An eclectic blog, with a focus on history & philosophy. In this blog I expand on the content mentioned on my youtube channel, providing additional detail and source. I also reproduce content from my research blog, civilian combatives. Mostly, this is to do with the history of civilian violence, with a particular focus on the early modern and modern periods.
The Rondel Dagger was a late medieval style of weapon, which appears to have been primarily designed for stabbing. Some of them did sport cutting edges, but the characteristic features that make a rondel a rondel appear to be;
a) a long, strong blade with a wicked point b) a substantial cross section (suggesting this strength was needed for piercing armour) c) rounded guard, and a rounded flattened pommel (which may have been used to transmit more force into an attack)
Below, the Rondel (centre) is displayed alongside a Bollock or Ballock Dagger (left, proving our ancestors were every bit as immature as we are) and a sword hilt dagger (right)
It appears that the Rondel was mostly used in a point down, or “ice-pick” grip. Although the point up grip appears in treatises the ice pick approach is by far the most prevalent. Some people have suggested that this is because of the nature of the rondel as an armour piercing blade means one has to wield it with power rather than dexterity, others have gone further and suggested that it was almost exclusively a military tool. I wonder how accurate this assessment can be.
When we train knife defenses in Jiu-Jitsu, we think ourselves lucky if a person elects to attack with the psycho stab, because it is easier to deal with and wrestle with that opponent than one who wields his blade like a baratero. The standard defense against such an attack is to sharply apply an ude-garami and either disarm one’s opponent or break his arm. This was idle speculation until I came across this video, by Hans Jorlind, which appears to illustrate the point well. Using HEMA to defend against a Rondel these practitioners exhibit similar discomfiture to that which I have seen in Jiu-Jitsu – namely that the downward stab is significantly easier to defend against than the straight stab (the only straight stab in the video is at 57 seconds, and in my opinion it looks by far the weakest defence).
This leads me to wonder whether the Rondel, which is definitely suited to an ice-pick grip, was actually designed to be used in the way we think it was. The Treatises show two men dagger fighting and wrestling, but how accurate is that really?
I mean, modern martial arts manuals show us pictures of two karate people fighting each other, two Judoka throwing each other, two fencers crossing foils etc. yet most actual fighting that happens is in unequal situations. We accept that what is being shown in manuals is a set of drills and training exercises designed to build the skillset of students in a particular area, and that this may or may not be practically useful at a later date. Because these students all go to the same class to learn the same thing they are all shown as having the same equipment, but we understand that outside the dojo or training hall the odds will be stacked against the defender. The surviving manuals can only ever give us limited context for the skills they can instruct us to practise, and it is the job of the historian to expand and make sense of that context.
This leads me to the real crux of my argument; if we accept that the ice-pick grip is the one the Rondel is best suited to, but that in an actual combat scenario it is easier to fend off, is it possible that the Rondel was primarily used for surprise?
It is possible to see it being drawn as a Roman soldier would draw his Gladius, the blade is certainly short enough, and this would allow the attacker to enter in a rush – giving him a substantially better chance of overwhelming his opponent before any countermeasures could be put into effect. Certainly drawing it while on the move presents a much smaller opening than the attacks we saw in the videos linked above. What I am unsure about is how this would work in armour. A full on rush would certainly work in a civilian environment and, combined with surprise, be quite overwhelming. If I was in full 15th century plate armour, though, and found myself without a sword or a pollaxe, I don’t think I would bother with the Rondel at first; I would much rather wrestle and throw an opponent and only then draw the Rondel as a coup de grace.
Jiu-Jitsu is, in the words of Arthur Conan Doyle, “the Japanese system of wrestling”. It may have a long and noble warrior tradition, it may employ scientific principles, it may channel the philosophies of Confucius and Zen Buddhism, but it is fundamentally and essentially a particular style of wrestling.
It therefore makes sense that, following the closure of the Bartitsu club in 1901, one of the Jiu-Jitsu instructors – Yukio Tani – went on to carve a career for himself as a challenge wrestler. Tani, who is rumoured never to have lost to a european, is supposed to have beaten over 500 challengers during his tours of England. At 5’6″, he was usually giving a lot in height and weight to his opponents, many of whom were seasoned wrestlers themselves, however the rules of the challenge stipulated that any challenger must wear a Gi (the Japanese practise Kimono) and that victory was to be by submission. These two rules did help to ensure Tani’s victory; submission wrestling was a foreign concept to Europeans at the time, so while Tani was well versed in chokes and locks most of his opponents were having to invent submissions while in the ring; used as they were to fighting for position and pin. Even if they secured a dominant position, they were then at a loss how to capitalise on it and defeat the plucky Japanese. Additionally, most were used to fighting without Gi, and would have found the jacket at best alien and at worst a weapon to be used against them. Ask any Judo player; the Gi presents oportunities to control and submit your opponent that are not there otherwise. (It is a point of trivia to note that the length of the Gi one wears technically differs depending upon which art one practises; Judo gi reputedly had the sleeves and trousers lengthened in 1907, to improve control and safety. Aikido, which boasts a different lineage of Jujitsu, still tend toward Gi with 3/4 length sleeves).One wonder’s how many seasoned wrestlers were bemused by a deftly applied collar choke; a move of which they had never heard until it knocked them out.
This is not to impugn Tani’s skill; rumour has it that he did once accept a challenge from a wrestler who did not wear the Gi. As usual, this man enjoyed the advantages of weight and size. After a struggle which lasted hours, Tani submitted him. He then went on to perform his usual show later that same evening, where he submitted a succession of opponents in Gi. There can be no doubt that he was a proficient fighter.
