International Swordfighting and Martial Arts Convention		Hosted by Art of Combat, inc. & New Dawn Duellists Society
Conlegium Fraternitas Armorum ~ United Brotherhood in Arms
Since 2000, one of the premier and oldest International conferences for the study of Historical Martial Arts, hosting accomplished and leading instructors from around the globe.

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Next Event: 8th Annual ISMAC July 12 - 15, 2007 in Detroit, Michigan Sponsored by Detroit Marriott Pontiac at Centerpoint

Master Class Neo-Bartitsu
INSTRUCTOR: Tony Wolf ROOM: Salon B
DESCRIPTION: In the year 1898, an English gentleman named Edward William Barton-Wright created the "New Art of Self Defence" that he called Bartitsu. His New Art was a combination of street savate, jiujitsu, scientific boxing and walking stick fighting, designed to beat the fearsome street gangs of Edwardian London and fin de siècle Paris at their own dastardly game. Bartitsu was the first martial art to combine Asian and European fighting styles. It was later incorporated into the Sherlock Holmes stories, and was used by Holmes to throw his mortal enemy, Professor Moriarty, to his doom from the top of Reichenbach waterfall. This master class provides an intensive, practical grounding in this fascinating system, as it was taught between 1899-1903 at the Bartitsu School of Arms and Physical Culture in London's Shaftesbury Avenue. The Bartitsu Society divides the contemporary practice of E.W. Barton-Wright's "New Art of Self Defence" into two categories. Canonical Bartitsu refers to "Bartitsu as we know it was"; the self defence skills and sequences that were specifically presented as Bartitsu by Barton-Wright and his associates between 1898-1904. Neo-Bartitsu refers to "Bartitsu as it might have been" and to "Bartitsu as it can be today"; an individualised process of exploration and cross-training based both on the canonical syllabus and on the vast corpus of European (especially British and French) self defence systems produced in the post-Bartitsu Club era, c1904-1920. This class will focus on neo-Bartitsu as an exploration of tactical movement in four ranges; those of the stick, the foot, the fist, and of close-combat. Special attention will be paid to the principles of initiative control (pre-emptive striking and invitation) and form (proper structural alignment both to support the defender's actions and to counter and control the attacker's actions). For further information on Bartitsu, please see http://www.bartitsu.org. Requirements: Participants in this class will need a sturdy walking stick, cane or dowel of approximately 33-36" length. Attendance of the Canonical Bartitsu Master Class is desirable but not mandatory.
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