Last of the Jujitsuffragettes (June 19th, 1965)

Edith Garrud, former trainer of the of the English Suffragette movement’s Bodyguard Society, demonstrates a jujitsu wrist-lock on journalist Godfrey Winn during an interview for Woman Magazine. The interview took place on the occasion of her 94th birthday.

2011: the Bartitsu year in review

January – Emelyne Godfrey’s book Masculinity, Crime and Self Defence in Victorian Literature hits the shelves.  Bartitsu is given a shout-out in a new television superhero series, The Cape.  We also receive our first glimpse of “baritsu” action from Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Bartitsu demos and seminars are offered in Pilot Point, Alaska and in Spino d’Adda, Italy.  We help vote for female jujitsu pioneer Edith Garrud to be commemorated with a street plaque.

February – Alex Kiermayer presents a well-received Bartitsu seminar at the annual Dreynevent historical martial arts conference in Vienna.  Chris Amendola‘s Bartitsu classes get underway again in Houston and Robert Reinberger makes a copy of William Garrud’s Combined Self Defence available online.  Wellington, New Zealand hosts the world premiere of a new play, The Hooligan and the Lady, a dramatised biography of Edwardian-era jujitsu and self defence advocate Florence LeMar.

March – We receive a green light to proceed with the memorial wall display at Westminster Library.  Jujitsu pioneer Edith Garrud gathers enough votes to be among the historical figures to be honoured with a street plaque in the London borough of Islington.  Announcement of three separate media projects based on the premise that Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini teamed up as detectives.  March 27th heralds the long-awaited release of the feature-length documentary, Bartitsu: The Lost Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes.  Terry Kroenung and friends perform a Bartitsu demo. at the Anomalycon steampunk event in Denver.

April – Bartitsu instructor Stefan Dieke is interviewed by reporter Nico Rau for a story on Bartitsu featured on Germany’s DRadio Wissen.   Instructor Allen Reed teaches a Bartitsu seminar at the Oklahoma Steampunk Exhibition.

May – Instructor Tom Badillo teaches a Bartitsu seminar at the Gaslight Gathering in San Diego.  Ran Braun teaches a baritsu-inspired seminar for the Red Crow Stunt Team in Reggio Emilia, Italy and Mark Donnelly offers three classes at the Steampunk World’s Fair convention in New Jersey.  The first ever Bartitsu lecture and demonstration is offered in Zagreb, Croatia.

June – A new Bartitsu study group is formed in Battersea, London. Allen Reed offers a class and demonstration at the 1900 Chautauqua at Rockford, Illinois.  A new interview with Bartitsu Forum founder and novelist Will Thomas appears online.  An extensive article on Bartitsu is featured in the German magazine, Schwert & Klinge.  The Bartitsu Club of Tallahassee, Florida creates a new web page.

July – The new trailer for Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows promises a great deal of exciting baritsu action.  Publication of the book 100 Years of Judo in Great Britain, written by the late scholar of British judo and Bartitsu history, Richard Bowen.  Mark Donnelly teaches a seminar for a recently founded  Bartitsu study group, the Bartitsu Club of New York City. Tony Wolf teaches Bartitsu seminars and presents a public screening of the Lost Martial Art documentary at CombatCon (Las Vegas, Nevada).

August – Bartitsu fight scenes are featured in the Mercury Player Theatre’s production, You’ve Ruined a Perfectly Good Mystery.  10th anniversary of the Bartitsu Society’s official online communication venue, the Bartitsu Forum.  The 1st annual international Bartitsu School of Arms and Physical Culture conference is held in London – a resounding success!

September – Bartitsu receives an extensive write-up in Holland’s Volkskrant newspaper.  The Lost Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes DVD becomes available via Amazon.com.  At the 2011 WMAW Western martial arts conference (Racine, Wisconsin), instructor Tony Wolf offers Bartitsu seminars and a demonstration as part of a 19th century style Assault at Arms display.

October – Phil Crawley commences a new antagonistics course via the Black Boar Swordsmanship School in Fife, Scotland.  A new interview with Bartitsu founder E.W. Barton-Wright is discovered.  A second trailer for Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is released.

November – Allen Reed teaches Bartitsu at the TeslaCon steampunk event in Madison, Wisconsin.  The  Barton-Wright/Alfred Hutton Alliance for Historically Accurate Hoplology and Antagonistics (Seattle, Washington) goes public.

December – DVDs of Bartitsu: The Lost Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes go on sale via the Freelance Academy Press, coinciding with the long-awaited release of Game of Shadows, which does indeed include plenty of baritsu action.  Announcement of a new Western martial arts and physical culture school (Chicago, IL), to feature Bartitsu instruction from Tony Wolf.  Phil Crawley releases his new translation of Emile Andre’s  The Art of Self Defence in the Street With or Without Weapons.