Yet the only match he is recorded as losing (at least in England) is to a fellow Japanese; Taro Miyaki (with whom he would later go on to open a school and publish a book). Miyaki was the only opponent Tani is known to have faced who had experience both in Gi and in submission wrestling. It seems reasonable to postulate that, in an environment less favoured to his own rules, Tani would have seemed significantly less impressive. Obviously, he had a living to earn and a product to promote – Jiu-Jitsu would not have seemed half as impressive if he had not been able to build up a win streak of hundreds – however given that one of the ostensible aims for touring in this period was the promotion of knowledge of the art the set up cannot be seen as other than partial, and designed to overplay the prowess the study of Jiu-Jitsu could bring.
Meanwhile, Tani’s former colleague from the Bartitsu club, Sadakazu Uyenishi had set up his own Jiu-Jitsu academy in Picadilly Circus; the “School of Japanese Self Defence”. Uyenishi also fought as a challenge wrestler, however his most notable ability was as a teacher. He was attracting pupils from the most fashionable classes, and two of his most notable students were Edith and William Garrud (who would respectively go on to teach Jiu-Jitsu to the suffragette bodyguard and the special constables recruited during WW1 respectively). A 1905 article from Lady’s Realm Magazine suggests that Uyenishi was particularly good at recruiting female students, deigning to teach them individually – in accordance with Edwardian manners and beliefs about the gentleness if the female character.
Perhaps the reason so many women were interested in his Jiu-Jitsu (there were notably few female wrestlers or pugilists) was that during demonstrations, women themselves would be used to show how effective the art could be.
The demonstration mentioned in Annesley Kenealy’s article, and pictured above, was clearly impressive. There was a demand both for Uyenishi to instruct the army’s physical trainers and to set up a club for the officer’s wives and daughters. There are some hints from the article that the sales pitch was at least embellished. For example,the claim that “in Japan, proficiency in jujitsu is compulsory in the army, navy and police forces” is at best optimistic; Judo was only adopted as the official training method of the Tokyo police department under the leadership of Mishima san, who organised the now famous shiai between the Kodokan and traditional Jiu-Jitsu schools in 1896. To assume it had spread so widely from this start point seems overconfident. Of course, one could argue that any unarmed combat style native to Japan could be called Ju-Jitsu; though that would then render the point tautological. (“Japanese soldiers are instructed in Japanese fighting… well d’uh!”).
And that leads me to wonder how much of the demonstration was, like Tani’s against unwilling opponents, and how much was down to Uyenishi’s abilities as a teacher, or – more accurately, as an uke (one who receives a technique).
In professional wrestling, where we all confess to knowing the moves are fake, wrestlers practise what they call “bumps” and “sells”. What this means is they practice how to fall very safely, and then how to make it look like it hurt. A lot. In jiu-Jitsu, where we are told the throws are “real”, ukemi, or “the art of receiving techniques” is incredibly important in making those same throws look real. A Jiu-Jitsu demonstration looks like this (note that the first 40 seconds of the video are all practising falling), while a judo contest looks like this; it took him three attempts to get a clean throw, and in a self defence situation either of the two failed attempts would have been bad news.
This is not to say that the throws don’t work, they do, just not always. And if you are putting on a demonstration then, just like in professional wrestling, you are looking to entertain and “sell” your performance so, just like in professional wrestling, you end up working with your partner to make the moves look good. A skilled uke can make mediocre technique look flawless and Fred Ettish look like Ronda Rousey. (P.S. Sorry, Fred – we’ve all been there man. If it helps, your comeback fight was awesome).
I don’t know what to make of the drawing above; is it artistic license to capture the impression of how high Uyenishi flew? His student is in a perfect tomoe-nage position, indicating that whoever drew it either had some knowledge of Jiu-Jitsu or some help (possibly from Uyenishi’s 1905 instructional manual). However, the professors position relative to the tori (thrower) could suggest artistic license or could suggest that an artist who was not present was simply told to draw a woman throwing him. (He could only have reached the position in which he is shown by breaking free of the throw halfway through and deciding the next logical step was to backwards somersault to freedom). Either way, I strongly suspect that Uyenishi had good reason to jump for his students during these shows, and that his compliance and contrivance were part of an act to sell Jiu-Jitsu which over-emphasised the skills of his female pupils. It is probably no accident that, by 1908, he had a job teaching martial arts to military trainers.
Whether this criticism is fair or not, I don’t know. We know professional wrestling is “fake”, and that gloved boxing is “real”, but isn’t just about everything in combat displays “fake” to some degree? In the ring, boxing may look “real”, but take away the referee and the rules, and you get a brawl. Even with such greats as Muhammad Ali, the fight looks different outside the ring. In Judo, Jujitsu and Aikido demonstrations, Uke “jumps” for Tori; often it’s sold as “protecting yourself”, but in reality it is all jumping, and it all makes the technique look better. Uyenishi almost definitely did it, and it almost definitely made Jiu-Jitsu look more impressive to the uninitiated than it actually was. Does that make it in some way wrong? All I can say is that the practice is incredibly common, so at the very least he cannot be uniquely faulted.
In most fighting styles, but particularly in bareknuckle boxing, you are depending upon your fists to deliver strikes to an opponent. There are three basic positions, which I shall call by their Japanese names, since there the terminology is clearer than it is in English. (The images below are courtesy of Sensei Kevin Leigh, of SKKIF Watford)
Ura-Tsuki or “Uppercut Punch”Tate-Tsuki or “Vertical Fist Punch”Oi-Tsuki aka “Horizontal Fist Punch” or “Corkscrew Punch”
The first position, Ura-Tsuki, is generally used for uppercut blows, which tend to be thrown at close range, or “in-fighting”. As such I intend to leave it out of the following discussion, for my intention here is to discuss the change in boxing practises which tool place from c. 1870 to c. 1920. During this time, the dominant fist position for punching changed from the Tate-tsuki to the oi-tsuki one. In close combat terms, punching is technically a “middle-distance” between kicking range and “in-fighting” or grappling range, and it is at this “middle distance” we shall consider the punches being thrown.
