Bartitsu: MMA/Jeet Kune Do 100 years ago

It's not widely known that the first documented MA/combat sport to combine Asian and European fighting styles was actually created by an Englishman, E.W. Barton-Wright, in the year 1899. That's nearly fifty years before Kajukenbo, seventy years before Jeet Kune Do and ninety years before the MMA phenomenon took off.

"Bartitsu" combined two forms of ko-ryu jujitsu, Kodokan judo, boxing, savate and stick fighting into a "gentlemanly art of self defense" that was also tested in mixed-style competition against champion wrestlers. It pioneered the concept of women's self defense and was also written into the Sherlock Holmes stories.

If Bartitsu had survived, the international MA scene of the past 100 years might have been very different.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartitsu for details.

Devon

 

ahh, im wondering, have you seen the Bartitsu revival groups?
Im a fan of the methods Bartitsu employs however i am skeptical on the classical Ju Jitsu and from what ive seen of the cane systems(vigny i beleive) i also feel they are more suited to 'stick fencing' as opposed to 'stick fighting'.

But yes, a great concept that would have stayed around if it wasnt for the different instructors bickering between each other. shame the first modern go at MMA didnt go the distance and we had to wait another 70 years for another decent attempt.

With the calibre of instructors it sounded like an academy well worth going to,i wish those trying to revive its methods the best of luck.

 

One huge factor this system has/had working against it....


































































the name.


Bartitsu.
It sounds like a Japanese salaryman trying to explain the titty bar.

 

Bickering and endless in-fighting in the martial arts?

Thank god we've stamped all that out.

 

True it will never end but if it wasnt for great disagreements between the instructors,the academy would have stayed open longer,and therefore would have possibly become more influential,leading to the formulation of MMA style methods and competition being in popular practice much earlier and also perhaps leading to effective civilian RBSD being developed earlier, but thats all speculative of course.

 

I'd agree here, but the "cane fencing" stemmed from being banned from carrying a sword around. So it's designed to emulate the act of fencing, some of what i've seen of it still looks pretty damn nasty though

 

True that... a cane or umbrella thrust properly into your armpit, groin, liver, throat or solarplexus is going to give most people a pretty big problem.

 

Dont mean to derail or anything, but on the topic of fighting with an umbrella check out the self defence umbrella

[ame]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=bO8G5zsQohg[/ame]

ever seen an umbrella chop a melon in half and go a few rounds on the heavy bag....you have now

 

Further evidence there's nothing new under the sun. Except this time around it's not a "gentlemanly art of self defense" it's ULTIMATE CAGE FIGHTING!!!! RARGHHHH!!!!!

 

There's some question about whether Barton-Wright ever devised a Bartitsu syllabus, or whether Bartitsu was more of a method of cross-training between judo/jujitsu, savate, boxing and Vigny stick fighting.

Some of the Vigny cane defense sequences are pretty "quaint" from the modern point of view, but once you get past the straw hats and the handlebar mustaches, it also contains a lot of practical stuff. If you drill it and pressure-test it seriously, it's a very workable system.

IMO Vigny and Barton-Wright were quite radical for their time, reforming the popular sporting/artistic cane fencing into a more realistic combat method. They did the same thing with boxing and savate.

The classical jujitsu aspects were imported straight from Japan (Kobe and Yokohama) by Barton-Wright, who was one of the first Europeans to study these styles. He also spent some time at the Kodokan in Tokyo. It's obvious from the books produced by Bartitsu Club instructors Yukio Tani and Sadekazu Uyenishi that they were basically teaching early judo, but it's equally obvious from the books their own students wrote that they also taught a lot of battlefield/self defense material.

 

Personally, I think I prefer the gentlemanly art ...

The funny thing was that some of the Bartitsu stuff was really vicious, but it was presented so politely, with proper British manners:

So, basically, feint as a distraction, hook him around the neck with your cane, drag his head down and smash him in the face with your knee.

More Bartitsu cane fighting at http://ejmas.com/jnc/jncart_barton-wright_0200.htm and http://ejmas.com/jnc/jncart_barton-wright_0400.htm

 

I researched Bartitsu a while back, and it is a fantastic method. However, the question that we are presented with here is "Is Bartitsu the old-school form of MMA or JKD?" The answer is no.

MMA - MMA is designed to be used in a sports environment. Bartitsu is opposed to that, and was actually intended to move away from sports martial arts.

