I wasn't sure where to post this - mods, feel free to move it. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tC5O7HV_KY"]Bartitsu: the Gentlemanly Art of Self Defence - YouTube[/ame] This is a nice historical mini-documentary on "Bartitsu", the early 1900s fusion of jiujitsu with boxing, savate etc. (it was known as "baritsu" in the Sherlock Holmes books). Its kind of a sad story - the founder was one of the first Europeans to study Japanese MAs and had high hopes for his new eclectic style, but it only lasted a few years at the turn of the century before being forgotten. He died in poverty in the early '50s. If Bartitsu had survived, the JKD/MMA revoutions might have started a hundred years earlier.
There are those still studying Bartitsu. There are two variations: "Classical Bartitsu" which employs only documented techniques from Barton-Wright's teachings, and "Neo-Bartitsu", which aims to expand the Bartitsu cirriculum with more additions from various arts. Best regards, -Mark
I'm curious about the mention of "Shinden Fudo Ryu Jiu Jitsu". Is that related to the Shinden Fudo Ryu Taijutsu of Kaminaga Shigemi or Shinden Fudo Ryu Dakentaijutsu of Hatsumi Masaaki?
See http://budo-no-kokoro.blogspot.com/2008/03/shinden-fudo-ryu-and-sherlock-holmes.html ; personally, I haven't seen any solid evidence connecting the Shinden-Fudo Ryu Barton-Wright studied in Kobe with the Bujinkan lineage. There have been discussions about this on e-budo and it seems that there were several different ryu-ha using that name or slight variations during the late 1800s.