In James Mace’s biography, we learn that the Champion pugilist was a “disciple of the straight left” . It is possible that his championing of this particular punch found its way into literature; Sherlock Holmes, as is now well known, was written as a talented martial artist. In the Adventure of the Empty House, Holmes is credited with “some knowledge of Baritsu, or the Japanese system of wrestling”. In A Study in Scarlet, Watson identifies Holmes as “an expert singlestick player, boxer and swordsman”,The Yellow Face contains the accolade that Holmes was “one of the finest boxers of his weight I have ever seen”. Further re-enforcement comes from other stories, The Adventure of the Gloria Scott mentions Holmes training in pugilism, and in The Sign of the Four Holmes is revealed to have had an amateur bout with McMurdo, a Prize Fighter who lavishes him with praise. Above all, in The Adventure of the Solitary CyclistHolmes engages in actual combat, emerging victorious by delivering “a straight left against an uncouth ruffian”.
It is interesting to note that James Mace may actually be the inspiration for Holmes’ martial abilities. (It is already suspected that Holmes was inspired by at least three brilliant characters of Doyle’s personal acquaintance). Mace, though a natural middleweight, was Heavyweight Champion of both England and the world. He also excelled at swordplay, and was giving demonstrations of the value of the straight left at the Pelican Club (A club sponsored by notables such as Hugh Cecil Lowther, Lord Lonsdale, and John Sholto Douglas, the 9th Earl of Queensberry – primarily hosting matches under the Queensberry Rules) in London c.1886-87, a club which Conan-Doyle is suspected of visiting.
Certainly, the timeline of the stories are consistent with Mace having been an inspiration. A Study in Scarlet was published in 1887, and the Sign of the Four followed in 1890. Another possible source of inspiration could be the instructional book Mace wrote with the help of journalist Harry Sampson “On Boxing” (1889)
Yup. James Corbett’s 1912 boxing manual shows the technique without gloves, and the fist is chambered vertically.
Image from “Scientific Boxing” – James Corbett (1912)
And these images from Bob Fitzsimmons 1901 Book “Physical Culture and Self Defence” show the same thing, both Bob and his demonstration partner are throwing their punches tate-tsuki. Billy Edwards, in his 1888 “The Art of Boxing and Manual of Training” shows the same thing again, albeit gloved.
While both Bob Fitzsimmons and Jim Corbett were gloved Champions, they had been taught by men who fought both with gloves and bareknuckles. Men like Billy Edwards and James Mace. So the question is, why would all these great pugilists and boxers prefer the tate-tsuki, whilst the standard punch of later and modern boxers appear to be oi-tsuki?
One possible answer is technical. The range of boxing changed drastically when the wrestling component was removed from the sport by the Queensberry rules. The tate-tsuki chamber derives its power from body structure, specifically the relation of the fist, elbow and centreline. Wing Chun practitioners, who specialise in this type of punch, point out that the power in it comes not from big muscles, but from the incredibly strong skeletal alignment provided by keeping your elbows tucked in – thus making the absolute best use of whatever muscle you have (however large or small). When you punch tate-tsuki, the elbow should be directly behind the fist, and directly in front of your core. This allows you to transfer your weight into the strike through your bones.
In order to use, this structure, however, you have to be able to stay at that middle distance between kicking and grappling. Since kicking was not allowed in pugilism it did not present an issue. Wrestling was, however, and when it was removed from the game it gave a decided advantage to boxers who were “in fighters”. Typically stocky and powerful, these fighters, like Daniel Mendoza or Mike Tyson, would close to grappling range and launch devastating close range punches (generally thrown from the shoulders, rather than the core).
The above images illustrate a change in the range of pugilistic engagement, suggesting that protagonists stand closer to each other under Queensberry rules than they would tend to under the old LPR set. At the extended range, one had room to set up the torso, elbow, fist alignment which would make tate-tsuki strikes very powerful. Rotating the fist at that range would not add any significant impact, and could lead to one overbalancing – throwing one’s weight forward so that a skilled wrestler could gain a hold and dash one to the ground.
“tap”
Closing in, however, one might have to hand the advantage to those who favoured the oi-tsuki. Without room to chamber the elbow between fist and torso, the oi-tsuki moves the elbow to the side, and instead relies on the powerful muscles of the shoulder and upper back to give the strike force. It also has the added benefit, as Iain Abernethy points out, of disengaging the bicep. Biceps tend to contract the arm, and so would actually pull in the opposite direction to a punch, weakening it. As boxers moved from being all round athletes (James Mace, for example, was also a talented dancer and pedestrian) to being more specialised, and as the science behind sports took off in the late Victorian and Edwardian periods, this would become an increasing problem. As boxers moved their training more to focus on the upper body delivering strikes (rather than the all round fitness required for LPR) they would have developed larger shoulder muscles – and thus felt less need to put their skeleton behind a punch to deliver power, but also would have needed to counter any adverse effect those bigger muscles could have on their punching power.
Another possible answer is to do with protecting the knuckles. Urban combat styles, like Wing Chun and Krav Maga, tend to favour the tate-tsuki chamber even today. One of the reasons is that punching tate-tsuki makes it easier to land a strike flush with the knuckles of the index and middle finger,thus offering protection to the more delicate knuckles of the ring and pinkie fingers. Even though modern boxers wear 16 oz. gloves, a fracture of the bone behind the pinkie finger is known as a “boxer’s fracture”.
Under LPR rules, where hand protection was non-existant, looking after your knuckles was key to winning the fight. It wasn’t uncommon for one pugilist to break his hand due to a badly placed punch, and usually that man would then lose. With one of his weapons broken his attack and defence would be severely compromised. Pugilists went to extraordinary lengths to protect their hands, including pickling them for weeks before the fight (one common solution was turpentine) to toughen them up and prevent this eventuality. Given the dramatic effects of potential injury, and the lengths they were known to have gone to, it is reasonable to suggest that they may have adopted this style of punch specifically because it favoured the knuckles. It goes without saying that gloved boxers do not have to be as concerned about their knuckles.
