Bartitsu is an eclectic martial art and self defence method originally developed in England during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Martial arts are systems of codified practices and traditions of training for Combat. Self-defense (or self-defence &mdash see spelling differences) is the act of defending oneself one's property or the well-being of another from physical harm England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland

A montage of Bartitsu self defence techniques.

History

In 1898, Edward William Barton-Wright, a British engineer who had been building railways in Japan, returned to England and announced the formation of a "New Art of Self Defence". Edward William Barton-Wright CE, MJS (member of the Japan Society (1860-1951 was a British Entrepreneur specialising in both British people, or Britons, are the native inhabitants of Great Britain and their descendants or citizens of the United Kingdom, of the An engineer is a person professionally engaged in a field of Engineering. "Railroad" and "Railway" both redirect here For other uses see Railroad (disambiguation. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. ^[1] This art, he claimed, combined the best elements of a range of fighting styles into a unified whole, which he had named Bartitsu. The word was a portmanteau of his own surname and of "Ju jitsu". ^[2]

As detailed in a series of articles Barton-Wright produced for Pearson's Magazine between 1899 and 1901, Bartitsu was largely drawn from the Shinden Fudo, Tenjin-Shinyo, Fusen and Daito Ryu schools of koryu ("classical") jujutsu and from Kodokan judo. Shinden Fudo Ryu is a school of Dakentaijutsu and Jutaijutsu / Jujutsu. literally meaning "Divine True Willow School" can be classified as a traditional school ( Koryū) of Jujutsu. is a Japanese word that is used in association with the ancient Japanese martial arts. literally meaning the " art of softness " or "way of yielding" is a collective name for Japanese martial art styles consisting of grappling is the headquarters of the Judo world Literally kō means "to lecture" or "to spread information" dō means "the way" and meaning "gentle way" is a modern Japanese martial art ( Gendai budō) and Combat sport, that originated in Japan in the late As it became established in London, the art expanded to incorporate combat techniques from British boxing, Swiss schwingen, French savate, and a defensive stick fighting style that had been developed by Professeur Pierre Vigny of Switzerland as well as a comprehensive physical culture training system. Boxing (sometimes also known as English boxing or pugilism) is a Combat sport in which two participants generally of similar weight, Swiss wrestling ( German de Schwingen, colloquially gsw Hoselupf) is the Swiss variant of Folk wrestling. Savate (pronounced savat also known as boxe française, French boxing, French Kickboxing or French Footfighting Stick fighting is a generic term for Martial arts which utilize simple long slender blunt hand-held generally wooden 'sticks' for fighting such as a staff cane walking stick Pierre Vigny (? - ? was a Swiss master-at-arms who was active during the late 19th century and early 20th century Switzerland (English pronunciation; Schweiz Swiss German: Schwyz or Schwiiz Suisse Svizzera Svizra officially the Swiss Confederation This is about the fitness movement for the study of the physical aspects of cultures see Archaeology.

In 1902, Barton-Wright wrote:^[3]

Golden years

Between 1899 and 1903, Barton-Wright set about publicising his art through magazine articles, interviews and a series of demonstrations or "assaults at arms" at various London venues. London ( ˈlʌndən is the capital and largest urban area in the United Kingdom. He established a school called the Bartitsu Academy of Arms and Physical Culture, also known as the Bartitsu Club, which was located at #67b Shaftesbury Avenue in Soho. For the racehorse see Shaftesbury Avenue (horse Shaftesbury Avenue is a major street in London, England, This article is about an area of Manhattan, New York City. For the area in London UK see Soho. In an article for Sandow's Magazine published in 1902, journalist Mary Nugent described the Bartitsu Club as ". Year 1902 ( MCMII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year starting . . a huge subterranean hall, all glittering, white-tiled walls, and electric light, with 'champions' prowling around it like tigers. "^[4]

