Hi all, I'm new to this forum and have noticed several recent threads touching on Bartitsu, cane fighting, etc. Here's a quick intro. to the subject of Barton-Wright's "New Art of Self Defence", founded in 1899. ---------------------------------------------------- A little over one hundred years ago, # 67B Shaftesbury Avenue, Soho, London became the headquarters of the Bartitsu School of Arms and Physical Culture, more modestly known as the Bartitsu Club. This school had the distinction of being the first modern martial arts club in Europe. The Club had been established by Edward William Barton-Wright, who had learned the basics of jiujitsu while working as a railway engineer and surveyor in Japan. Upon his return to London, Barton-Wright, who was an enthusiastic promoter and entrepreneur, wrote several magazine articles extolling the "New Art of Self Defence." He also arranged for several Japanese jiujitsu instructors to travel to London and exhibit their art at the Tivoli, the Empress and other London theatres. Barton-Wright was also the first Englishman to devise his own style of self defence by combining what he felt to be the best of Asian and European methods. The resulting system was named "Bartitsu", a portmanteau of his own surname and of "jiujitsu". The art comprised an effective fusion of Japanese wrestling and a unique system of self defence with a walking stick, as devised by a Swiss master-at-arms named Pierre Vigny. Training in English boxing and in French savate (kickboxing) rounded out Bartitsu's international arsenal. In early 1900, the Bartitsu Club opened its doors to a curious public. It was located in the basement of the building that presently houses the Best Western Shaftesbury Hotel. Journalist Mary Nugent, who interviewed Barton-Wright for her Health and Htrength Magazine article "Barton-Wright and his Japanese Wrestlers" in 1901, described the Club as "a great subterranean hall, all white-tiled walls and electric lights, with champions prowling around it like tigers". Barton-Wright's roster of "champions" included savate and stick fighting master Pierre Vigny as well as jiujitsu experts Yukio Tani and Sadakazu Uyenishi and a Swiss wrestler named Armand Cherpillod. In addition to teaching classes in their specialties, the latter three men also competed in numerous wrestling tournaments throughout the U.K. The slightly built Tani and Uyenishi created a sensation as they almost always won against their much larger opponents, cementing the reputation of the Bartitsu Club. The Club quickly attracted an eclectic membership, and was the first school of its type to offer self defence classes for women. It also became the headquarters of a cabal of fencer/historians led by Egerton Castle and Sir Alfred Hutton, who were devoted to experimenting with archaic fencing styles such as the use of the two-handed sword and the rapier and dagger. In addition, they offered theatrical fencing classes to members of London's acting elite. As well as martial arts and exercise classes, the Bartitsu Club offered a wide range of therapeutic devices such as the "Light Bath", the "Thermo-Penetration Machine" and the "Electric Light Massaging Machine". The Bartitsu Club eventually closed its doors for the last time in late 1903. Although Vigny, Tani, Uyenishi and Cherpillod continued to compete and to teach their skills both in England and internationally, Barton-Wright retired from active martial arts instruction. He spent the rest of his career as a physical therapist, using his heat and light devices to alleviate the pain of arthritis and rheumatism. E.W. Barton-Wright died in 1951, at the age of ninety. Bartitsu might have been forgotten if not for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote the art in to one of his Sherlock Holmes stories. In the Adventure of the Empty House (1903), Holmes explained that he had defeated his arch nemesis, Professor Moriarty, through his expertise in "baritsu". Doyle's small typographical error aside, this was enough to ensure that future generations would continue to wonder about this mysterious "Edwardian jiujitsu". In recent years, an international collective of martial artists and historians have formed the Bartitsu Society, which is dedicated to researching and re-creating Barton-Wright's self defence system. Last September, a book called the Bartitsu Compendium, a complete history and guide to the art, was launched at a function in the Allen Room at St. Anne's Church – a mere stone's throw from the original site of the Bartitsu Club. All proceeds from this book have been dedicated towards creating a memorial plaque for E.W. Barton-Wright, in recognition of his achievements as a pioneer of the martial arts in Great Britain. --------------------------------------- I'll be happy to answer any questions about Bartitsu or the general self defence/MA scene in London at the turn of the 20th century.
So Devon, is there a segment of Bartitsu that interests you more than others? La Canne from Vigny? The wrestling from Cherpillod? The ju jitsu from Tani and Uyenishi?