Additionally, if one punches tate-tsuki, it is more likely to slip through an opponents guard than an oi-tsuki punch – having a narrower width. This advantage only applies to fights that are bareknuckle or where the gloves are very small, and thus would not apply from c. 1920’s onwards, when virtually all boxing gloves weighed upwards of 12-16 oz. Since the advantage dissapeared, the incentive to punch tate-tsuki would be less strong.
It is thought that the Oi-tsuki position was popularised by Charles “Kid” McCoy, who claimed he used the twisting motion to “cut” his opponents open, either disabling or inconveniencing them. (It should be noted that James Mace favoured this tactic also, but he managed it with a tate-tsuki left).
Observant readers will notice two things from the above illustration, McCoy’s crouching posture suggests an attention to infighting, and the hunch of the left shoulder helps him cover his chin, protecting the head but leaving the torso open. The elbows in tate-tsuki punches are kept close to the torso, covering one from body shots but leaving the head relatively unguarded. Under LPR the body was a more important target than it was under queensberry rules, quite simply because it was soft. Knuckles could do a lot of damage to a body without risking themselves against the hard bones of the head. The advent of gloves made targeting the head more popular, partly because they reduced damage to the body from digging punches, and partly because they cushioned impact, making a knockout blow more likely than with bareknuckles.
We can tell McCoy was an infighter; the majority of his surviving photographs show him demonstrating his “dip game”
“Dip Game” – to, bob, weave and parry in order to evade your opponents strikes
McCoy was a middleweight who fought at heavyweight. This meant his opponents would usually be bigger than him, so he had to get in close in order to hit them. Additionally, he didn’t have to worry too much about shots to the body, because a larger opponent would have to drop under the punch McCoy was already throwing in order to take advantage of the opening. By throwing his elbows out, as in a corkscrew punch,he could hit his opponents at under his full arm length, and significantly under theirs, and at the same time keep himself covered from counter strikes.
Kid McCoy Demonstrates his left jab
Quite frankly, I don’t buy that the corkscrew punch is better for cutting people. Having experimented with both I would favour the tate-tsuki punch to cut an opponents skin, but the corkscrew for a body shot, as the twisting can add a little extra power if one is striking to a vital point, such as a liver or a spleen. I do think that the hunching and reliance on muscle power really suits a close in fighter, and would argue that the biggest reason for the transition is that the combat range of boxing changed to be much closer after the wrestling component was eliminated. Instead of staying outside and picking specific shots (like Shotokan Karate competitors do today) boxing got more up close and personal, relying more on fast paced action and good covering for victory than carefully picking and avoiding shots.
If you enjoyed this article, and would like to know more about what stylistic differences tell us about combat, why not check out our follow up piece on the development of guard systems?
Thomas Crapper lodged a patent for a cantilever toilet (Reyburn, 1989 – Flushed with Pride). For those of you to whom, like me, this means nothing, a cantilever toilet is one where the bowl projects out of the wall, but all of the essential working parts are hidden within it.
A cantilever toilet in all its austere glory. Having searched for patents after 1890 on the espacenet database, I can only assume the patent was registered before this date. (And, for those of you interested in defining search windows, sometime after Crappers birth in 1836).
The reason for his designing the toilet was not to test his engineering skill – that had already been certified by the development of his “water waste preventor” and several royal appointments. It was far more down to earth.
As the flushing toilet became more common towards the end of the 19th century, great institutions such as prisons and mental asylums were interested in joining the sanitary revolution. Victorian toilets, however, were rather sturdy.
The gigantic, wrought iron cistern. The length of brass or copper piping which connected it to the bowl, the chain with the “pull and let go” china weight on the end. Even the ballcock – which in those days were all brass. The flushing toilet presented a weapon based buffet to these institutional guests who were violently inclined.
If you looked at either of these things and your first thought is “that would make a good mace under the right circumstances” you may have anger management issues.
I have yet to find any records of a flushing toilet actually being weaponised, though I have no doubt the potential was there. Sifting through court records it is not uncommon to find that people are assaulted with chamber pots or toilet jugs. The Old Bailey, for example, records the trial of Thomas Henry Williamson, who tried to murder a man whilst armed with a toilet jug and fire poker.
The fact that chamber pot assaults were not uncommon, combined with the added insult of being assaulted with a scatalogical implement would seem to offer a strong incentive for prisons especially to install flushing toilets. But the necessity of concealing the architectural gubbins and protecting prison warders from riots of toilet armed criminals fell to the brain of one of Britains greatest plumbers.
It is nothing new to say that prisons are designed to control potentially violent people, and that the architecture will have the prevention of violence built into its functionality. It is, perhaps, a nice reminder of the thoroughness of this approach that saw Thomas Crapper make an overlooked architectural contribution to the history of violence.
I’ll preface this; my data is not an exhaustive sample. This is taken largely at random from surviving evidence from the period 1900-1940. As such, there may be some problems with it; for example, the Suffragette bodyguard may be overplayed in the history of Jiu-Jitsu in England because they served such a unique function. In fact, given that fighting was considered unusual for women, it is perhaps more likely that texts of films would show a female jitsuka than her male counterpart, and this may be skewing my research. So while I proceed,I proceed with caution.
