In the course of researching some 19th century self-defense materials, I learned that, even before Victorian times, women could learn self-defense techniques. It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t exactly respectable, but it could be done. However, by the Edwardian era, women are beginning to get formal instruction in martial arts, like ju jitsu (you can learn a great deal more about this at the Bartitsu Society website).
Some women, trained in these arts, provided protection for suffragists.
This film is a bit later—1933—but the moves employ the same principles.
Self-Defence Tutorial from 1933 | British Pathé
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1 comments:
Now that it's open season on women in the U.S., we're all going to need to learn this.
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