In memoriam:  We record the sad passings of classical savate master Roger Lafond and American martial arts pioneer and author Robert W. Smith.  May they rest in peace.

“Foiling the Ubiquitous Thug” (1912)

A selection of illustrations from the New York Tribune article Unarmed Citizens May Here Learn How To Foil The Ubiquitous Thug (March 10, 1912).

Anti-Vampirism: Professor Ernst Blomberg’s Science of Defence Against the “Undead”

Professor Blomberg’s manual of practical Anti-Vampirism is a must-read for all Ladies and Gentlemen who wish to take arms against the depredations of the “Undead”. Including colorful anecdotes and detailed advice on the selection and use of stakes as close-combat weapons, the proper thing to do when attacked by a vampire bull and the Professor’s own Theory of Vampire Contagion, amongst many other timely and useful tips. Illustrated with numerous woodcut engravings.

The US$2.99 ebook is available here (with free preview).

“Bartitsu: Its Exponent Interviewed” (1901)

The following interview with Bartitsu founder E.W. Barton-Wright first appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette of 5 September 1901, during the height of the Bartitsu Club era.

BARTITSU: ITS EXPONENT INTERVIEWED

One of our contributors lately called on Mr. Barton-Wright in his well-appointed gymnasium in Shaftesbury Avenue, when the following conversation took place:

What is the word Bartitsu? – It is a compound word, made up of parts of my own name, and of the Japanese Ju-jitsu, which means fighting to the last.

What do you claim for your system? – It teaches a man to defend himself effectively without firearms or any other weapons than a stick or umbrella, against the attack or another, perhaps much stronger or heavier than himself.

How does it differ from the usual fencing or boxing? – The fencing and boxing generally taught in schools-of-arms is too academic. Although it trains the eye to a certain extent, it is of little use except as a game played with persons who will observe the rules. Most of the hits in (single)stick or sabre play are taken up by the hilt, which a man is not very likely to take out with him on his walks. The head, too, which is a part which an assailant who means business would naturally go for, is so well protected that the learner gets careless of exposing it.

And the boxing? – The same objection. The amateur is seldom taught how to hit really hard, which is what you must do in a row. Nor is he protected against the savate, which would certainly be used on him by foreign ruffians, or the cowardly kicks often given by the English Hooligan. A little knowledge of boxing is really rather a disadvantage to (the defender) if his assailant happens to be skilled at it, because (the assailant) will will know exactly how his victim is likely to hit and guard.

And you can teach any one to protect himself against all this? – Certainly. The walking-stick play we will show you directly. As to boxing, we have guards which are not at all like the guards taught in schools, and which will make the assailant hurt his own hand and arm very seriously. So we teach a savate not at all like the French savate, but much more deadly, and which, if properly used, will smash the opponent’s ankle or even his ribs. Even if it be not used, it is very useful in teaching the pupil to keep his feet, which are almost as important in a scrimmage as his head.

Anything else? – My own experience is that the biggest man in a fight generally tries to close. By the grips or clutches I can teach, the biggest man can be seized and made powerless in a few seconds.

If you sow this knowledge broadcast it might be bad for the police. – Yes; but it cannot be picked up without a regular course of instruction, or merely by seeing the tricks. Moreover, this is a club with a committee of gentlemen, among whom are Lord Alwyne Compton, Mr. Herbert Gladstone, and others, and no-one is taught here unless we are satisfied that he is not likely to make bad use of his knowledge.

It must have taken you some time to work out all this? – Yes, but it was in great measure a matter of necessity. As a mining engineer in all parts of the world, I have often had to deal with very unscrupulous fighters, and, being a light man, I had to protect myself with something else than my fists.

Mr. Barton-Wright then gave our contributor a demonstration of his method. His fencing-master, M. Pierre Vigny, stripped to the waist and without any other weapon than an ordinary walking-stick, will allow you to attack him with singlestick, sabre, knife or any other short weapon without your being able to touch him, he taking all blows on what fencers call the forte of his stick. He will at the same time reply on your head, and knuckles; while, if he is given a stick with the ordinary crook handle, he will catch you by the arm, leg or back of the neck, inflicting in nearly every case a nasty fall. He has also a guard in boxing on which you will hurt your own arm without getting within his distance, while he can kick you on the chin, in the wind, or on the ankle. As to the usual brutal kick of the London rough, his guard for it (not difficult to learn) will cause the rough to break his own leg, and the harder he kicks the worse it will be for him.

Mr. Barton-Wright himself shows you wrestling tricks, by which, by merely taking hold of a man’s hand, you have him at your mercy, and can throw him on the ground or lead him about as you wish, the principle being, apparently, that you set your muscles and joints against your opponent’s in such a way that the more he struggles, the more he hurts himself.

