Bartitsu!

[ffutures]

BBC4 is showing an episode in its Timeshift series on Sunday 24th which is very indirectly linked to Forgotten Futures, since I played a very modest part in helping with the research on Bartitsu:

Timeshift
Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting: The Rise of Martial Arts in Britain
24th February 10 PM BBC4 - Duration: 1 hour

Timeshift, the black belt of the archive world, takes a look at the rise of martial arts in Britain. From the early days of bartitsu, through judo and karate to kung fu, Britain has had a long and illustrious involvement with the martial arts. Gold medals have been won, Sherlock Holmes's life has been saved and aftershave has been worn - all thanks to the martial arts.

I don't know if I'll be getting any credits in this, but it ought to be interesting anyway, even if it is on opposite Being Human so I'll have to record it and watch it later...

Comments

[original-aj.livejournal.com]

Do they cover the European traditions do you know? Or is it only looking at the oriental imported ones?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Don't know - my involvement mostly related to some scans from Bartitsu articles.

[original-aj.livejournal.com]

I'll give it a look, it might well be interesting. I'd like to know more about Bartitsu myself, though the tendency to overlook the long tradition of martial arts in Europe is one of my pet peeves, given it's my main area of interest & study! We were using the term long before any European had done anything but sleep in pajamas.. ;)

Thanks for the heads up.

[eledonecirrhosa.livejournal.com]

I know Frank who is one of the archive researchers on Timeshift - was it him who you gave scans to?

I love Timeshift!

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Sorry for the delay replying, I have some problems with comment notification emails and usually leave them turned off - it was a lot less direct than that, my involvement is simply that I scanned some images that they got from someone else, and said "go ahead, I don't own the copyright" when they asked if it would be OK to use them. The person who contacted me wasn't called Frank.

[eledonecirrhosa.livejournal.com]

No problems. I only check my home email about two or threes times a week myself.

[eledonecirrhosa.livejournal.com]

The website for the programme is up, with some clips on it: Timeshift (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p2pm6)