balance and skeletal alignment.
Thanks to Bartitsu Society member Chris Amendola for editing the footage.
Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Monday, 27th October 2008
Next weekend James Marwood will be teaching a short Bartitsu class at the Swordfish event in Gothenburg. There’s a fair bit of interest, including this (translated) quote from a Swedish MMA magazine:
Bartitsu is particularly exciting, because had it not been for the books about Sherlock Holmes, we would most likely not know anything about the first time western martial arts where mixed with Japanese jiu-jiutsu,” explains, Annika Corneliusson, head of GHFS.
Sherlock Holmes and the suffragettes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle mentions “Baritsu” in one of his books, when the famous detective tells of his knowledge in self defense. Bartitsu, which is the real name, was created as a hybrid between jiu-jiutsu, western wrestling, boxing, savate (French kickboxing) and cane fighting by the English engineer Edward William Barton-Wright, who had spent a few years working with railways in Japan. Now these techniques are taught for the first time in Sweden by self defence instructor James Marwood from London, UK.
“This is actually a very important part of the European history, not just because of Sherlock Holmes, but also because the suffragette movement trained Bartitsu to be able to defend themselves against attacks by the police,” says Annika Corneliusson.