Via correspondence with Professor Jigoro Kano, the founder of Kodokan Judo, and other contacts in Japan, Barton-Wright arranged for Japanese jujutsu practitioners K. was the founder of Judo. Judo was the first Japanese martial art to gain widespread international recognition and the first to become an official Olympic sport Tani, S. Yamamoto and Yukio Tani to travel to London and serve as instructors at the Bartitsu Club. Yukio Tani (1881 &ndash 1950 was a Japanese Jiujitsu instructor and professional challenge wrestler K. Tani and Yamamoto soon returned to Japan, but Yukio Tani stayed and was shortly joined by another jujutsuka, Sadakazu Uyenishi. Sadakazu Uyenishi (1880-? was amongst the first Japanese Jujitsu practitioners to both teach jujitsu and to compete using the art outside of Japan Swiss master-at-arms Pierre Vigny and wrestler Armand Cherpillod were also employed as teachers at the Club. Pierre Vigny (? - ? was a Swiss master-at-arms who was active during the late 19th century and early 20th century As well as teaching well-to-do Londoners, their duties included performing demonstrations and competing in challenge matches against fighters representing other combat styles. ^[5] In addition, the Club became the headquarters for a group of fencing antiquarians led by Egerton Castle and Captain Alfred Hutton and it served as their base for experimenting with historical fencing techniques, which they taught to members of London's acting elite for use in stage combat. Fencing is the art of armed Combat involving Cutting, Stabbing, or slapping bludgeoning Weapons directly manipulated by hand An antiquarian or antiquary is one concerned with Antiquities or things of the past Egerton Castle (1858 – 1920 was a Victorian era author antiquarian and swordsman and an early practitioner of reconstructed Historical fencing. Alfred Hutton (1839–1910 was a Victorian officer of the King's Dragoon Guards, antiquarian and swordsman HEMA redirects here See HEMA (disambiguation for other uses Historical European Martial arts are Martial arts of European origin Stage combat is a specialized technique in Theatre designed to create the Illusion of physical Combat without causing harm to the performers ^[2]

Bartitsu Club membership included Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon, who was later to achieve notoriety as one of the few adult male survivors of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, as well as Captain F. Sir Cosmo Edmund Duff-Gordon 5th Baronet (July 22 1862 - April 20 1931 the son of the Hon Construction The Titanic was a White Star Line ocean liner built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland C. Laing of the 12th Bengal Infantry, who subsequently wrote an article on Bartitsu stick fighting techniques which was published in the Journal of the United Service Institution of India. ^[6]

Barton-Wright later reported that, during this period, he had challenged and defeated seven larger men within three minutes as part of a Bartitsu demonstration he gave at St. James's Hall. He said this feat earned him a membership in the prestigious Bath Club and also a Royal Command to appear before Edward, Prince of Wales. See Gentlemen's club for an explanation of this particular sort of Club. ^[7] Unfortunately, Barton-Wright then suffered an injury to his hand, due either to a fight in a Kentish country lane or a bicycling accident, which prevented him from appearing before the Prince. KENT (1400 AM) is a Radio station broadcasting a Adult Standards/MOR format ^[8]

Self defence

It is unclear whether Barton-Wright ever devised a formal curriculum for Bartitsu as a self defence method. In formal education a curriculum (plural curricula) is the set of courses and their content offered at a School or University. He encouraged members of the Bartitsu Club to study each of the four major hand-to-hand combat styles taught at the Club, with the goal of mastering each style well enough that they could be used against the others if needed. This process was similar to the modern concept of cross-training. Cross-training (Also known as conditioning) refers to training in different ways to improve overall performance

Based on Barton-Wright's writings upon this subject, contemporary researchers believe that Bartitsu placed greatest emphasis upon the Vigny cane fighting system at the striking range and upon jujutsu (and, secondarily, the "all-in" style of European wrestling) at the grappling range. Savate and boxing methods were used to segue between these two ranges, or as a means of first response should the defender not be armed with a walking stick; these sports were also probably practiced so that Bartitsu students could learn how to defend against them through the use of jujutsu and Vigny stick fighting. A segue is a smooth transition from one topic or section to the next Barton-Wright also modified the techniques of both boxing and savate for self defence purposes, as distinct from academic and fitness training or sporting competition. ^[2]

According to interviewer Mary Nugent, Barton-Wright instituted an unusual pedagogical system whereby students were first required to attend private training sessions before being allowed to join class groups. ^[8] It is currently believed that both private and group classes included pre-arranged exercises, especially for use in rehearsing those techniques that were too dangerous to be performed at full speed or contact, as well as free-sparring and fencing bouts. ^[2]

Many Bartitsu self defence techniques and sequences were recorded by Barton-Wright himself in his series of articles for Pearson's Magazine. The specific details of other Bartitsu stick fighting training drills were recorded in Captain Laing's article.

Decline

Despite his enthusiasm, Barton-Wright seems to have been a mediocre promoter and the fame of his associates and their jujutsu quickly eclipsed that of Bartitsu. By 1903, the Bartitsu Club had closed its doors for the last time; subsequent speculation had it that both the enrollment fee and the tuition fees had been too high.

