Bartitsu
A self-defence system that Edward William Barton-Wright presented in 1899 in Pearson's Magazine. It combined jujutsu, boxing, savate and fighting with a walking stick.
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About Bartitsu
Bartitsu is a self-defence system put together in London at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries by the English engineer Edward William Barton-Wright. The earliest evidence of the system is his article The New Art of Self Defence in Pearson's Magazine from March 1899. It combined jujutsu, which Barton-Wright learned during a three-year stay in Japan, with boxing, savate and fighting with a walking stick. Graham Noble (Journal of Asian Martial Arts, 1999) writes that Barton-Wright was the first person he knows of who tried to combine elements of different martial arts into a complete system of self-defence. He brought the Japanese instructors Yukio Tani and Sadakazu Uyenishi to England, and his club was based on Shaftesbury Avenue in London. According to the English Wikipedia, by mid-1902 the club no longer operated as a school. According to Noble, Barton-Wright probably taught until the twenties of the 20th century, but bartitsu declined and was soon forgotten. Arthur Conan Doyle recalls it, and in his work Sherlock Holmes mentions the Japanese wrestling baritsu. Today's bartitsu is a reconstruction based on period articles, which according to the English Wikipedia has been developed since 2002 by the Bartitsu Society.
History
According to Graham Noble (Journal of Asian Martial Arts, 1999), Edward William Barton-Wright was born in November 1860 in India. As an engineer he ran mining concessions in Spain and Portugal and then worked in Egypt, in Japan and in the Straits Settlements. During a three-year stay in Japan he studied jujutsu under an unnamed teacher who focused on kata, and then attended lessons at the school run by Jigoro Kano. He himself admitted that he had not learned the higher forms of the art.
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In March 1899 he published the article The New Art of Self Defence in Pearson's Magazine, and in April 1899 its second part. In it he wrote that he had given the name Bartitsu to his new art of self-defence, which includes three hundred methods of attack and counterattack, and that he had obtained ideas for many of the methods in Japan. Green (Martial Arts of the World, 2001) dates the publication of the article to 1899. Barton-Wright wrote to contacts in Japan and asked for experts. Yukio Tani and Sadakazu Uyenishi arrived, who according to Noble became two pioneers of jujutsu and judo in England. The club was based on Shaftesbury Avenue in London, and Alfred Hutton, in his book The Sword and the Centuries (1901), described it as the headquarters of old Elizabethan fencing in England. On 11 December 1901 a bartitsu tournament was held in London's St. James's Hall. The instructor Pierre Vigny demonstrated walking-stick fighting together with Mr Noel from the Bartitsu School of Arms, and Uyenishi and Tani also performed. After Tani left Barton-Wright and William Bankier became his manager, Barton-Wright, according to Noble, stayed on the sidelines of the boom in jujutsu. He apparently taught until the twenties of the 20th century, but bartitsu declined and was soon forgotten. The English Wikipedia states that by mid-1902 the club no longer functioned as a martial arts school. Barton-Wright died in 1951 at the age of 90 and was buried in an unmarked grave.
Technique
Barton-Wright summed up the principle of his art in Pearson's Magazine (March 1899) in three rules: unbalance the attacker, surprise him before he can regain it and use his strength, and if necessary subject his joints to pressure that, anatomically and mechanically, they cannot withstand. As joints he listed the neck, shoulder, elbow, wrist, back, knee and ankle. By his account the system had about three hundred different throws, attacks, counterattacks and tricks based on balance and leverage.
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In an April article he wrote that the system was not meant to replace boxing, fencing, wrestling or savate but combines their best elements. In a lecture for the Japan Society in London, printed in 1902, he said that judo and jujutsu are not intended as the main means against a boxer or a kicking opponent but only for close combat. To get there, one must, in his view, understand boxing and kicks. According to that lecture, bartitsu included boxing, the use of the feet and the walking stick, and judo and jujutsu as close combat. Barton-Wright attributed stick fighting in two articles from January and February 1901 to a Swiss professor of arms, who was Vigny. Graham Noble states that Pierre Vigny was a teacher of la boxe française. A reporter of Sandow's Magazine (January 1902) described Vigny's stick play as based on the same principles as singlestick, except that the stick can be gripped with both hands in a parry like a quarterstaff and passed from hand to hand in attack. Which style of jujutsu the photographs in Pearson's Magazine show is, according to Noble, not known.
Training
According to Mary Nugent, as quoted by the English Wikipedia, a pupil had to take private lessons before being placed in a group. Deník.cz (2017) states the same and also mentions breathing exercises and circuit training. The English Wikipedia adds that breathing exercises were led from the middle of 1901 by Kate Behnke and that, according to The Sketch of 10 April 1901, pupils possibly rotated among individual specialist instructors.
Today
Today's bartitsu is a reconstruction based on period articles. According to the English Wikipedia, the international association of enthusiasts Bartitsu Society was founded in 2002 and devotes itself to research and revival of the system. According to the same source, the association distinguishes canonical bartitsu, that is, sequences described by Barton-Wright and his collaborators from 1899 to 1902, and neo-bartitsu, modern interpretations based on manuals by former instructors of the club and their pupils up to the early twenties of the 20th century. Barton-Wright's articles, found by Richard Bowen in the British Library, began to be republished in 2001, according to the English Wikipedia, by the EJMAS website. Bartitsu Society states on its website that the third volume of The Bartitsu Compendium came out in December 2022, and it calls the documentary Bartitsu: The Lost Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes the first and only feature-length documentary about bartitsu. In 2017, Deník.cz reported that the new clubs operate mainly in the United States and Great Britain and also in Canada and Germany. Robert Waschka, an instructor of bartitsu and fencing at the House of Knightly Virtues in Brno, then told Deník that they regularly fight with contact.
Did you know
In The Adventure of the Empty House, Sherlock Holmes says that he has some knowledge of baritsu, the Japanese system of wrestling, which has served him several times. Thanks to it he slipped out of Moriarty's grip at the waterfall and Moriarty fell. History Today writes that the word baritsu is a corruption of the name bartitsu, probably taken from an article in The Times from 1901. In Pearson's Magazine, Barton-Wright wrote about himself that during a long stay in Portugal he was repeatedly attacked by men with a knife or a six-foot stick and that he neutralised them without a stick in his hand. The magazine's editors described a demonstration in which Mr Chipchase, an amateur champion in Cumberland and Westmorland wrestling, repeatedly failed to overcome him. In later years, according to Noble, Barton-Wright devoted himself to treating arthritis and rheumatism with heat, light and electricity.
Frequently asked questions
Who created bartitsu?
The English engineer Edward William Barton-Wright, who learned jujutsu during a three-year stay in Japan. He presented the system in Pearson's Magazine in March 1899 and opened a club for it in London on Shaftesbury Avenue.
What does baritsu mean for Sherlock Holmes?
In The Adventure of the Empty House, Holmes says that thanks to his knowledge of baritsu, which he calls the Japanese system of wrestling, he slipped out of Moriarty's grip. History Today considers the word a corruption of the name bartitsu, probably taken from an article in The Times from 1901.
Is bartitsu practised today?
Yes, as a reconstruction based on period articles. According to the English Wikipedia, the international association Bartitsu Society has devoted itself to it since 2002. In 2017, Deník.cz wrote about clubs mainly in the United States and Great Britain and about an instructor in Brno.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.