UK -- An article from thesun.co.uk mentioned how Russel Crowe was set to play Dr Watson in the coming Sherlock Holmes movie to be shot by Guy Richie.Crowe said: "I've got to spend some time with Guy and I love his take on it. We're both martial arts enthusiasts and in the original stories of Sherlock Holmes, he's kind of a bad-ass and a bare-knuckle boxer and studies the rare fictional martial art of baritsu. If you look baritsu up, they can't even really tell you what it is, so it gives us a lot of leeway."
Fictional? If you stay by the term baritsu, that may be correct. Bartitsu on the other hand is well known - and most likely what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author, was referring to.
In "The Adventure of the Empty House", from 1901, Holmes says: "We tottered together upon the brink of the fall. I have some knowledge, however, of baritsu, or the Japanese system of wrestling, which has more than once been very useful to me."
Bartitsu of course is an art made by a British engineer named E. W. Barton-Wright. He supposedly learned the art of Tenshin Shinyo ryu ju jitsu by Yukio Tani. Barton-Wright was instrumental in bringing jujutsu to Europe. He invited said Tani, as well as Sada Kazu Uyenishi to Britain.
Bartitsu may very well have been the first hybrid martial art, blending Japanese jujutsu with Western boxing, French savate and stick fighting (la canne).
Interestingly, Sherlock Holmes was also said to be skilled in boxing and cane fighting. So - is baritsu "fictional" then? I think not.
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