Most of Barton-Wright's assistants, including jujutsuka Yukio Tani and Sadakazu Uyenishi and Swiss self defence expert Pierre Vigny, established their own self defence and combat sports gymnasiums in London. After breaking with Barton-Wright, purportedly due to an argument and a fight, Tani also continued his work as a professional music-hall wrestler under the shrewd management of William Bankier, a strength performer and magazine publisher who went by the stage name of "Apollo". Music hall is a form of British theatrical Entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960 Bankier's promotional efforts helped to spur an international fad for jujutsu, which included the publication of numerous books and magazine articles as well as the establishment of jujutsu schools throughout the Western world. This fad lasted until the beginning of the First World War and served to introduce jujutsu into Western popular culture. World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Popular culture (or pop culture) is the Culture — patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activities significance and importance — ^[7]

Although Barton-Wright may have continued to develop and teach his martial art at least until the 1920s, it never again returned to prominence. Bartitsu might have been completely forgotten if not for a chance mention by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in one of his Sherlock Holmes mystery stories. Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, DL (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930 was an Anglo-Scottish Author most noted for his stories about the Sherlock Holmes is a famous fictional detective of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who first appeared in Publication in 1887 In "The Adventure of the Empty House" (1903), Holmes explained that he had escaped the clutches of his enemy Professor Moriarty through his knowledge of "baritsu, or Japanese wrestling". The Adventure of the Empty House, one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 13 stories in the cycle Professor James Moriarty is a Fictional character who is the best known Antagonist (and Nemesis) of the detective Sherlock Holmes. Doyle mis-spelled the name of the art; this error, in addition to the anachronism of portraying Bartitsu in a story set several years before the art had actually been invented, was enough to intrigue and confuse Holmesian scholars for most of the next century. An anachronism (from the Greek "ana" " ανά " "against anti-" and "chronos" " χρόνος " ^[9]

E. W. Barton-Wright spent the remainder of his career working as a physical therapist specialising in innovative (and sometimes controversial) forms of heat, light, and radiation therapy. Therapy (in Greek: θεραπεία) or treatment, is the attempted Remediation of a health problem usually following a Diagnosis He continued to use the name "Bartitsu" with reference to his various therapeutic businesses. ^[2] In 1950, Barton-Wright was interviewed for an article appearing in the Budokwai newsletter, and later that year he was presented to the audience at a Budokwai gathering in London. The was the first Judo club in Europe with membership open to the general public The was the first Judo club in Europe with membership open to the general public He died in 1951, at the age of 90, and was buried in what the late martial arts historian Richard Bowen described as being "a pauper's grave. "^[10]

Legacy

In many ways, E. W. Barton-Wright was a man ahead of his time. He was among the first Europeans known to have studied the Japanese martial arts, and was almost certainly the first to have taught them in Europe, the Commonwealth of Nations or the Americas. Japanese martial arts refers to the enormous variety of Martial arts native to Japan.

Bartitsu was the first martial art to have deliberately combined Asian and European fighting styles towards addressing the problems of civilian/urban self-defence in an "unarmed society". Self-defense (or self-defence &mdash see spelling differences) is the act of defending oneself one's property or the well-being of another from physical harm In this, Barton-Wright anticipated Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do approach by over seventy years. Bruce Lee ( November 27 1940 – July 20 1973 was an American-born Martial artist, Philosopher, instructor, Martial arts actor and the Jeet Kune Do ( Chinese: 截[[Wiktionary 拳|拳]] 道 Cantonese: Jitkyùndou Pinyin: Jiéquándào, lit Barton-Wright's philosophy of pragmatic eclecticism was taken up by other early 20th century European self-defence specialists, including Percy Longhurst, William Garrud and Jean Joseph-Renaud, all of whom had studied with former Bartitsu Club instructors. In ordinary usage pragmatism refers to behavior which temporarily sets aside one ideal to pursue a lesser more achievable ideal Eclecticism is a conceptual approach that does not hold rigidly to a single Paradigm or set of assumptions but instead draws upon multiple theories styles or ideas to ^[2]

A similar philosophy was later to be embraced by Bill Underwood, William E. Fairbairn and others charged with developing close combat systems for use by Allied troops during the Second World War. William Ewart Fairbairn (1885&ndash1960 was a soldier police officer and exponent of hand-to-hand combat method the Close combat, for the Shanghai police between the World Close combat has two close meanings which sometimes overlap Close quarters battle and Hand to hand combat. The Allies of World War II were the countries officially opposed to the Axis powers during the Second World War. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including Underwood had actually studied jujutsu with Yukio Tani and another jujutsuka, Taro Miyake, in London during the first decade of the 20th century. Taro Miyake was a Japanese Professional wrestler. In 1905 he departed Japan for London, where he famously defeated the reigning champion in the The systems founded by Underwood, Fairbairn, and their contemporaries became the basis for most military and police close-combat training throughout the Western world during the 20th century. A military is an Organization authorized by its Nation to use force usually including use of Weapons in defending its Country (or by attacking Police are agents or agencies usually of the executive, empowered to enforce the law and to effect public and social order through the legitimatized use of force

E. W. Barton-Wright is also remembered as a pioneering promoter of mixed martial arts or MMA contests, in which experts in different fighting styles compete under common rules. Mixed martial arts (MMA is a full contact Combat sport that allows a wide variety of fighting techniques from a mixture of Martial arts traditions and Barton-Wright's champions, including Yukio Tani, Sadakazu Uyenishi and Swiss schwingen wrestler Armand Cherpillod, enjoyed considerable success in these contests, which anticipated the MMA phenomenon of the 1990s by a hundred years. Swiss wrestling ( German de Schwingen, colloquially gsw Hoselupf) is the Swiss variant of Folk wrestling.

