For the benefit of Academie Duello students who are continuing their pursuit of Bartitsu without an instructor present, I provide this outline. I recommend this format for any study group, but encourage anyone new to Bartitsu to seek out an instructor with experience before gathering a group of friends to try it out. The monthly […]
I recently received another inquiry about Bartitsu by email. There are no bad questions. This was the question, which is very common, reasonable thing to ask when deciding where to put your time and effort: Hello David, I’m interested in learning Bartitsu. I’m wondering if you could tell me how effective it is compared to […]
Bartitsu’s fusion of martial arts has jujitsu at its core. “Jujitsu” mean “The art of suppleness” in Japanese, and focuses on core “soft” techniques such as: Joint locks and chokes Takedowns Ground fighting However, there are strikes in jujitsu which are called “atemi” in Japanese. These strikes are almost identical to the techniques in katate, […]
The first rank exam a student of Bartitsu faces is to test whether an apprentice who wears a green sash is ready to progress to the scholar level and wear the blue sash. We hold this evaluation every four months or thereabouts, and a Bartitsuka must have at least three months of instruction to qualify […]
The mere act of bowing isn’t a show of respect for your instructor if your other behaviours are not equally respectful. Although my classes are fairly informal, that doesn’t mean that respect does not exist. A Low Threshold In my Bartitsu classes (as well as my stage combat classes), we do not have many explicit […]
I frequently shared videos with my Bartitsu students through this blog. Personally, I subscribe to a lot of YouTube channels that share techniques and enjoy learning from their video demonstrations. There aren’t many Bartitsu instructional videos out there, so I know I will have to start making some. But while you wait for my […]
As a public service to those who read my blog, but don’t visit every other Bartitsu source, I like to offer a digest of recent Bartitsu-related content from time to time. Bartitsu.Org The first article, The Original BJJ: New Discoveries and Speculations re. the Submission Grappling of British Jiu-Jitsu, is a longer piece for those […]
Dr. Julian Bailes is a neurosurgeon and a founding member of the Brain Injury Research Institute in Pennsylvania. This year, the International Boxing Association, or AIBA, interviewed him on the topic of concussions and brain injuries in boxing, as it relates to wearing protective headgear. Boxing is one of the four component martial arts of […]
Bartitsu owes a lot to the stories about Sherlock Holmes written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Holmes is described as practicing Bartitsu, and makes use of that combat skill in several confrontations. The popularity of the series spread the fame of Bartitsu at the time, but more important is that their longevity was the only […]
What do you do if caught in a tightly packed group of people, some of whom become violent? You may watch the news and see a group of people gathered in a festival who are attacked from the outside, such as the tragedy in Nice on Bastille Day. You may be a peaceful protester who […]
