[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gf7BaLR_L1g"]Bartitsu sparring: strike-only, thrust-only and freestyle bouts - YouTube[/ame] Video footage of various sparring bouts at the Bartitsu Club of Chicago.
... Hound of the Baskervilles? But seriously folks, yes, it is; Bartitsu combines the Vigny method of stick fighting with British boxing, low kicks and jujitsu, so it's pretty close to the combination of Filipino stickfighting, kickboxing and BJJ. One of the challenges of reviving Bartitsu is to keep it grounded in the old-school styles, because there's no point in "reinventing" the Dog Brothers ...
What is the main aim of modern bartitsu? Is it focused on the fictional sherlock art, or the real barton wright style? Have the instructors sought out tuition in the 'old bartitsu' constituant styles?
There's a lot of flexibility built into the modern revival and different instructors/clubs have different goals, but in general, the main aim is to try to figure out how Barton-Wright's art worked. The Bartitsu Society considers the original art to have been a very promising experimental cross-training process that was effectively abandoned as a work in progress in 1902. The revival is focused in the real art, as it was recorded by Barton-Wright and his colleagues between 1899-1902, supplemented by the detailed technical manuals produced by the various Bartitsu Club instructors and their first generation of students up until the early 1920s. None of the original constituent styles still exist in their original (circa 1900) forms, having either gone extinct or considerably evolved over the past century, but modern Bartitsu instructors have typically trained in cognate styles and/or the modern versions of the original styles.
What happened after the the original club closed? Did the art disappear with it? Or were other clubs with slightly different forms crop up?
Bartitsu, as a named entity, disappears after 1902. Similar systems drawing from jujitsu, savate/boxing and stick fighting were subsequently taught, or at least written about, in France, England and the USA during the years leading up to the First World War. Of those, by far the most detailed and best-recorded systems were developed in France.
I don't get that style of stick fighting ...did not look fluid at all. Way different than any FMA I studied.
It's a form of La Canne (and regular western fencing), from France, it's supposed to look very fancy I guess.
It looks weird from the FMA perspective because: 1) The Bartitsu cane is 36" long and asymmetrically weighted (notice the rubber "knobs" - safe sparring versions of steel ball handles). In practice, that means you have one heavy, slower, hard-hitting end and one faster, "stinging" end. 2) The Vigny method of stick fighting, which is the method that was incorporated into Bartitsu, is based on high "hanging" guards to protect the defender's hand against the attacker's stick, which has a major impact on the "look" and tactics of the style.
It also looks similar to traditional English singlestick fencing, which makes sense in that the singlestick was used as a training weapon for the sabre. The main differences are that the Vigny style omits orthodox fencing parries 3 and 4, features double-handed parries and thrusts (referred to as "bayonet" thrusts) as well as attacks with the "talon" (pommel end of the cane) and emphasizes transitions into traps, disarms and takedowns at close range.
Standard canne was based on Sabre. Vigny la Canne is a distinct departure from traditional canne in that it is essentially a long mace and features, heavily, an hand back high hanging guard (as Devon mentioned). This impacts not just defense but offense. Have you ever tried to initiate a back-hand cut (traditionally cut #6) from a hanging guard? Ugh! The answer lies in sport la canne but you sacrifice speed to do it right. There are tricks to minimize the effect. However, the hanging guard is a very effective defensive position. It is negated a bit by the requirement of drawing the hand back to protect the hand from strikes. A couple of articles I wrote on the Lang interpretation of Vigny's method. http://cbd.atspace.com/articles/langsfrontguard/langs_front_guard.html http://cbd.atspace.com/articles/langsheadcut/langs_head_cut.html Peace favor your sword, Kirk