A couple decidedly bad to beat.

Video from the 2011 Bartitsu School of Arms and Physical Culture

A report on the 2011 Bartitsu School of Arms (London)

The 2011 (and inaugural) Bartitsu School of Arms symposium was held over the weekend of August 27-28 in London, England. The symposium represented a landmark in the revival of E.W. Barton-Wright’s “New Art of Self Defence”, founded 110 years ago in the same city. 18 participants attended the event, including Bartitsu enthusiasts from the USA and Germany as well as throughout the U.K.

The theme of the 2011 School of Arms was to continue Barton-Wright’s radical experiments in cross-training between various martial arts and combat sports, which were abandoned as a work-in-progress when the original Bartitsu Club closed down under mysterious circumstances in early 1902.

The event began on Friday evening outside the doors of the Shaftesbury Best Western Hotel, the building that once housed Barton-Wright’s club. At precisely the time the group gathered, sheltering from a torrential downpour, the clouds parted and the sun shone through, which was generally taken as a good omen. The group then made its way to the back bar of the Salisbury inn, a classic late-Victorian London pub.

Training began at 9.00 a.m. on Saturday morning at our venue, the ground floor of a Victorian era warehouse in Bermondsey, which roughly made up in 19th century ambiance what it lacked in amenities. The large, white-walled space was divided into 10′ squares by a grid of iron pillars, with enormous wooden beams in the ceiling and a sturdy old wooden floor. A wall display featured a portrait of E.W. Barton-Wright, rare photographs taken inside the original Bartitsu Club and other inspirational images. Rubber-tipped rattan training canes were propped against the pillars and one section of the floor was covered with thick rubber jigsaw mats.

Mornings began with various warm-up exercises, including American wrestler and physical culturist “Farmer” Burns’ upper-body routine. The remainder of the mornings were spent alternating between circuit training, in which small groups rotated between instructors teaching 5-10 minute mini-lessons/drills in savate kicking, boxing, jujitsu and stick fighting, and team-taught sessions in which pairs of participants experimented with self defence scenarios incorporating elements of each of the lessons they’d just learned. The aim was to practice Bartitsu as a holistic art, smoothly transitioning between techniques, styles and ranges as required by the needs of the moment.

After the lunch break, the afternoon sessions featured longer, whole-group classes in each of the specialist subject areas, taught by James Marwood, Tony Wolf, Allen Reed, Stefan Dieke and George Stokoe. These classes covered practical self defence, neo-Bartitsu drills inspired by the canonical stick fighting and unarmed combat sequences, fencing theory applied to Vigny stick fighting and tactical kicking.

The final session on both days was allocated to “break-out” time, a chance for participants and instructors to explore areas of special interest in a less formal environment. In one corner a group would be debating and demonstrating the “garotting” attack of 19th century muggers, in another a pair of stick fighters would be sparring and a submission grappling match would be taking place on the mats.

Evening events included drinks and socialising at the Sherlock Holmes pub on the banks of the Thames and a meal at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a pub and restaurant dating back to the 1700s that was once the haunt of Charles Dickens and, later, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

The 2011 Bartitsu School of Arms was a great success and plans are already underway to make it an annual event.

“Wrestling or Ju-jitsu?” (1914)

WRESTLING OR JU-JITSU?

On the whole, catch-as-catch-can wrestling is not a sport to be recommended to amateur athletes. It is true that a knowledge of the chief holds and the appropriate counters and checks would be useful to a person engaged in an all-in street scrummage, though a more profitable investment of time and trouble against that emergency would be found in a study of the rudiments of la savate, with its bone-shattering kicks, all of which can be easily acquired by a football player.

Here it should be pointed out that a smattering of ju-jitsu, which is still a fashionable accomplishment, might be worse than useless against an able-bodied rough. Japanese wrestling, which is based on yielding a point in order to gain a greater advantage, must be thoroughly acquired — so thoroughly, indeed, that the well-balanced non-European physique of the Japanese athlete becomes your own private possession — if a knowledge of its subtleties is to be practically useful in an emergency. Instead of wasting time and energy on ground-wrestling, ju-jitsu, and the like, the able-bodied, able-minded person who is interested in the art of self-defence will be well advised to acquire the rudiments of wrestling in the Cumberland and Westmorland style, which, added to a fair knowledge of boxing, will enable him to hold his own against any type of street ruffian.

- E. B. Osborn, T.P.’s Weekly (1914)

“Self Protection on a Cycle”, courtesy of Riot A.C.T.