Between 1900 & 1940, women appear to be over-represented in Jiu-Jitsu textbooks, articles, adverts and videos. Compare this to boxing manuals of the same period, which are almost completely devoid of women, and one is faced with a stark contrast. Some types of fighting were definitely “manly”, but it appears that Jiu-Jitsu was not. One might be tempted to suggest that Jiu-jitsu was seen as a “ladies’ art”, however the facts that from 1906 Sadazaku Uyenishi was teaching the art to the military, followed as early as 1914 by William Garrud who was instructing special constables for the police, and in 1915 William Ewart Fairbairn (later to become famous for developing Britain’s WW2 military combative system, “defendu”) published a manual of self defence for the Shanghai Police which was based on Jiu-Jitsu shows that it was taken seriously by people who needed combative proficiency for their jobs.
So at one end of the spectrum we have the army and the police (in this period exclusively men), people who need to fight for a living studying the art, and at the other end we have it being marketed to a civilian audience as “suitable for ladies”. What I would argue these two groups have in common – at least in combative terms – is a need to prioritise swift and crushing victory over notions of “fairplay” or “decency”.
What I am proposing is the notion of an aesthetic of combat, which at this time was almost directly aligned with gender identity. To illustrate this aesthetic, I suggest watching three fights. The 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle” between George Forman and Muhammad Ali, UFC 175’s Ronda Rousey vs. Alexis Davis (2014) and UFC 184’s Ronda Rousey vs. Cat Zingano (2015). Unfortunately, I don’t have the correct permissions to reproduce or display these events – however I am sure they are not hard to come by in the digital era.
The rumble in the jungle is widely considered one of the greatest boxing matches ever, but it displays some boxing tropes so well that despite its exceptional status, I think it can serve to illustrate archetypes. The matchup between Foreman and Ali was a style difference of incredible power against brilliant scientific and technical boxing. Ali was at the peak of his physical abilities, and still looked vastly underpowered when compared to the world heavyweight champion. If the fight had been about standing and trading shots, Foreman would probably have taken it. Ali adopted two devices to prevent this being the case. Firstly, he tied Foreman up with regular clinches, controlling Foreman’s ability to throw clean punches and ensuring the referee would step in and separate the two – this allowed Ali to land a strike on the advancing Foreman from the outside, clinch up to minimise damage, and then be moved back to the outside by the referee. This allowed Ali to control the distance and the pace of the fight far better than Foreman could. Additionally, the wrestling and clinching was designed to sap Foreman’s strength.
His second device has become the stuff of boxing legend. Rope-a-dope was a tactic entirely designed for the ring. Leaning on the ropes allowed Ali to spread the impact of Foreman’s punches, much of the energy being absorbed by the elastic ropes rather than Ali’s body. Additionally, by covering or deflecting most of the blows Ali was tiring Foreman out and neutralising his power advantage in the long run. Some observers thought Ali was seriously hurt, and worried for his safety. He certainly doesn’t look like a man who is winning the fight.
Part of Ali’s training had been huge amounts of body conditioning. His sparring partners would pummel him to increase his toughness, and this paid off. Foreman would chase Ali to the ropes, and throw lots of punches which were either blocked, absorbed or deflected. Ali would respond with a few well placed shots (eventually swelling Foreman’s face). If it got too close, Ali would clinch, be reset and the game repeated. Wearing Foreman down in this way allowed Ali to pick his moment and win by KO in the 8th round.
All of this took about 24 minutes of fighting. In those 24 minutes the athletes displayed values such as; Physical endurance – in simply fighting for that long Physical toughness – both Ali and Foreman took a lot of punishment and kept going Fair play – there were no kicks, the wrestling was limited and the gist of the fight was a stand up event where two evenly matched men punched each other (this notion of fairness is closely linked with gloved boxing) Self-awareness – each man tried to play to his own strengths, and showed respect for the abilities of his opponent Intelligence – Ali in particular showed his intelligence by adopting a strategy based on the rules of the game. He knew that to go in all guns blazing would favour the more powerful Foreman’s brawling attitude, so he worked a longer game.
Contrast that with Ronda Rousey’s fights. Rousey is a former Olympic Judo player, turned to MMA. The combined length of her fights against Alexis Davis and Cat Zingano is 30 seconds. In the Alexis Davis fight the bell sounded, Rousey grabbed and threw her opponent to the ground, punched her in the face 9 times, and knocked her out. Fight over.
Against Zingano, the bell sounded, Rousey dodged a flying knee, grabbed her opponent, threw her to the mat and secured control of her arm. This placed her elbow in a lock and had Zingano not tapped, Rousey could have broken the arm. This took just 14 seconds.
In these fights Ronda displayed an entirely different set of characteristics to the ones shown by Foreman and Ali.
Ruthlessness – Ronda’s aim was to control her opponent and shut them down as quickly as possible. Dominance – There was no pretence at giving her opponents a fair shot. Ronda wanted to control them completely and she did so. Aggression – The game plan was to take control and keep it. That meant closing distance and inflicting damage as quickly as possible. Decisiveness – At no point in either match did her opponents have the opportunity to hurt Ronda. Her style of fighting protected her whilst inflicting maximal damage on her opponents as quickly as possible.
My argument is that the aesthetics demonstrated in this small sample of fights are widely evident over stylistics boundaries between 1900 & 1940, and that this explains why Jiu-Jitsu was largely marketed towards women in this period.
Broadly speaking, during peacetime the goal of civilised society is to cultivate the nobler aspects of masculinity whilst discouraging those traits which are potentially antisocial. Gloved boxing emphasises physical strength and health, which is very manly, whilst also encouraging a controlled, restrained form of violence. This particular style favours fair play – matches between equals and giving the other a chance. As such, it is a display of masculine nobility. It teaches young men to compete with each other in a stylised manner, and to control their temper – urging them away from picking on those smaller and more vulnerable than them (e.g. women and the elderly). In this way gloved boxing can be seen as channelling a natural male urge to violence and competition into a socially acceptable sphere where it teaches young men constructive values.
The assumption appears to be that if violence can be contained to a controlled, peer environment, then it can be a positive force. Violence is constitutive of male character, and boxing presents a trellis which supports the development along socially accepted lines.
