It’s both emotionally satisfying and productive to summarize the previous year and take stock. In this blog, it can also have a benefit to the reader to gather the links and events from the previous year in one place. So, I hope this retrospective benefits you as much as compiling it benefits me.

Articles

In chronological order, here’s articles I wrote this year:

How to Escape Any Hold or Lock

Gentleman Scholar on Umbrellas

Why Front Headlocks Fail

Suppleness in Bartitsu

Feats of Strength

Suffragette Movies

Indian Clubs and Maces

Punching: Vertical Fist or Horizontal?

Technique Fusion in Self Defense

Gearcon and Victorian Martial Arts

Boxing and Moving

Bartitsu for Policing and Security

Punching Tips

Gimmick Self Defence Umbrella

Single Leg Takedown

Follow Through

It Can’t Happen Here

Mastering Savate

Bartitsu Stance

And here’s some articles from prior years that I’ve had requests to repost:

Bartitsu Reading List

5 Strategies of Bartitsu (Required for Blue Sash test)

Events

This year, we began holding a Bartitsu-focused Open Floor on the second Friday of the month. Of course, Bartitsu students are encouraged to spar on any other Friday’s Open Floor time, but once a month it’s nice to reserve part of the floor and get some dedicated time in.

In March, we held two workshops at VISS, the Vancouver International Swordplay Symposium. Powerful punches was the topic of one and the other explored aspects of Victorian physical culture: warm ups, Indian Clubs, kettlebells and feats of strength.

The first weekend of July was Gearcon in Portland, at which I reprised my Victorian physical culture workshop, and taught and assisted at a few Bartitsu seminars, including a women’s only class.

Besides our Umbrella Self Defence workshops throughout the winter, we also added a Multiple Attackers workshop in August that was very successful. And although not strictly Bartitsu, we had a great time at bullwhip cracking workshops held in November.

This year, we’ll have repeats of our most successful offerings, and some new ones too. If you have requests for specific workshops, please let me know, or tell the Front Desk at Academie Duello.

Leveling Up

Throughout the year, the following students earned their Blue Sash:

Winston Ho

Erika Miles

Sylvie LaRiviere

Connor Fitz Patrick

In November, Shawn Bullock became our first Red Sash student.

Ahead

I’m looking forward to a great 2016, with more workshops in umbrella and bullwhip and other skills, teaching over 250 hours of ongoing classes, and seeing you gain both the skill and confidence to fight like Sherlock Holmes.

Which reminds me — we don’t call it Fight Like Sherlock Holmes anymore; it has been rebranded to “Bartitsu Fundamentals” to stay in keeping with Academie Duello’s new unified introductory course naming scheme. (For those interested, Academie Duello’s beginner classes are now called Longsword Fundamentals, Rapier Fundamentals, Bartitsu Fundamentals and Stage Combat Fundamentals.)

See you in class. Stay safe in 2016.