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Early Days at the Bartitsu Club

Here are some clippings from that early period when E. W. Barton-Wright first opened the Bartitsu Club, those days prior to the import of his jujutsu experts. There are a couple of reasons I like these. First, the issues of class (perhaps bigotry as well?) in Victorian society are readily acknowledged, but rarely felt by [...]

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Dealing with Footpads

I came across this a number of years ago and found it amusing because you see the same discussions today with keyboard self-defense experts describing how they would dismantle hypothetical attackers with their favorite techniques. This piece was originally printed in the April 28, 1900 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle (p.14). I added the [...]

Asides

• You might be a survivalist if the Number One tip in your list of additional uses for salt is to 1. Soak stained bandanas in salt water before washing to help eliminate the stains. I had to chuckle picturing someone (more...) #
• Sometimes I get Rory Miller, sometimes I don't. He knocked it out of the park the other day with a succinct post on why it's not the will to win that's important, but the will to prepare to win. #
• The August 2010 issue of National Geographic has a gorgeous article on the recent popularity of the Cholitas Luchadoras, the female wrestlers in Bolivia who perform in traditional garb. Luckily the complete article is online, along with the picture gallery, which doesn't quite do justice to the print version, but is definitely worth a look. Cholitas Luchadoras #
• Failure is not an option, it's a fact of life. The challenge, of course, is how the inevitable is faced. J. D. Roth, of Get Rich Slowly, recently put together a piece called Failure is Okay, which examines how successful people move forward when things don't go as planned. It might seem odd to (more...) #
• You've probably read a number of heartwarming Thanksgiving posts over the last day or two. I've decided to go a different direction with this tale of the first Thanksgiving and Pilgrim/Native American relations. Enjoy this account from Lossing's History of the United States (1909). (more...) #