For women, however, the assumption about violence is somewhat different. Violence is not constitutive of the female character (at least in this period) and so it is assumed that a woman is instantly a victim. The emphasis on a fair fight between peers cannot be carried over, because the assumption is that her attacker will be a man, with the advantages of strength and weight.
May Whitley’s 1933 video serves to illustrate this approach, “how 7 stone odd, scientifically applied, can defeat 14 stone”. In this case, all of the techniques shown serve to debilitate or incapacitate an attacker swiftly, allowing the woman either to escape or to render him harmless.There is no emphasis on fairness or control, because it is assumed that either of these things would place a woman at a disadvantage against a larger opponent. Instead surprise, dominance, aggression and decisiveness are emphasised.
These things can only be valuable in a limited context. One cannot encourage all members of a society to be aggressive and dominant – it would be a recipe for chaos. The moral guardians of a nation, however, can be excused on the grounds of necessity. If a woman is attacked by a man, it is the man who is morally wrong for attacking, and this justifies sudden and decisive retaliation on her part. Likewise, the policeman apprehending a criminal or the soldier overcoming an enemy must do it swiftly for their safety, the safety of those around them, and in order to uphold a moral order. (One could hardly condone a “fair fight” with a criminal – what if he was victorious and thus escaped?)
So I have to conclude that these two fighting styles were used and marketed differently because they served differing moral functions in relation to the control of gender identities.
The sport of boxing provided a safe outlet of masculinity for the majority of the male population. Encouraging violence, but reinforcing a set of rules surrounding its proper use and functioning as an educational reminder to young men that the power to be violent comes with responsibility.
Jiu-Jitsu, on the other hand, was viewed as a more practical street fighting system. Designed to give those who needed it a technical advantage. The army and the police would be natural customers, but in a peace time civilian setting, women made a much more natural target audience than young men, because they could always be assumed to be at a physical disadvantage. That is not to say that the only practitioners of the art were women, far from it. However I think the marketing suggests
1) That because it is not enshrined as “manly” jiu-jitsu was the only socially acceptable form of violence for women in this period. 2) The repetitive use of women in promotion emphasises that the style does not depend on physical strength, and could also have appealed to non-athletic males (without insulting their virility) 3) The framing of the use of women shows a concern with personal safety, and carries the message that Jiu-Jitsu is for “the street”. At a time a civilising offensive was in full swing it would not have been possible to depict men brawling in the street – regardless of the reason. So in some ways the female becomes a stand in for the safety conscious male. Boxing was a tool whereby young men restrained their natural urge to violence and became productive members of society. Jiu-jitsu was the tool that the police, or any safety conscious citizen, could use to tackle those violent males who were not being curbed by social developments.
The figures of the sportsman and the soldier loomed large in the imagination of all young boys throughout the 20th century. Growing up, I remember reading boys own manuals and “Commando” comics. Other boys were more interested in soccer magazines,but the gist was the same. These are role-models, and you should seek to emulate them.
In the UK, there was some tradition of sporting figures becoming popular heros (for example, the journalist Pierce Egan wrote his famous Boxiana, which inspired spinoffs such as Wrestliana, in the first half of the 19th century), but the real birth of the modern sports hero – I would argue – is down largely to Richard Kyle Fox. An Emigrant from Ireland, Fox was working in the New York Journalism scene of the 1870’s. In 1877 he inherited the nearly defunct Police Gazette; all he had to do was agree to take on its debts.
Under Fox’s editorship, the Gazette thrived. It fed its readers a heady mix of crime, sex, scandal and violence. Over time, it began to include contests, and gradually expanded its remit to sporting journalism as well. In this sense it paved the way for modern sensationalist journalism, whether it’s the “yellow papers”, the “tabloids” or the “red tops”, they all owe a debt to Fox’s lurid pink “Police Gazette”.
While the police Gazette made many sporting heroes, it would be difficult to deny that in the early days at least, boxers were the sporting heroes extrordinaire. (I have read that this was also true in the UK, though it was somewhat mitigated by the growth of football, which by the 1920’s had rather outstripped boxing in popularity).
Because my research deals with notions and representations of masculinity, I will have to engage with the figure of the boxer as sporting hero (and theoretically, a heroised form of violence) in order to adequately understand both the idealised masculine type He represented, and to offer contradistinction with the mode modest figure of the Jitsuka.
The Jitsuka was not heroised in any manner. In fact, the few portrayals of him or her in the press of the time tend towards an expedient martial artist who was competent to overcome criminals. As I have mentioned before, Sherlock Holmes was a student of Jiu-Jitsu (or, “Baritsu”, as Conan-Doyle would have it), as were Suffragettes, Police officers and Soldiers. The commonality between these figures would seem to amount to “people who need to be good at violence in order to achieve an end”. Holmes and the Police were fighting crime, the military were fighting for king & country, the Suffragettes for the rights of women. None of their main efforts was supposed to be violence, but if it came up, they needed to be good at it.
In some respects this will make the project harder to manage. The figure of the boxer is relatively easy, because he is a masculine ideal which is widely represented. Because the figure of the Jitsuka is mostly understood through negative space, I think that understanding the heroisation of boxers will provide a good way in to the study, and allow me to examine the hypothesis that the boxer stood for an idealised masculine violence on the individual level, while the jistuka represented a more broad application of practical principles on the restraint of violence at a society wide level.
The boxing guard is culturally ubiquitous as a “fighting” posture. Ask any untrained person in the western world to throw a “Fighting stance” and they will look something like this
Hands held high, weight evenly distributed on the balls of the feet, ready to move or punch.
This is what has become known as the “standard” guard. However, because I am going to reach back to a time before it became standard, I am going to use the alternate term “close guard” for the position. The image has seeped into popular parlance – we talk about “putting our guard up” or “letting our guard down” indicating a level of defensive responsiveness, but the imagery is all to do with those hands.
