The Chicago Swordplay Guild and Forteza Fitness & Martial Arts are proud to welcome Tony Wolf for a one day course in Bartitsu: The Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes.

This intensive introductory seminar, with the option of an ongoing six-week training course, will be among the many attractions of the new Forteza Fitness, Physical Culture & Martial Arts school in Ravenswood, Chicago (website forthcoming).

What is Bartitsu?

In the year 1899, Edward William Barton-Wright devised a system of cross-training between jujitsu, British boxing, kicking, wrestling and self defense with an umbrella or walking stick.  Bartitsu was created so that the ladies and gentlemen of London could beat street gangsters and hooligans at their own dastardly game.

Promoted via magazine and newspaper articles, exhibitions, lectures and challenge matches, Barton-Wright’s School of Arms and Physical Culture quickly became a place to see and be seen.  Famous actors, athletes and soldiers enrolled to learn the mysteries of Bartitsu.

After Barton-Wright’s school closed down under unknown circumstances in early 1902, Bartitsu was abandoned as a work in progress and almost forgotten throughout the 20th century … apart from a famous, cryptic reference in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Adventure of the Empty House”.

One hundred years later, the International Bartitsu Society was formed to research and then revive the “New Art of Self Defence”.  The modern revival is an open-source, community-based effort to continue Barton-Wright’s radical cross-training experiments.

What will we learn?

The introductory seminar will begin with a discussion of the origins, loss and revival of Bartitsu.  A series of warm-up exercises will then segue into drills and games exploring several of Barton-Wright’s fundamental principles of combat, especially the skills of manipulating an opponent’s balance and of tactical spontaneity.

We will then study a representative series of jujitsu and stick fighting sequences taken directly from Barton-Wright’s original system.  Next, we’ll work on transitioning from set-play sequences into a more realistic freestyle format, referring to the principles explored earlier in the day, before a warm-down and Q&A session.

Participants who wish to follow through into the six-week, twelve lesson basic training course will find this seminar an excellent grounding in the art of Bartitsu.

Where?

4437 N. Ravenswood
Chicago, IL

Patterned after a Victorian-era physical culture studio, Forteza features a 5000 square foot training area with brick walls and high timber ceiling.  The training area is equipped with mats, weapons and a “gymuseum” of functional antique physical culture apparatus including Indian clubs, iron dumbbells and medicine balls, as well as rowing and weightlifting machines dating to the late 1800s.

When?

Sunday, January 22nd; 11.00 – 5.30 pm, with a half-hour lunch break.

How much?

$60.00 pays for your place in the introductory seminar and automatically deducts $25.00 from the cost of the optional 6-week basic training course.

What should I bring?

Comfortable workout clothing, packed lunch if you wish, and a drink bottle.  We will have a limited number of training canes available for the stick fighting portion of the seminar, but participants are encouraged to bring their own sturdy hook-handled umbrella, walking stick and/or roughly 36″ hardwood dowel, with any edges smoothed away.

I’m In! How do I Register?

Email us to pre-register. You may pay by PayPal to treasurer@chicagoswordplayguild.com or pay by check or cash on the day.

Our Instructor:

Tony Wolf began training in Tae Kwon Do in 1978, receiving the black belt rank in 1983 and then studying a wide range of martial arts and combat sports including capoeira, Filipino stick and knife fighting, kickboxing, freestyle wrestling and various historical European martial arts. Throughout the late ’80s and early ’90s he worked as a self-defence instructor, specializing in full-contact, scenario-based women’s self-defence courses as well as non-violent self-defence for children and teenagers.

Between 1988 – 1994 Tony developed his original Wolf System of combat movement exercises, which has been taught to martial artists, stunt performers and stage combat specialists throughout the world. He has worked as a martial arts instructor, stuntman, professional wrestler and fight director/stunt coordinator as well as a freelance author and lecturer.

Tony’s fight direction and action design have been featured in over two hundred feature film, television, theatre, opera and ballet productions. Between 1998-2000 he served as the Cultural Fighting Styles Designer for Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. He regularly teaches a range of master-classes and seminars for martial arts associations, universities, stunt teams, acting academies and conferences throughout New Zealand, Australia, the USA, Canada and Europe. Tony’s intensive courses in Bartitsu and other disciplines have been featured at major Western martial arts conferences including WMAW, ISMAC, the Paddy Crean Sword and Pen Workshops and the Scuola Brancaleoni at Brancaleoni Castle in Piobbico, Italy.

Tony is a member of Western Martial Arts Illustrated magazine’s editorial board and a founding member of The Bartitsu Society. He edits the EJMAS: Journal of Manly Arts, a scholarly online journal focusing on the martial arts and combat sports of the Victorian and Edwardian eras and also serves on the advisory board of the Hegeler Carus Foundation.

He has been heavily involved in the research and revival of Bartitsu since 2002 and is a co-producer and co-director of the feature documentary, Bartitsu: the Lost Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes. In early 2010 he taught Bartitsu courses throughout the Pacific Northwestern region of North America, including classes in San Francisco, Eugene, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver.

Tony’s historical martial arts publications include volumes 1 and 2 of The Bartitsu Compendium, A Terrific Combat!!!: Theatrical Duels, Brawls and Battles, 1800-1920, Edith Garrud: the Suffragette who knew jujutsu, The Sword Prince: The Romantic Life of Colonel Thomas Hoyer Monstery, American Champion-at-Arms, Defensive Gymnastics: How to Protect Life and Property, The Cane as a Weapon, Master of Men: The Life’s Work of William Muldoon, Champion and Trainer of Champions and Ancient Swordplay: The Revival of Elizabethan Fencing in Victorian London.