Modern Antagonistics

If you live in or near London, contact us and let's get training!!! :)

http://modernantagonistic.wixsite.com/mixed-martial-arts

mixed-martial-arts

A 1903 article, in an American newspaper, describes Vigny's system of la canne thus:

'It may best be described as a mixture of the various methods of self-defense practiced in England, France, GERMANY and Japan.

Many of the passes, thrust and wards used in fencing are comprised in it. Some of the guards used by boxers and the movements of the leg and foot practiced by exponents of French boxing are introduced as well as certain methods peculiar to GERMAN SWORDSMAN and professors of the rapier. Numerous tricks are borrowed from the marvelous Japanese system know as “ju jitsu”...'

Being that the most well-known feature of Vigny's style is his high 'hanging guard', it may well be worth pursuing the above reference to German sword methods:

http://c8.alamy.com/comp/A67PT5/german-student-duel-1880-A67PT5.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/93/75/a5/9375a55dd18b2e707e9e3c0c13e7bc31.jpg

http://ejmas.com/jmanly/articles/2001/manlymisc01/mensur-jpg.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/91/fb/94/91fb946343b28af83b560de63a3745f1.jpg

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I'll leave it up to others, if they want to research this further:

https://www.google.co.uk/ =MENSUR+DUEL

..

Join my study and training group for more fun! :)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1244604032247624/?fref=ts

Here's is something someone showed me years ago.

(I'm including it here purely from a historical and cultural perspective, as it would clearly be considered criminal in most places.)

Georges Dubois shows something very similar:

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5855059g/f177.highres

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5855059g/f187.highres

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5855059g/f188.highres

'Defense dans la Rue' is just that- Defence in the Street.

Just as the Fin de Siecle French authors (and others) took much of their tactics and mindset from street criminals, this should be a source of study for our self-defence, too.

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'To be a successful defender, you must first understand the attacker.'

Bruce Schneier

We need to work on all kinds of drills and exercises, but central to making everything functional is the 'NOUVEAU-BARTITSU TRIATHLON'! :)

Basically, the idea is to cover striking (boxing, savate), grappling (wrestling, jiujitsu) and weapons (cane/truncheon/improvised objects) in every session.

I feel there is real value in training and sparring the individual components separately, as well as mixing them according to need.



We need to gain familiarity with the arts and methods of striking, grappling and weapon combat- and then how we BLEND those aspects is down to our OWN individual needs and goals...

Everyone's different- hence there is no one Nouveau-Bartitsu 'system', but rather an APPROACH to training, and to fitting tactics and techniques to specific situations.



MMA (whether historical or modern, sport or 'street') should be adaptable.



What we need are fundamental, proven methods that have wide-ranging application, and a varied and challenging enough program, that we can apply these methods in unpredictable, chaotic and high-pressure situations- like a street fight or criminal assault...



THAT is a hard task, and easier said than done-



but the baseline needs to be that we all spar, regularly, in each of the 3 'components' which make up Bartitsu/Defense dans la Rue.

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JOIN MY GROUP FOR MORE! :)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1244604032247624/

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http://cdn2.sbnation.com/imported_assets/785443/Sketch-1901.jpg

cdn2.sbnation.com

I started reading Geoff Thompson's books 20 years ago, when I was working nightclub doors after having just left the Army. This really gave me a basis for approaching real-world violence, and I followed his advice and did a bit of boxing and judo. This (and hitting first wherever possible!) got me through tons of situations over the years- as well as getting me trouble with both the police and criminal gangs! :o I ran away from both those 'organisations' and spent many years as a bit of a hippie with illegal rave sound systems, etc. During this time I stopped fighting on philosophical/spiritual grounds. After frying my head with too many drugs, I started to study and train in WW2 based 'combatives'. There was something missing with that, though. I did some more boxing and judo, and a little bit of wrestling- which mixed with the 'combatives' was something that I used in many, many (too many) fights and altercations, as the squat and street scene I was involved with descended into increasingly serious violence (people I knew were being stabbed- two died, and others beaten to death, coma or long-term brain damage). Again, this became too much for me- and with more people out looking to find and hurt me ( :o ! ) I set off travelling through various countries for several years. Before I had left, I had begun researching 'Defense de la Rue', which I found was the perfect way of bridging the gap between 'sport' and 'street', between 'MMA' and 'combatives'. I started a small training group, and was looking to begin a youth work project based around combat sports- but all this got left behind when I went travelling. I'm just now working to build those two projects again, now (on a pretty much full-time basis, with study, writing and training taken together). My training has been very much 'on and off' over the years, and I'm far from an 'expert' (or even particularly good) at any of the base arts of 'Nouveau-Bartitsu'. When I have trained, I've done it very seriously, and have studied and written about personal security, self-protection and survival quite extensively (if in an 'amateur' capacity). This is now my focus and mission, and I'm striving to develop 'Nouveau-Bartitsu' as a collective enterprise, and to gather skills and knowledge from everyone involved, to help keep us healthy and safe, to provide an outlet for aggression and energy (for the youth especially) and to promote the fascinating epoch in which Western combat arts were still the norm, Japanese jijujitsu/judo was something mysterious, early experiments into MMA were being made- and at a time of great social upheaval and change (bringing hope to some and horror to others), the modern 'self-defence' movement/industry was born. Wow! It's exciting!!! ;) LOL

I posted this elsewhere, but it can't hurt the group effort/mission to post it again, here...