Their position has changed over the years. As the gallery below should illustrate.
Mike Conley, c. 1880’sJames “Jem” Mace, c. 1880Jake Kilrain, 1898Robert Fitzsimmons, c. 1900John L. Sullivan, c. 1890’s
In the Beginning…
All of these late C.19th pugilists demonstrate an extended guard, with similarities to those used in eastern martial arts today. The sole exception in 170 year history of the LPR Bareknuckle Rules appears to be Daniel Mendoza.
Daniel Mendoza, c. 1790’s
Mendoza has gone down as one of history’s greatest boxers, mostly because of his revolutionary foot movement. Like the later champions James Mace, Cassius Clay and Anderson Silva, Mendoza used his footwork to dance away and avoid being hit. At the time this was revolutionary; Mendoza was fighting around three generations after Jack Broughton had coded a rule set designed to limit fatality and serious injury, however the attitudes to fighting had remained fairly stagnant. It was not uncommon for pugilists to have very limited foot movement and concentrate more on hard hitting and wrestling.
A descendent of this practice, known colloquially as “Irish Boxing*” appears in Herbert Asbury’s book, Gangs of New York. Two men would approach the scratch and, rooted to the spot, each attempt to beat the other into submission. It was a challenge of toughness and manliness that could be carried out in the cramped, squalid basements of New York Tenements. It was also extremely injurious to the participants.
Mendoza, who was something of a pretty boy, did not think that taking a beating was a necessary part of being a fighter. This may have had something to do with the fact that, despite being the English Heavyweight Champion, he was 5’7″ tall and weighed around 160 pounds. (In an era where fighters didn’t cut weight to compete!) Had he stood still, any one of his much larger opponents would likely have flattened him.
Thus he developed a close guard. Using angular footwork to dodge punches and rushes, he could remain on the outside of his opponents, and fire in jabs across the top of their blows (incidentally, this is the style that James Mace later perfected). Mendoza, however, had no desire to remain outside. He preferred to enter his opponents space and jam them up with short, choppy strikes, particularly those aimed at the body. To do this he raised his arms close to his head and instead of using an angular deflection, he could absorb incoming strikes on his forearms.
An angular deflection, of the type Age Uke, here demonstrated by Gichin Funakoshi.Absorbing impact using a high, closed guard. Image from Expert Boxing
The difference in distance is clearly evident in the two images displayed above. Additionally, the Broughton and London Prize Ring Rules allowed grappling, meaning that once Mendoza closed the distance, his opponents were more likely to grab him than they were to throw hook punches at his head. (The first boxer known to demonstrate a lead left hook was James Corbett, who displayed it in San Francisco, 1892. Whilst it clearly proved successful, older pugilists such as Jem Mace and John Sullivan eschewed the punch because of the danger to one’s ungloved hands). Relatively safe from being knocked out, Mendoza could piston shots into his opponents face and body whilst they would struggle to return fire because of his size and position.
This tactic generally worked well for him, although in a rare defeat Mendoza was to regret underestimating the brawling style of Jack Johnson, who grabbed Mendoza’s hair and proceed to beat his face to a pulp, knocking the smaller man out in the 9th round.
After Mendoza, however, the close guard largely disappeared. The author suspects that this was, at least in part, due to the scientific footwork that Mendoza had done so much to popularise. Fighters who use swift, angular footwork are generally able to hit their opponent whilst avoiding being hit themselves. This style of fighting, known as “counterfighting” (careful with the pronunciation!) conforms to a theory of fighting psychology known as the “Musket Jackpot”.
It is appealing, after all, to be able to hit your opponent from a position of relative safety. And whilst shots from the outside are not the big showstoppers, I would much rather hit you and not get hit at all than hit you very hard only to have you return the favour an instant later. Thus, Mendoza’s “scientific” style of boxing using footwork and jabs to wear down an opponent helped to develop the art into a quite sophisticated form. When the “sweet art” became a “science”
After Mendoza, fighters who drew on his use of movement helped to develop boxing from two thugs brawling to a “science of self defence”. Brawlers remained common, but men with a little education in this “science” began to be prized, at least in certain sections of the community.
In the 1840’s, Nat Langham, then middleweight champion of England, ran a boxing booth. This was a form of entertainment where young pugilists would spar in order to demonstrate their art and entertain onlookers as well as earn something of a wage. Although not outright illegal, prizefighting was basically so because it was considered to create unlawful and unruly gatherings. As such these booths provided a living for fighters when competition was scarce or when local authorities were launching another puritanical crackdown.
Nat Langham’s booth attracted the attentions of a young Norfolk man named James Mace. Already well known to the locals (In his autobiography, Mace recalls boxing being as much a part of the culture for young men as football is in our own time) Mace impressed Langham, and ended up working for him in London. Although primarily a prizefighter, Mace was working out of one of Nat’s London Clubs, the Rum-Pum-Pas, and augmented his pugilistic earnings with bodyguarding. The Rum-Pum-Pas was popular with young aristocrats, who would often hire some of Nat’s “Pugs” to go out into the less salubrious areas of the capital with them. In an era before modern policing, having friends who were handy with their fists had it’s advantages.
The salient point in the anecdote is this; because of their “scientific” approach, these “pugs” were not pariahs amongst the aristocracy – they were their playmates. Their training and intelligence separated them from the class of thugs, at least to the degree where “the fancy” (as boxing inclined aristocrats were termed) would fraternise with them, take lessons from them, and employ them to keep thugs removed.
