Now here’s something you don’t see everyday – Historical European Martial Arts training! If you’ve tried the likes of fencing Jujitsu and boxing these lessons in Western martial arts bring traditional self-defence and combat arts from centuries ago back to the fore. These one to one individual or exclusive group sessions are a great introduction and you can choose between Bartitsu and HEMA workshops.
This European martial arts centre in the heart of Birmingham is a focal point for disciplines such as Bartitsu and HEMA in the UK and beyond. It’s staffed by experts in these fields of historical European martial arts which are seeing a huge resurgence in popularity. After all it’s not just the Far East that has its culture of martial arts – any country that has engaged in combat will have its own style of martial art. This school specialises in 14th century European martial arts from Italy as well as Edward Barton-Wright’s late 19th century discipline of Bartitsu.
The HEMA workshop take you through the basics of swordplay as it was done in the 14th Century teaching you the basic cuts and the first series of interlinked techniques for attack and defence with a long sword. The sword fighting skills taught during these HEMA classes have been resurrected from the study of historical documents and manuscripts of Flore Dei Liberi bringing the old European fighting style from Italy back to life in Brum. Liberi had a 40-year career as a sword master during which he nor anyone he taught was ever defeated in single combat.
The Bartitsu training is faithful to creator Barton-Wright’s teachings of his combined self-defence martial art from the Victorian era. Bartitsu was immortalised by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with his hero Sherlock Holmes using the combat skills to fend off arch rival Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland in his ‘The Adventure of the Empty House’ story. Bartitsu has also been used in several of the recent Sherlock films so there’s a definite revival of Holmes’ martial arts! For the Bartitsu workshops it’s all about your hands and feet with a little help from the ultimate London gentleman’s accessory – a walking stick or an umbrella.
Yes both workshops sound pretty flamboyant don’t they? But in reality they are both also excellent self-defence and fitness training – and pretty fascinating at the same time too. During your two-hour sessions you will learn the basic skills of your chosen historical European martial arts style. Just bring along yourself with a willingness to learn and get physical with those fighting hands and feet in this safe and controlled Western martial arts environment.
