How would things be different today?

[bat in a birdless village]

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

Read that. In the 1890's, that guy mixed martial arts with boxing and wrestling to make a mixed style. He did what people like Bruce Lee did about 70-80 years before Lee became famous.

Martial arts training really didn't become attainable until the 1970's here in the US. How different would things be if he had become famous around 1900 and spread martial arts way back then?

bat

[JusticeZero]

Not much different.. really it's quite startling how much you can't actually accurately attribute to Lee et al. which is attributed to him just because it seems like an easy explanation.

[Andrew_Patton]

See once again people claim things about styles that claim one thing or another, like I've always said though, the thought of cross training isn't new, and has never been new, and fighting for the most part is completely instinctual. I've never believed the hype out of any martial artist's mouth, i believe the substance of things, what's actually there, would you buy a book without reading it? Do you care that the book is 'the greatest story ever told' or 'the first telling of (whatever you wanna read)' or do you care that it holds your attention, tells you what you wanna know, and is compelling? I know with a book I really look for the latter, why care about the politics of who did what when and why, in fact show me what the first love story is and I'll surely show you a different, older version. Think about this, most japanese learn some judo in highschool, starting in the 1880's, same goes for karate in the 1900's, so isn't that considered MMA/JKD/whatever? it's all happened before and when MMA no longer exists (remember pankration from the earliest olympics?) I'm certain someone else will come up with the idea.

[Dont call me Sir]

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

Read that. In the 1890's, that guy mixed martial arts with boxing and wrestling to make a mixed style. He did what people like Bruce Lee did about 70-80 years before Lee became famous.

Martial arts training really didn't become attainable until the 1970's here in the US. How different would things be if he had become famous around 1900 and spread martial arts way back then?

bat

Thank you "bat in a birdless village" for the very informative article. Certainly food for thought and ruffles the feathers of the Bruce Lee followers!

DCMS.

[patusai]

Americanization of MA would have started sooner and by now I am sure that there would be big changes. What kind of changes I have no idea and I am not sure if the changes would be good or bad (maybe a little of both). Perhaps, if we started in the 1900's to learn how to fight (with each other and with outselves) by now we would learn how not to a little better. Perhaps that comes in time...maybe even in my life time

[lordtariel]

I don't know quite how much it would have spread. When it did spread, it would have done so faster, but part of the reason it took so long was that the masters didn't want to teach their forms to outsiders, especially foreigners.

[bat in a birdless village]

I don't know quite how much it would have spread. When it did spread, it would have done so faster, but part of the reason it took so long was that the masters didn't want to teach their forms to outsiders, especially foreigners.

You just hit on what I was going after. I have wondered about the speed of the martial arts spreading. I think if Barton-Wright would have promoted himself better, today we would see three times the amount of schools everyone and just as many more "masters."

It also would have affected the creation of styles. We probably would have many more different styles, or at least many more names of styles today.

bat

[bushido_man96]

That is a very interesting article. It shows kind of a halfway point between the martial arts of 14th through the 16th centuries and the martial arts of today.

What he did may have been revolutionary at the time, but before him various masters-at-arms were training troops in hands, feet, wrestling, and weapons.

As far as how things would be different, I don't know. People worked a lot more hours then, and may not have had time to do it. It would have been more for the upper class to attend, and most of them probably spent time boxing or fencing.

[bushido_man96]

Did you check out some of the links off of that article? There is some more interesting stuff there, including tournaments and demonstrations that he performed, and that he was going to perform in front of the Prince of Wales, but had a bike accident.

[Meguro]

http://www.savatekickboxing.ca/eng/hist-01.html

This link suggests that Western and Eastern fighting styles, in the case of Savate, were already happening. It's interesting to note that kicking, typical to Savate, originated with sailors in Marseilles and other port cities. The sailors, it is presumed picked up these techniques from their travels in the Orient. Savate was a demonstration sport in the early days of the modern Olympics. It never took off due in part to the interruptions of the World Wars.

Would things be different today if Bartitsu were better marketed? Nah. Martial arts, no matter its origen,appeals to a small segment of the population.