'Look at Bartitsu- as Ralph Grasso correctly points out, this is an art based on stick fighting and jiujitsu, with some degree of boxing and savate added, and there was also a wrestling coach at the club. ALL of the instructors there had competed in their own arts, and some of them had engaged in other arts and challenge matches against other arts. Some of them, according to what was written at the time, had tested and proven their skills in street encounters, too. So, anyone attending the Bartitsu club seriously, and for an extended period of time, could train and spar with stick fighters, savateurs, jiujitsuka/judoka, wrestlers and in all manner of weapons (with Hutton). Now, I am a serious student (not a teacher) of 'Nouveau-Bartitsu', and so I train or have trained with competitive boxers, wrestlers, judoka, BJJ players and savateurs. I need to train much, much more in all of those arts- and do as much as I can. Stick fighting will need me to spar with Dog Brothers and/or competitive HEMA to get a real, skilled challenge- although at the moment I'm learning the European arts with other enthusiasts, so that I have some chance of defending myself against experienced escrima and sword guys. I don't want to train in escrima, as my goal is to make the historical European stick arts work for me. My point though (and Ralph has made it, too) is HOW MANY OF THESE 'BARTITSU' PEOPLE ACTUALLY TRAIN IN THE ARTS THAT WERE TAUGHT IN THE BARTITSU CLUB?! HOW MANY ACTUALLY BOX, AND WRESTLE, AND GET ON THE FLOOR AND DO REAL NE-WAZA? DO ANY OF THEM TRAIN IN JUDO OR BJJ CLUBS, OR EVEN IN SAVATE ASSAUT? Now, I occasionally speak to people who do train in some type of combat sport, who have heard about Bartitsu (unfortunately, Defense dans la Rue is mostly unknown), and think it might be interesting- because they think of it as being an early form of MMA, and they're interested in learning self-defence and stick work. The truth is, a guy like Billy Wilsher, who already trains and competes in judo, submission grappling and kickboxing really has nothing or very little to learn from most 'Bartitsu' people, because he's someone who actually fights (with rules) using his techniques, and so he knows his skills actually work under pressure. Richard Kurosawa spoke to me before about training Bartitsu, but an experienced judoka like him can't learn stuff from people who dress up like a steampunk and pretend to fight! :o LOL Peter Smallridge is probably the only person I've met- or even seen on the internet- who studies Bartitsu (along with many other things) and trains and competes in jiujitsu, wrestling, striking, stick fighting and historical weapons. He's a real 'Bartitsuka', and hopefully we'll be able to get together and train again, at some point. Sam Wigand very graciously taught me some Vigny basics, and was honest and brave enough to be the 'criminal' pressure testing some of my self-defence ideas (and he was strong and aggressive enough to show up some holes in them! Which is the whole point of doing it...). I've 'struck gold' with my new training partner, Michael Rook- as he's a very knowledgeable guy, who's willing to spar the stick, striking and grappling in a realistic manner (ie. trying to make your own techniques work and stop the opponent from doing his thing, not the 'martial arts smokescreen' of letting your opponents stuff 'magically' work on you! ; ) ha ha). He also can help me- and our fledgling little 'club'- develop our jiujitsu/ne-waza. I feel that, with a small 'open community' or collective of individuals, who like the history and also enjoy training is some kind of sport/sparring, we will have enough knowledge, experience and enthusiasm to make Bartitsu grow from it's current image as a novelty/joke, and become the fighting art it's capable of being (with a little 'help from its friend', Defense dans la Rue! :p LOL Craig Savate).'

If you're one of those people who have a 'romantic' notion of teaching a gentlemanly lesson to 'ruffians', whilst hardly getting a hair on your moustache out of place,

http://cdn.ipernity.com/118/44/34/10074434.70848b34.560.jpg

then you might want to take a reality check and look at some of the quite typical crimes that take place where you live.

Myself, living in London, a particular concern of mine is gang attacks (the other one is knives, but I'll save that for other posts).

The truth is, even with all the training in the world, the chances are against you in a situation like this.
If you can drop one or two of them (boxing/savate) and stay on your feet (wrestling/judo) long enough, you might be able to escape or they might lose interest or be deterred in some other way if you're very lucky (there's never a cop car around when you need one! :o ).

You're potentially fighting (and/or running) for your life here, and you need to make it count.

Of course, the best thing is not to be there in the first place (personal security, planning and avoidance), or to see a threat developing and take evasive, pre-emptive action (awareness and preparedness).

Trying to reason with these packs of angry, disillusioned young men is worse than useless, as is appealing to their compassion/begging for mercy (if the society that forms these kids had encouraged empathy, it's unlikely they'd be kicking strangers into a coma 'for a laugh'...).

So don't be there (ideally!), avoid or escape early (if possible- and you're switched on and decisive).

If you look tough and confident, and can 'play' it right (psychology and communication skills), you might well be 'weighed up' as a potential victim, and then rejected and left alone in favour of easier prey (just like in the 'wild' ;) ).

Bottom line though, if it becomes a fight, it's a FIGHT- and you and I had better hope and pray that our training and mentality can keep them off and concerned about their own personal safety, long enough for the attack to taper off, lose momentum or for- if you're very lucky- others to intervene or for an escape route to open up (though young lads can run faster than me, and running just encourages/incites/stimulates predators...).

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=564_1472850516

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6b3_1438014113

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1d6_1364144374

cdn.ipernity.com

Just back from a new boxing gym.

I've got a fat lip and my ribs are sore (hopefully just bruised and not cracked!), but I'd rather make mistakes and learn from them in the gym, than make those same mistakes on the street and maybe not SURVIVE to learn from them...

Anyone in London interested in regular (or even occasional) meetups to train Bartitsu/Defense dans la Rue?

European stick fighting, old school savate and jiujitsu/catch wrestling stuff, plus self-defence scenarios.

The ideal thing would be to build a group/collective that can exchange skills and information, though inexperienced but enthusiastic people are also welcome :)

This is horrible! (From 1905)

http://oi68.tinypic.com/2wcfc51.jpg

i68.tinypic.com