E.W. Barton-Wright’s birthday

November 8th marks the 148th anniversary of the birth of E.W. Barton-Wright, the founder of Bartitsu.  He was born in Bangalore, India in the year 1860, the son of William Barton Wright, locomotive Superintendant of Madras Railways, and Janet Wright.

Cheers!

Swordfish

Next weekend I am teaching a short Bartitsu class at the Swordfish event in Gothenburg. There’s a fair bit of interest, including this article in a Swedish MMA magazine.

Here it is in English, courtesy of Tony Wolf

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.

Sherlock Holmes movie update

Since our early September update, the Bartitsu Society has been in contact with the upcoming Sherlock Holmes movie production and has donated copies of both volumes of the Bartitsu Compendium to the project.  Of course, this does not mean that what appears in the move fight scenes will be verbatim Bartitsu, but it’s nice to know that the fight team has access to authentic historical sources for use as inspiration.

Guy Ritchie (left) practicing Brazilian Jiujitsu

In an October 7 interview with aintitcool.com, director Guy Ritchie said:

I like the idea that (Holmes is) as visceral as he is intellectual.  It’s true to the origins of the narrative.  He was a martial artist.  He did something called Bartitsu, which wasn’t necessarily exposed or utilized in other productions.  So we’ve made more of a meal out of that. He’s an intellectual action man, which is pretty consistent with his origins.

Basic Bartitsu demo. at ISMAC ‘07

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.

Bartitsu Promotional Clip from Chris Amendola on Vimeo.

“Baritsu” to feature in new Sherlock Holmes movie

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 …

Bartitsu at Swordfish 2008

The Gothenburg Historical Fencing Society is hosting it’s 3rd annual Swordfish event, bringing together instructors in Western Martial Arts from across Europe. For the first time this will include a Bartitsu class taught by me, James Marwood. As far as I know this is also the first time Bartitsu will have been taught in Sweden. The previous events hosted by the GHFS have been very well received and I am looking forward to training with these guys.