It was around this time that the low, extended guard, pictured at the beginning of this post, became ubiquitous. This guard offers several advantages; it enhances the field of your vision (your fists aren’t in the way of your eyes), it allow one to launch straight punches quickly and effectively (click here to read about the different types of punches), it is equally useful for striking and grappling (grappling was important under the LPR rules), it protected the body much better than a close guard (the body, being softer than the head, was a more popular target in bareknuckle fights), and it allowed for an angular style of deflection, or blocking.
Bob Fitzsimmons demonstrates an angular block and counter attack. Very similar to what are now thought of as “eastern” styles.
What is most noticeable, at least to modern fighters, is what the guard does not do. It is truly awful at “covering up”. Absorbing blows on the hands or forearms – the cornerstone of most modern defence – is virtually impossible from this guard position. As the following video demonstrates, defence in pugilism had a slightly different look.
One of the things this tells us is that pugilists were fighting at a different range to modern boxers (and most modern MMA fighters). There were two obvious reasons for this.
The first is that the LPR rules allowed grappling. I’ve spoken before about how throwing punches with a vertical fist is used at different ranges, but the basic information is this; keeping the elbows tight in to the body (which punching with vertical fist alignment does) helps to prevent your opponent grappling you by gaining underhooks, and if grappling is allowed then you do not need to guard your face, because if your opponent is close enough to hit your face you should be wrestling. Old time boxers knew how to clinch and chancery to prevent their opponent hitting them in the head. For example, via the arm and head control demonstrated below.
Image from Billy Edwards 1888 Boxing Manual; “The Art of Boxing”
So in essence, the low guard prevented wrestlers (like Sam Hurst, the “Stalybridge Infant” – a wrestler who briefly reigned as boxing’s heavyweight champion) from dominating a skilled pugilist, protected the body, and did not leave the head too vulnerable, because fighters could and would grapple.
The second reason is the development of footwork and the size of the ring. Modern boxing rings are 16ft square. LPR rings were 24ft squared. For those who, like me, are mathematically challenged, that means that LPR rings were more than twice as big as modern boxing rings. (Check the maths, I’ll wait.) Footwork could be the single biggest part of the fight. More than once a nimble opponent simply outran the other man. John L. Sullivan, for example (who in a move that was probably related, did more than anybody else in history to popularise the 16ft ring) had a career record of 40 victories, 2 draws and 1 loss. The two draws, against Patsy Cardiff and Charlie Mitchell, occurred because Sullivan simply could not catch them. Like many heavyweights, he relied on power more than cardio and was too blown to present a threat to these fleet footed men. He is rumoured to have grumbled that the encounter with Mitchell was “more akin to a foot race than a prize fight”. **
Likewise, his only loss to “Gentleman” Jim Corbett. There is no doubt Corbett was a terrific boxer, but even in a 16ft ring it was his footwork which put him leagues ahead of Sullivan and enabled him to knock out the “Strong Boy”.
The Modern Era
While John L. might have done more than anybody else to popularise the use of gloves and the 16 ft. ring, the first true champion of the modern, gloved, era was Jim Corbett – the first champ never to fight under LPR rules. But Corbett, and other boxers of his era, continued to favour the low guard.
A Plate from Jim Corbett’s 1912 Manual “Scientific Boxing”
The close guard, as we know it, was largely popularised by Charles “Kid” McCoy. It offered several advantages for McCoy’s fighting style and the newly developing “sport” of boxing. Being smaller than most of his opponents, McCoy didn’t have to worry about body shots, and could afford to worry less about protecting his ribs. Additionally, the removal of grappling from the sport meant that he didn’t have to worry about exposing his ribs, and could throw his trademarked “corkscrew punch”.
McCoy, like Mendoza before him, was a small, aggressive, infighter who was ferociously successful in the ring. While I would like to think that many boxers watched him and were inspired by his performance, I think this could only ever be part of the reason for popularising the close guard. The other two I would suggest are more practical. Firstly, fighters now had 16 oz. pillows strapped to their fists – I would think meanly of them if they hadn’t realised that the same padding which protected their knuckles could be used to protect their vulnerable jawline if it was held close enough. Secondly, as mentioned above, and in the post about punching styles, the distance of engagement changed. A closer opponent, one who doesn’t have to lunge in to hit you in the head, means you need to protect your head more closely all the time – which the close guard does.
The close guard also allow for a great setup for the short, choppy punches which have come to characterise modern boxing. Drawing power from the shoulder and the rotation of the arms, the modern jab and cross differ from their barenuckle cousins both in fist position and in how they develop power. And an extended guard also makes it more difficult to set up hook punches; a staple of modern boxing, but unusual in pugilism and modern systems (like Karate) which still favour the low guard.
And, since the rules haven’t changed much since Kid McCoy’s time; here we are. It is worth noting that in the late 20th century, somebody took the close guard idea to the extreme. Cus D’Aamato and his charge, Mike Tyson, developed a variant of the close guard known playfully as the “Peekaboo” guard. This brings the gloves even higher and closer to the face, effectively turning the head into a large pillow-cum-target. The statement is “I don’t need to block, because I can absorb all your blows, get in close, and then hit you twice as hard”. In this respect, Mike Tyson was an innovator. And Like Mendoza and McCoy before him, the stocky infighter was so successful that everybody who comes after him follows his lead.
I wonder if those in the future will know it?
*The author hopes that this is because of the popularity of pugilism amongst the Irish in the 18th & 19th centuries (Chris Klein, author of “Strong Boy“, attributes this to a displaced nationalist sentiment which could be realised through the masculine figure of the pugilist), who would have formed a significant proportion of the lower class immigrants, and thus spectators and participants, of this sport rather than simple Victorian racism.
**Whilst there is no record of his saying this, in his autobiography Sullivan does admit that the last 39 minutes of the fight passed without a blow being struck, and reproduces an entertaining article by Eugene Field which purports to report on the Sullivan-Mitchell foot race, (Sullivan, J.L. – Reminisces of a 19th Century Gladiator, Promethean Press, pp148-149)
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