Mostly I'm interested in how these different styles worked together. Barton-Wright structured Bartitsu around the idea of four combat ranges, those of the stick, the foot, the fist and of close-combat. Going by his publications, it seems that stick fighting and jiujitsu were the main components, with boxing and savate used to bridge the gap between long and close range. It's also thought the members of the Bartitsu Club in London were encouraged to train in each style offered at the Club, not necessarily to become expert boxers, savateurs, etc. but more to be familiar enough with the different types of attacks that they could use one style against another as needed.
As the Bartitsu club was not around that long, I'm not sure how far the melding of the different sub-sets became. Based on the literature available to us, while there is demonstration of cane work and rudimentary jiu jitsu, there doesn't appear to be unarmed against a cane, as an example. I think the wrestling and jiu jitsu elements worked fairly well together, but they are close enough that a blend is easy(trying to determine which techniques in modern jiu jitsu came from wrestling or judo isn't always easy). I think if the Bartitsu club had lasted longer, it would have developed into a truly eclectic art, as it was, once the club broke up, the various instructors went their own ways, essentially teaching what was their previous specialities at various locations.
Hard to say. In his first article he illustrates an unarmed response against a knife (using a coat to 'hood' the attacker), so clearly *some* thought had been given to unarmed defenses against weapons. Peace favor your sword, Kirk
O h sure, bring out the heavy hitters. "some" thought is pretty much what I said, there was "some" integration of the ranges, but we do need to consider what the various instructors taught after their time at the Bartitsu club. If they were impressed with what they had learned from each other during their time together, they would have each continued to teach an integrated art once they were on their own. Definitely not the case with Tani. I have already stated it is difficult to disect techniques from wrestling or jiu jitsu, so it is hard to figure out if Cherpillod was majorly influenced by Tani, or vice versa. What is obvious, when you look at the second generation instructors, Sutherland, Garrud, etc, is the lack of cane work, and the emphasis on grappling/ jiu jitsu. This is just my theory, so Kirk, if you or Devon have other ideas, please bring them forth. I was wrong once or twice before
It's a fair point. I'm not really interested in putting up my dukes and sparring over it. Peace favor your sword, Kirk
I agree - it's more the *potential* melding of these styles that's interesting, because we know so little about how they were actually combined at the time. IMHO Barton-Wright's ideal of Bartitsu was more of a process of cross-training than a defined "martial art" although he probably would have gone that way if the Club had lasted longer.
Tani and Uyenishi were riding the jujitsu wave as professional wrestlers and dojo managers - "jujitsu" was the magic word at the time and it made good business sense. Barton-Wright claimed that he'd tried to teach Tani some boxing, but that Tani had no aptitude for the sport. On the other hand, William Garrud's jujitsu book has a reasonably good section on jujitsu defenses vs. boxing attacks. I'd say that Armand Cherpillod probably got more out of his association with Tani than the other way around, although again Cherpillod was riding the jujitsu bandwagon. But of the second generation guys, you do get people like Percy Longhurst and his "combined self defence" - very Bartitsu-like - and the French DdlR instructors, likewise. As for Pierre Vigny, he did continue to teach some jujitsu (which he could only have picked up from Barton-Wright, Tani or Uyenishi) in his own school after the Bartitsu Club era, so although he didn't teach it under that name, his syllabus must have been pretty close to that of Bartitsu.
Just for fun, any ideas as to where Charles Yerkow would have learned the Vigny System as shown in his Modern Judo book from the 1940's?
Yerkow doesn't refer to the Vigny system by name, but in the intro. to his stick fighting chapter he mentions the use of the stick in the West Indies ("bois", presumably similar to the African-derived style still practiced in Jamaica, known as Kalinda) as did Lang, and Yerkow's next reference is to the official use of the stick by the "India Police" - he may well be citing Lang's book here. At a guess, Yerkow came across a copy of "the Walking Stick Method of Self Defence" and liked what he saw. Lang's book was released in 1923 and was probably still easily available in libraries when Yerkow was writing his books on judo in the early '40s. In an interesting example of cross-cultural parallel evolution, the Lang book was also "rediscovered" at about the same time in Palestine, where it formed the basis of the stick fighting system taught to Israeli Hagana defence force members - see http://www.savateaustralia.com/Weaponry Essays/Walking Stick in Mandatory Palestine and Israel.htm for a complete history. Now, as to where and how Lang himself learned the Vigny system ... I wish I knew.
seems like a great time to go back and re-read these old manuals. I was watching Craig G.'s La Canne Dvds the other night, and it re-sparked an interest in all things bartitsuesque
