Earlier this year I found a little two hour, once a week class offered by Martial Arts instructor Jordan Lawrie. I don’t recall the name for his class, and maybe there wasn’t a name for it, come to think. But to describe it, I would call it ‘Creative Self Defence’. We did lots of things I was familiar with, and Jordan added lots of creativity to the mixture. I wasn’t able to continue the class, but looking back, it was a great class and I learned lots.

I shot a little bit of video, although just with available light. Settings have been tweaked to bring out the action just a little better. I caught up later with Jordan over coffee and pannini and asked him to tell me a bit more about his background, his personal philosophy on martial arts, and his training drill featured in the video, which he calls the ‘Seven – Eleven’.

The class:

Jordan’s 2 hour class was a grab bag of techniques, but we focused a great deal on the clinch.

“The clinch. The clinch is sort of the lost range – there are a few ranges in fighting, out of range, kicking range, punching range, knees and elbow range, and then you have your ground – grappling range. The clinch is the range before you hit the floor, when I can grab on to you. The clinch is very important in order for you to be able to defend yourself, and to have tricks, like getting behind your opponent because you are safe there… feeling that dynamic of the opponents body weight is important, having a good firm base and knowing how to manipulate your opponent’s base… You don’t have that in kickboxing, where as you are a free individual out here working in space, dealing with gravity and your opponents kinetic energy. Getting in close is a way to deprive your opponent of weapons.”

The Seven Eleven Drill

“I got the name from one of my old instructors, he was a really well trained guy, going to some or another corner store, late at night, got swarmed by some teenagers. He told them he wasn’t looking for trouble but suddenly, a kick to the groin turned on his adrenaline and he ran right through the first guy he saw and kept running… a really well trained guy, trains all his life, gets swarmed, doesn’t see it coming. Violence happens now. You don’t see it coming at all… I like to do a lot of multiple attacker scenarios, realistic, in that a couple more individuals really changes your game plan. Attacks occur often by weak people, with backup. Attacks among men have back up and weapons.”

“Kickboxing is good to learn the mechanics of punching and kicking, to develop your power, but if you want to train for the real world I really think you have to be training more intensely with these kinds of drills – multiple attackers, multiple weapons, I’ve got several variations on this one, the defender has boxing gloves on, and he’s being attacked by a boxer, essentially, and a wrestler who’s got a (rubber) knife in his belt. The wrestler can pull his knife out once he gets the clinch, and then he can start stabbing.”

“So it teaches him to use the clinch to prevent that guy’s arms from going into his belt to find a weapon. I’ve done it also where the boxer in the middle didn’t know that these guys had weapons. And then once he gets stabbed, its 20 or 30 seconds added to his drill… The drill also teaches line theory, which says put something between you and your attackers. In this case he is using one of the attackers, he’s forming a line. If there was something in the room, even better. So many variations on this one. This drill was mostly appropriated from different martial arts, putting different theories together, and developing my own take on it.”

About Jordan Lawrie

Jordan describes himself as a Jeet Kune Do practitioner. He has come by this title by the path of training in martial arts that he has taken over the years, starting with Aiki Jujutsu and moving on later Chinese Kempo, with its hard and soft styles for about 5 years. Later Bruce Lee’s writings had a strong influence on the idea that he could train in whatever he wanted. He got in with an MMA practitioner friend and got to learn a lot more about the clinch, the standup clinch, Jiu-Jitsu, kickboxing and boxing, tried lots of classes around town; Wolfe’s Defendoo for a year.

“Once you have enough experience in Martial Arts you can learn… a lot in a short period of time… so, I dont have a lot in the way of belt credentials, but I really carry with me the Jeet Kune Do, Miyamoto Musashi philosophy of learning what you can- a little bit of everything and just challenging yourself to make yourself a little bit better… if someone were to ask me what I train in, although I have never formally trained in it (except for a few classes at Ed Wong’s school), I would say it is Jeet Kune Do.”

Jordan now teaches at http://www.elementsacademy.com/ , a modern styled Hapkido school, with a strong fitness component in the curriculum. He is able to teach kickboxing, self defense, MMA – a little bit of everything, true to his traditions of being creative.

“Being creative. I think one of the things that Martial Arts is really lacking is creativity, its an art form, its like a dance, its like an interpretive dance, but a combative form. Because, I don’t think you can be held in a dogmatic believe that once a system is set its a fixed system. A system is always shifting, right down to a cellular level… its always in flux, its never completely in balance. To continue to be an art form it needs to be adding and subtracting from multiple sources.”

Web links in this post:

http://www.uss-canada.ca/index2.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeet_kune_do

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miyamoto_Musashi

http://www.elementsacademy.com/

My fascination with all things martial arts has led to many hours reading and searching on the net. I think it was when I was reading up on Judo. It was there down somewhere in the rabbit hole of pure information that I discovered the existence of (yet) another martial art, having the unusual name of Bartitsu.

History

Bartitsu is a hybrid martial art introduced to Europe around the turn of the 20^th century by Edward William Barton-Wright. It experienced only a short episode of popularity in London, and It would have disappeared into obscurity forever, probably, if it weren’t for a passing reference to the art as ‘Baritsu‘ in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes story, ‘The Adventure of the Empty House’, first published in 1903. The name for the art is from a contraction of his last name, Barton, and Ju Jutsu. Barton-Wright had been a world-travelled british railroad engineer, having resided for a time in the empire of Japan. While there he studied both classical jujutsu and kodokan judo. He is recognized now as the first to have taught asian martial arts in the west. Once in London, the Bartitsu curriculum expanded to include elements of French Savate boxing, Cane self-defense, British boxing, and Swiss wrestling.

