A User’s Guide to the Bartitsu Society Website 2.0

The original Bartitsu Society website – www.bartitsu.org – was established by James Marwood in October of 2008, and that site served as the premiere online resource for the contemporary Bartitsu revival until it suffered a catastrophic technical failure in April of 2019.

The recovery, restoration and reconstruction process was a laborious task, but by January of 2021 the great majority of the items posted on Bartitsu.org between 2008-2019, including all of the significant technical and historical articles, had been reconstituted at www.bartitsusociety.com.

During the reconstruction the archived posts unavoidably became chronologically disordered and most of them now begin with a note recording the date when they were originally posted.

This event highlighted the fragility of electronic media and inspired the production of a third volume of the Bartitsu Compendium, in order to further preserve the best of the research presented here since the publication of the second volume in 2008. The Bartitsu Compendium, Volume III was published in December of 2022.

We hope you enjoy the Bartitsu Society website 2.0!

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Antique Vigny self-defence cane discovered

Thanks to antique dealer Rob Phillips for these photos of an antique Vigny cane; the first such example known to have been located in the history of the modern revival.

The cane is labelled

VIGNY’S “SELF DEFENCE” STICK

18. BERNERS ST. W.

and appears to be stamped “W.S. NOWELI” on top of the handle:

The Berner’s St. address dates the cane to post-September of 1902, when Pierre Vigny had set up his own academy of arms and physical culture in London’s West End.

Although Vigny’s system was versatile enough to provide protection with light canes, crook-handled canes and umbrellas, it was optimized for the specific type of cane that Vigny himself developed. In “The Walking Stick as a Means of Self-Defence” (Health and Strength, July 1903), Vigny wrote:

(…) therefore the cane is the most perfect weapon for self-defence; but in order to make it so, it must possess the necessary qualities, which, expressed in one word, is solidity.

It is for this reason that I have had a cane specially made under my directions which embraces all the necessary qualities. It is a medium-sized Malacca cane, mounted with a thick metal ball, and so firmly riveted to the cane that it cannot come off however roughly it may be used. The metal ball handle is of such a thickness that it will not get dented; but in spite of this the cane is a most handsome and elegant one, and has been so much appreciated since it has been brought out that many people may be seen carrying them.

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Advanced Strikes: The Flick and the Flip for Bartitsu from “The Walking Stick Method of Self-Defence”

Oliver Janseps presents his interpretation of H.G. Lang’s “flick” and “flip” techniques from “The Walking Stick Method of Self Defence”.

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“The Secret Martial Art of Charlie Chaplin’s Cane”

The AgelessExplorer YouTube channel offers an entertaining angle on cane-fighting and on Charlie Chaplin’s physical comedy genius in this mini-documentary.

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“Self-Defence from 1920” (The Wrinkle Book)

Nice to see some of these techniques in action, particularly in that the self defence section of The Wrinkle Book was possibly my first ever exposure to the notion of “early 20th century martial arts/self defence”. My late father had a first edition copy of this book and I came across this section while leafing through it sometime in the late 1970s or early ’80s; note to younger people, this is the sort of thing that sometimes happened long before the Internet.

Much later, the Wrinkle Book‘s page of self-defence illustrations may well have been the very first image I ever scanned for online republication, and in 2006 I used a lightly modified version of the same page as the cover image for my augmented republication of Andrew Chase Cunningham’s book, The Cane as a Weapon.

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“The Repair Shop” restores Yukio Tani’s portrait

This episode of the BBC’s Repair Shop series features the painstaking restoration of a 1930s oil portrait of former Bartitsu Club instructor Yukio Tani, which had hung for many years on the wall of the venerable London Budokwai martial arts school. Tani had been among the dojo’s original instructors and taught there until his death aged 69 on January 22nd, 1950.

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Yuki Tani watches catch-as-catch-can wrestling in 1926

A few seconds of footage of former Bartitsu Club instructor Yukio Tani watching a catch-as-catch-can wrestling championship in Finsbury Park, Middlesex. Tani would have been around 49 years old at the time this film was shot; about a decade later he suffered a debilitating stroke that ended his athletic career, though he recovered well enough to be able to coach judoka and jujutsuka from the sidelines of the famous London Budokwai.

In 1913 Tani had starred in a short silent film called Ju-Jitsu to the Rescue, now believed lost; he also (very likely) appeared on camera demonstrating Japanese unarmed combat as part of a display at London’s Kensington Palace Field in 1928 and as part of the audience watching a Budokwai judo and kendo demonstration in 1937.

Aside from a short 1905 documentary film starring Tani’s fellow Bartitsu instructor Sadakazu Uyenishi – now believed lost except as a reconstruction from the cinematographic stills featured in Uyenishi’s book – these snippets are the only known moving images of Bartitsu Club instructors.

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“Guards of Bartitsu” with Oliver Janseps

A Christmas treat from German Bartitsu instructor Oliver Janseps, teaching the fundamental guards of the Vigny/Lang stickfighting style.

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“The Suffragette That Knew Jiu Jitsu”

A fairly well-researched presentation on Edith Garrud’s role in the jujutsu training of the WSPU Bodyguard unit, contextualised with some background on Barton-Wright’s Bartitsu.

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“Bartitsu Basics – How to thrust with a cane & the hand guard”

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Experimental Vigny/Bartitsu stick sparring

Nice to see these fighters experimenting with a variety of tactical guard positions throughout and with some grappling/disarm options towards the end of their bout.

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