Thanks to The Convention Fans Blog for this picture and accompanying report on San Francisco-based Bartitsu instructor Tom Badillo’s demo./class at the recent Gaslight Gathering event in San Diego.
“I have some knowledge, however, of baritsu …”
– Sherlock Holmes on his defeat of Professor Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls
While the real martial art of Bartitsu was almost completely forgotten throughout the 20th century, this immortal line penned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle provided the vital clue that led to its modern revival.
The Undershaw Preservation Trust has designated May 14th as Worldwide Undershaw Preservation Day. Supporters of the plan to save and restore Doyle’s former residence, where he wrote The Return of Sherlock Holmes and the lines about Holmes’ use of “baritsu” against Moriarty, are encouraged to wear something Sherlockian on that day and to help promote the preservation project.
All details, including video, historical images, essays and messages of support are available at the Preservation Trust’s website.
Reviews are coming in for the new documentary (available here) and they are good …
Bartitsu: The Lost Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes reveals an exciting world of Victorian ruffians, garroting panics, militant suffragettes, and physical culture, as well as the colorful life of Bartitsu’s founder Edward Barton-Wright … music by the steampunk band Abney Park creates a moody atmosphere of Victorian danger, excitement, and heroics. Through interviews, re-enactment, archival images, and contemporary footage of neo-Bartitsu students, the “lost” martial art is brought to life.
– Rachel Klingberg: read the full review here.
Here’s the problem – what to do when you love a good punch up, but public brawling is incompatible with your image as an amenable, if damp-stained, man of letters? The answer is “Bartitsu,” a nineteenth-century martial art developed specifically to transform the upright classes into killing machines, and whose unusual history has been revealed in an excellent new documentary …
– Andrew McConnell Stott: read the full review here.
Sleek and engaging … fascinating … a superbly watchable piece of martial arts history …
– Bullshido.net martial arts movie reviews: read the full review here.
We regret to announce the death of savate and la canne master Roger Lafond on April 8th, 2011. He was 97 years old.
Roger Lafond’s martial arts and combat sports lineage can be traced back to the early origins of la boxe Française as an organised system of self defence, via his father and grandfather, who were both named Eugene, through E. Quillier, the Leclerc brothers and to Charles and Hubert Lecour.
During the Second World War, M. Lafond served five years as a prisoner of war, instructing his fellow prisoners in French martial arts. He refused to teach the enemy officers and guards, protesting that this would be fraternisation.
After the War he was instrumental in the revival of la boxe Française in Paris. He established numerous clubs and, in 1955, created his own unique blend of French and Japanese martial arts, which he referred to as la Panache. In the late 1960s he was among the trainers for the cast of the popular British television spy series, The Avengers.
As recently as two years ago, Maitre Lafond was still teaching students at his Parisian school. He was featured on several martial arts-themed documentary series, including an episode of The Human Weapon.
His funeral was held in his home town of Le Perreux sur Marne.
Announcing the long-awaited DVD release of the first feature documentary on Bartitsu, the “gentlemanly art of self defence”!
At the end of the Victorian era, E.W. Barton-Wright founded Bartitsu as a pioneering “mixed martial art” combining jiujitsu, kickboxing and self defence with a walking stick. It was also the means by which Sherlock Holmes was said to have defeated his arch-nemesis, the evil Professor Moriarty, in their famous battle at Reichenbach Waterfall.
This groundbreaking documentary was shot on location in Italy, Switzerland, England and the USA. Through numerous interviews, animations, re-enactment sequences, rare archival film footage and historical images, it explores the history, rediscovery and modern revival of Bartitsu.
Please visit the Freelance Academy Press website to view a new preview trailer and photo gallery, read an article about Bartitsu and the documentary production, and to place your DVD order!
Not one, not two, but three upcoming media productions will pose the question; what if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini had teamed up as detectives?
In reality, master escapologist Houdini and Sherlock Holmes creator Doyle were close friends during the early 1920s, until disagreements over the reality of the “supernatural” strained their mutual admiration too far. Houdini was an arch-skeptic, wise to the tricks of confidence swindlers posing as spirit mediums, while Doyle was a passionate believer in, and defender of Spiritualism.
Dreamworks has acquired a script called Voices from the Dead from screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski (Changling, Babylon 5), about Houdini and Doyle joining forces with a medium to solve a bizarre series of murders in 1920s New York.
Jon Vinson’s self-published comic book series, Edge of the Unknown, is scheduled to be adapted into a live-action movie by Jack Reher (Red Machine). This project teams Houdini and Doyle in 1923 Hollywood, where they solve a supernatural mystery with the aid of horror author H.P. Lovecraft.
Meanwhile, Syfy has started pre-production on a series called Among the Spirits, based on a self-published graphic novel by Steve Valentine and Paul Chart. The series will center on Houdini and Doyle as, with the help of a policewoman, they use steampunk technologies to try to solve apparent hauntings.
Chances are very good that we can look forward to some fine antagonistic action from these projects …