I have some knowledge, however, of baritsu, or the Japanese system of wrestling, which has more than once been very useful to me. (Sherlock Holmes).

Bartitsu enjoyed a brief era of popularity in London that coincided with the need for a gentleman’s self defence in the street, growth in the interest in Asian culture, and the rise of ‘physical culture’.

By combining several martial arts into a ‘complete system’, and promoting Bartitsu by a series of challenge matches between Asian and European fighters with different skill backgrounds , Barton-Wright’s martial art pre-dated the advent of MMA by almost a century.

Bartitsu has been devised with a view to impart to peacefully disposed men the science of defending themselves against ruffians or bullies, and comprises not only boxing but also the use of the stick, feet, and a very tricky and clever style of Japanese wrestling, in which weight and strength play only a very minor part. (Barton-Wright, 1902).

Bartitsu disappeared due perhaps to the poor management skills of its founder, or that is skills were bettered by his associates, or by the excessive cost of the gym membership. The spin-offs paved the way for popular interest in martial arts in the West. He eventually moved on to other businesses such as electrotherapy.

Barton-Wright maintained correspondence with the great Kano Jigoro, founder of Judo, whose acquaintance he is presumed to have made during his sojourn in Japan. It must be in part to the ties Kano had to fellow judoka in far away places that motivated him to work to promote Judo around the world. Curiously, Vasili Oshchepkov, one of the founders of Sambo, was also a student of Kano before he returned to Russia to promote martial arts. Oshchepkov died during the political purges of the day for refusing to deny his education in judo under Kano.

The Bartitsu revival in this century has come about by the grace of the republication of articles written by Barton-Wright in the Electronic Journals of Martial Arts and Sciences http://ejmas.com/. A following developed as more material became uncovered and studied. Now a society exists for martial arts enthusiasts to celebrate and share the skills and art of Bartitsu first introduced a century ago.

Train in Bartitsu

There is a much a need today as in Edwardian England to defend oneself against all sorts of ruffians, hooligans, bullies and the like. Courses and workshops in Bartitsu are available to provide for this need.

Academie Duello recently offered a one-day Bartitsu workshop which I was fortunate enough to attend.

The workshop was led by the very capable Stage Combat Instructor/Choreographer, David McCormick.

In a day we covered the canons of Bartitsu, with tactics for avoidance and action, throws and falls, the walking stick, striking methods, umbrella, and modern tactics. (outline). We also examined what Bartitsu might have evolved into had its popularity continued. A martial arts experience outside of your regular training is always worthwhile. You get a different perspective on yourself and your training; you learn something different than what you know and practice and you get the opportunity to share what you know with new people.

I managed to snap a few photos of the day.

Bartitsu coming soon to the silver screen

Bartitsu has grown like a bamboo tree, which spends years in the soil before sprouting skyward in great leaps. Its popularity is set to take another leap forward, with the 2009 Christmas day premier of Director Guy Ritchie’s latest film, ‘Holmes’, an action movie featuring Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes. The movie promises to be an awesome martial arts movie. Ritchie himself is a brown belt in Brazilian Jiujitsu, and Robert Downey Jr. is a Wing Chung practitioner.

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Sources, links:

http://www.bartitsu.org/

http://www.bartitsu.org/index.php/about/

http://www.bartitsu.org/index.php/the-origins-of-bartitsu/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartitsu

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kano_Jigoro

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes_(2009_film)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambo_(martial_art)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Ritchie#Personal_life

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Downey_Jr.#Personal_life

http://www.playfighting.ca/journal/bartitsu-workshop-wrap-up/

http://www.playfighting.ca/

A great story from Bakersfield.com. In Bakersfield, California, 9 year old Drew Heredia intervened in an attack by a Pit Bull dog on a young girl. He used a reverse naked choke hold on the dog and held it there for 20 minutes until help arrived. He surely saved the girl from horrible injuries and possibly even death. Everybody knows how dangerous pit bulls are. I wouldn’t mess with one and nobody would blame Drew if he ran in the opposite direction. But only after two months of Brazilian Jujitsu classes, he knew to make use of his training and he saved a life with it. I’m just not sure which part of the story is the most incredible: that he submitted a pit bull, that he did it being 9 years old, or that he did it with only 2 months of training, or that he held the dog in submission for 20 minutes. We salute you, Drew!

Source: Jorge Barrientos, “Youngster rescues girl from dog”. The Californian. January 6 2009. http://www.bakersfield.com/102/story/655900.html

In a video passed around the web to me by email, we see a lady in an elevator trash a purse snatcher.  As you can see it all goes terribly wrong for him in a couple seconds. He grabs the purse and makes a run for it. Not so fast! He puts her in a headlock. She then gets underneath him and performs what appears to be a textbook wrestling move, where you grab your partner and haul him over you. I dont think this is impossible for anyone to use this move – its all a matter of getting in the right position underneath your partner. You use your major muscle groups, your thighs and gluteus, so you dont need to be big to do it. You just have to be angry enough, and get in the right position. I recognize the move from high school wrestling, but cant recall the name of that move. Can anybody help with that? Also, I notice that the floor doesnt look padded, just tiled. It doesnt appear to be fake. And if it isnt fake, that guy is going to have one heck of a sore neck. Any comments about the source and origins of this clip would be appreciated. Lady wrestlers are hot!

Update: she may be doing what is called a German Suplex.