The Bartitsu Club was among the first schools of its type in Europe to offer specialised classes in women's self defence, a practice taken up after the Club's demise by students of Yukio Tani and Sadakazu Uyenishi including Edith Garrud and Emily Watts. Mrs. Garrud established her own jiujitsu dojo (school) in London and also taught the art to members of the militant Suffragette movement, establishing an early association between self defence training and the political philosophy of feminism. A is a Japanese term which literally means "place of the Way" Suffragette is a term originally coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory label for the more radical and Militant members of the Feminism is a discourse that involves various movements theories, and Philosophies which are concerned with the issue of Gender difference, advocate

Contemporary interest

In 2001, the Electronic Journals of Martial Arts and Sciences (EJMAS) web site[7] began to re-publish many of Barton-Wright's magazine articles that had been discovered in the British Library archives by Richard Bowen. The British Library ( BL) is the National library of the United Kingdom. ^[11] Almost immediately, the "Self Defence with a Walking Stick" articles attracted a minor cult following and the illustrations were reproduced, often with humorous captions or other alterations, on a number of other sites. This article does not discuss "cult" in the original sense of "veneration" or "religious practice" for that usage see Cult (religious practice

In 2002, an international association of Bartitsu enthusiasts, known as the Bartitsu Society, was formed to research and then revive E. W. Barton-Wright's "New Art of Self Defence". The Bartitsu Society divides Bartitsu research into two related fields, those of canonical Bartitsu (the self-defense sequences that were detailed by Barton-Wright and his assistants between 1899-1902) and neo-Bartitsu (modern, individualised interpretations drawing especially from the training manuals produced by former Bartitsu Club instructors and their students between 1905 and the early 1920s). Canonical is an Adjective derived from canon. Canon comes from the Greek word kanon, "rule" (perhaps originally from Associated interests include social phenomena such as street gangsterism at the turn of the Twentieth Century, the martial training of the militant Suffragette movement, and the study of the martial arts as Victorian and Edwardian social history. For other uses see Gangsta. A gangster is a criminal who is or at some point almost invariably becomes a member of a persistent violent The twentieth century of the Common Era began on Culture The Victorian fascination with novelty resulted in a deep interest in the relationship between modernity and cultural continuities Class and society Socially the Edwardian era was a period during which the British Class system was very rigid Social history is an area of historical study considered by some to be a Social science that attempts to view historical evidence from the point of view of developing The Bartitsu Society communicates via an email group established by author Will Thomas and individual members occasionally offer practical seminars in Bartitsu fighting techniques. Will Thomas, born 1958 in Bucks County Pennsylvania, is a novelist who writes a Victorian mystery series featuring Cyrus Barker a Scottish detective or "private

In August 2005, the Society published a book, The Bartitsu Compendium, which was edited by Tony Wolf. ^[2] The Compendium details the complete history of the art as well as a technical curriculum for canonical Bartitsu. Articles on various aspects of Bartitsu have subsequently been published in journals including "Classical Fighting Arts and "Western Martial Arts Illustrated".

In September 2006, Bartitsu Society member Kirk Lawson released a DVD entitled Bartitsu - the Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes, which is a presentation of Bartitsu techniques as demonstrated at the Spring '06 Cumann Bhata Western Martial Arts Seminar. DVD (also known as " Digital Versatile Disc " or " Digital Video Disc " - see Etymology)is Western Martial Arts (WMA refers to formalised fighting techniques and skills of European origin as distinct from those originating in Asia.

In October 2006, the Bartitsu Society launched the Bartitsu.org website, which includes information on the history, theory and practice of Barton-Wright's martial art.

Proceeds from the sales of the Bartitsu Compendium and the Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes DVD have been dedicated to creating a memorial for E. W. Barton-Wright.

Online essays by Barton-Wright

• "The New Art of Self-defence: How a Man May Defend Himself against Every Form of Attack," Pearson's Magazine, March 1899, v. 7, pp. 268-275. [8]
• "The New Art of Self-defence," Pearson's Magazine, April 1899, v. 7, pp. 402-410. [9]
• "Self-defence with a Walking Stick," Pearson's Magazine, February 1901, v. 11, pp. 130-139. [10]

References