Bartitsu at the World Steam Expo

An alfresco Bartitsu seminar taught by Mark Donnelly at the recent World Steam Expo Steampunk convention in Dearborn, Michigan.

“Bartitsu: the Lost Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes” preview trailer

A special preview of our upcoming feature-length documentary exploring the cultural history, rediscovery and modern revival of E.W. Barton-Wright’s “New Art of Self Defence”.

Founded in London in 1899, Bartitsu was an early example of a mixed martial art, combining boxing, jiujitsu, savate and self defence with a walking stick. After a brief heyday, it was all but forgotten throughout the 20th century except for a single cryptic reference in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes story, “the Adventure of the Empty House”.

Shot on location in Italy, Switzerland, England and the USA, “Bartitsu: the Lost Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes” is presented by Tony Wolf and features interviews with Dr. Emelyne Godfrey, Harry Cook, Graham Noble, Will Thomas, Mark Donnelly and Neal Stephenson.

Watch this site for updates!

Preview trailer credits

Producers:

Ran Arthur Braun

Tony Wolf

Bartitsu Club Italia – Broken Art: Paolo Paparella & Angelica A. Pedatella

Cletarte – Gaetano Guglietta & Filomena Longo

Associate Producers:

Digital Room Srl

Music:

Adi Bar (piano)
Roni Cohen (cello)
Abney Park (“Airship Pirate” and “Sleep Isabella”)

Bartitsu intensive at ISMAC 2009

A quick report on the Bartitsu intensive at the tenth International Swordfighting and Martial Arts Convention, held at the Detroit Westin hotel between May 21-25, 2009.

The Bartitsu course was divided into two three-hour classes held on days 2 and 3 of the conference, and was well attended on both days (14 participants.)

We started with a precis discussion of E.W. Barton-Wright, the Bartitsu Club era and the Sherlock Holmes connection.  The participants then proceeded into a fairly quick study of the three themes of alignment control, initiative control and adaptability, using as examples the left-lead off and counters from scientific boxing, the coup de pied bas and chasse bas kicks of savate and two canonical jiujitsu defence sequences. The rest of this session covered a representative sample of canonical Bartitsu walking cane defence sequences, focusing on the straight or ball-handled cane.

Day 2 began with a discussion of Edith Garrud and the “Jiujitsuffragettes”,
progressed into a selection of crook-handled cane defences and then into the “twist” and “segue” exercises, as detailed in Volume II of the Bartitsu Compendium, applied to many of the canonical sequences that  had ben practiced up til then.  The “defenders” were challenged to spontaneously adapt their set-play defences in response to their first intention being defeated by the “attacker”, leading towards controlled, self defence oriented sparring scenarios.

During this class I was honoured to be joined by Mark Donnelly who has been teaching Bartitsu in England for a number of years. Mark and I had never worked together before, and I am very happy to report that he is a great asset to the international Bartitsu community; an excellent instructor, historian and martial artist. He has recently moved to the US and I’m looking forward to more collaborations with him in the future.

Bartitsu instructors Mark Donnelly (left) and Tony Wolf (right)