Longtime Bartitsu aficionados are well aware of Marcus Tindal’s eccentric 1901 article Self Protection on a Cycle, which appears to have been inspired both by E.W. Barton-Wright’s articles on self defence with walking sticks and by this 1900 letter published in the London Bicycle Club Gazette. Tindal’s article included several ingenious techniques involving the use of bicycle pumps, water pistols and bikes themselves as weapons of self defence:

In this video, Canadian stunt team Riot A.C.T. offers an updated take on the same idea …

Words of wisdom: R.G. Allanson-Winn on self defence training (1905)

Though it is a good plan to be accustomed to the feel of the weapon which is most likely to serve you in time of need, it is nevertheless a grand mistake to get into a way of imagining that you can only use one kind of stick or one kind of sword effectively.

This is one reason why it is so advisable to range wide in fencing matters. I would always say, commence with the foils and work hard, under some good master, for a year or so without touching any other branch. Then go on to broad-sword, and keep to alternate days with foils. Later on take up the single-stick, and then go on to bayonet exercise, quarter-staff, and anything else you please.

This extended range of work will give you a wonderful general capability for adapting yourself at a moment’s notice to any weapon chance may place in your hands: the leg of an old chair, the joint of a fishing rod, or the common or garden spade; any of these may be used with great effect by an accomplished all-round swordsman.

There is one point on which a few words may not be out of place in this connection.

Good men, with their fists, and those who are proficient with the sword or stick, often complain that, in actual conflict with the rough and ready, though ignorant, assailant, they are worsted because the adversary does something diametrically opposed to what a scientific exponent of either art would do in similar circumstances.

It is certainly trying, when you square up to a rough and expect him to hit out with his fists, to receive a violent doubling-up kick in the stomach; and similarly annoying is it, when attacked by a man with a stick, to experience treatment quite different to anything you ever came across in your own particular School-of-Arms.

But after all this is only what you ought to expect. It is absolutely necessary to suit yourself to your environment for the time being, and be ready for anything.

Depend upon it science must tell, and there is always this very consoling reflection to fall back upon: if your opponent misses you, or you are quick enough to avoid his clumsy attack – either of which is extremely likely to happen – it is highly probable that you will be able to make good your own attack, for, as a rule, the unscientific man hits out of distance or wide of the mark, and this is rarely the case with a scientific man.

When walking along a country road it is a good plan to make cuts with your stick at weeds, etc., in the hedges, always using the true edge, i.e. if aiming at a certain part of a bramble or nettle, to cut at it, just as though you were using a sabre. By this sort of practice, which, by the way, is to be deprecated in a young plantation or in a friend’s garden, you may greatly increase the accuracy of your eye.

It is merely an application of the principle which enables a fly-fisher to place his fly directly under such and such over-hanging boughs, or gives the experienced driver such control over his whip that he can flick a midge off the ear of one of his galloping leaders.

Much does not, in all probability, depend upon the success or failure of the piscator’s cast, and very likely the midge might safely be allowed to remain on the leader’s ear; but if you are walking in a lonely suburb or country lane, your life may depend upon the accuracy with which you can deliver one single cut or thrust with your faithful blackthorn.

I can almost hear people say, “Oh, this is all rubbish; I’m not going to be attacked; life would not be worth living if one had to be always ‘on guard’ in this way.” Well, considering that this world, from the time we are born to the time we die, is made up of uncertainties, and that we are never really secure from attack at any moment of our lives, it does seem worth while to devote a little attention to the pursuit of a science, which is not only healthful and most fascinating, but which may, in a second of time, enable you to turn a defeat into a victory, and save yourself from being mauled and possibly killed in a fight which was none of your own making. Added to all this, science gives a consciousness of power and ability to assist the weak and defenceless, which ought to be most welcome to the mind of any man. Though always anxious to avoid anything like “a row,” there are times when it may be necessary to interfere for the sake of humanity, and how much more easy is it to make that interference dignified and effective if you take your stand with a certainty that you can, if pushed to extreme measures, make matters very warm indeed for the aggressor? The consciousness of power gives you your real authority, and with it you are far more likely to be calm and to gain your point than you would be without the knowledge. Backed up by science, you can both talk and act in a way which is likely to lead to a peaceful solution of a difficulty, whereas, if the science is absent, you dare not, from very uncertainty, use those very words which you know ought to be used on the occasion.

There are necessarily a good many difficulties to be faced in becoming at all proficient in the art of self-defence, but the advantages to be gained are doubtless very great.

An expert swordsman, and by this I mean one who is really au fait with any weapon you may put into his hand,who is also a good boxer and wrestler, is a very nasty customer for any one or even two footpads to make up to.

The worst of it is that it takes so long to become really good in any branch of athletics. When you know all, or nearly all, that is to be learned, you get a bit stiff and past work! But this, after all, need not trouble one much, since it applies to all relations of life. As a wise man once said, with a touch of sorrow and regret in his tone, “By the time you have learned how to live, you die.”