JKD - JKD is similar in a few ways to Bartitsu, but Bartitsu is more formalised,a nd was developed in a different environment. However, JKD and Bartitsu do share many of the same ideas. Bruce Lee was not alone in his thinking.

Bartitsu is more related to cross-training than anything else really. The idea is older than people think.

Em

 

What exactly was the state of sports martial arts in that era?

 

Boxing and fencing, mainly.

Em

 

from what i remember there are some records of the french sailors using a basic version of savate way back in the late 17th century. and there has always been speculation the french learned some basic kicking technique from trading ventures into asia. then in 1832 a frenchman named charles lecour formalized savate by combining those kicks with english boxing and cane fencing. would savate then not represent an earlier form of european martial arts that had cross-training and used material from western and eastern styles? does that not pre-date bartitsu? for that matter savate is alive and well still practiced in france.

some of the concepts that lecour put into savate appeared to have been a major influence on bruce lee who studied the art form (not in formalized manner) and extracted some ideas for jeet kune do. for example lecour created the concept of five ranges that jkd students are quite farmiliar with. and the fenceing technique of savate went into jkd attacks. in some ways the art of savate was a major part of the jkd core.

maybe if so many savate practioiners had not been killed during the first and second world wars the art would have become even more popular and caught the attention of solgiers in europe as the asian styles caught thier attention later. even so i hear there are non-sport versions of savate that are quite effective although limmited in available number of schools.

this would have not been a posible reply without the insistance and historical/technical input of my fellow jkd students. give credit where do.

 

Cross-training was existent in ancient Japan. It is by no means a new thing.

 

I meant to draw a broad parallel between Bartitsu and MMA/JKD, more than to pose a question. Still ...

Barton-Wright was definitely more interested in self defense than in competition, but the other Bartitsu Club instructors entered a number of open-style tournaments and competed in challenge matches against various wrestling styles.

The Bartitsu/JKD parallel is interesting. Like Bruce Lee, Barton-Wright proposed a series of ranges of combat - his were stick fighting, punching, kicking and grappling - and encouraged his students to absorb what was useful from the various styles taught at the Bartitsu Club.

Given more time, Barton-Wright might well have devised a formal curriculum for Bartitsu as a martial art in its own right, but in that the Club was only operating for a couple of years, Bartitsu seems to have been more a process of cross-training; a JKD-like "approach" rather than a fully codified style, albeit perhaps more by accident than by design.

 

Absolutely - "cross-training" is just a recent term to describe a natural process of eclecticism that has probably been part of the martial arts as long as there have been people learning how to fight.

To answer the savate question, yes, savate pre-dates Bartitsu; the unique thing about Bartitsu was that it was the first method to deliberately combine Asian and European fighting styles.

 

Sorry, yes I realised. I just wanted to get that answer out before we start getting people bad-mouthing either art.

The JKD link is very interesting, and I am probably corrrect in my assumption that Bruce may have read up a little bit on Bartitsu. Bruce didn't invent the idea, he just took it to a further level than most, and was more famous down to his films, as well as his ability.

Em

 

It was much more diverse than most people realize. Just taking England around 1900 as an example:

The Queensberry rules were becoming well-established in boxing, but there was a strong stylistic distinction between the professional (prize fighting) and newly-developed scientific (amateur) styles. Likewise, many champions had their own unique styles.

Wrestling was hugely popular in a wide range of regional styles: Cumberland/Westmoreland, Lancashire (catch-as-catch-can), Cornu-Breton, Scottish Backhold, jujitsu as it was introduced by Barton-Wright, Tani and Uyenishi, etc. There was a lot of interest in contests between British champions and exotic foreign styles (Swiss schwingen, Indian, Icelandic Glima, etc.)

Fencing was not restricted to the foil, epee and saber of modern Olympic cometition and also included the use of the rifle-bayonet, singlestick, mounted lance and quarterstaff. Tournaments such as the Grand Assault at Arms were popular sports entertainment events and featured contests pitting various weapons against each other; singlestick vs. bayonet, mounted lance vs. saber, etc. There was also a movement to revive some of the ancient forms of fencing with rapier and dagger, two-handed sword etc. - the Bartitsu Club was the headquarters for this movement for a while.

There were also more specialized combat sports such as purring (shin kicking) and cudgel-play (a more archaic form of singlestick fencing).