It's amazing. It's beautiful. It's...mine! And along with it, the secret arcane knowledge it contains. Mwahaha!

Now, if only I could read Spanish...

For those who came in late:

"Nuevos Modos De Defenderse En La Calle Con Un Baston" was published in 1930, written by Arturo Bonafont, an Argentinian fencing master. It is unique among Western self-defense manuals as it contains the only known cane system where the techniques are performed entirely from reverse or "hiking" grip.

It's a pretty rare book, copies of it hardly ever come up for sale and the only other one that I know the whereabouts of is in Ralph Grasso's private collection in NYC. Ralph wrote a review of it here (http://savateaustralia.wordpress.com/essays/nuevos-modos-de-defenderse-en-la-calle-con-un-baston/)

I haven't had much of a chance to go through it yet but I'll post more details when I do. I would like to eventually bring this to a wider audience and hope to work with people to get a reprint/translation out.

Awesome man!

This is the fourth copy I know of. Besides Mr. Grasso's, Craig Gemiener in Australia has a copy, a third was auctioned off a few years ago on a spanish language site, and now yours. :)

'Grats man.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

Rare as hen's teeth, as my aunt used to say. I'm looking forward to the translation/re-publication.

Arturo Bonafont is my great-great Grandfather and features his son (my great grandfather) Roque. I wish it wasn't so rare! I would love to have a copy of it in my library! I hope that you are able to find a way to reprint it!

I would really appreciate contact with you...and not in a creepy way haha.

I was just last month reading about the Grasso Morale method of Americane that includes Bonafont techniques. I hadn't heard of this style before that.

There's some videos on http://bootfighter.wordpress.com/2012/05/13/americane/

Since this thread has been resurrected, let me reiterate that I would love to work with any owners of this book to republish it. You guys know my work (http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/lawson). I started something like 10+ years ago with Lang's Walkingstick Method and have somewhere north of 30 republished titles now. :)

I've also worked with Jared Kirby and The Association for Historical Fencing to republish antique books for them.

Gimme a shout and we'll repub this book!

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

On the chance the TheVigilante isn't subscribed to this thread and may not notice that it's been revived, you should be able to email him via this page - http://www.bullshido.net/forums/member.php?u=7027 .

I've PM'ed with him a few times and it seemed there was some interest. IMS, he wanted to repub himself, which is cool. But I haven't heard from him on the subject in a while. I tried PMing again mid-last year. <shrug>

Offer is still there. :)

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

Hi guys,

Shamefully, I have sat on this for a while and I think it is time to do something about it. Sorry for not replying to your PM, Kirk - I almost never log in to Bullshido and I think this account is registered to an email address that no longer exists. Better to get ahold of me on Facebook!

I still would like to try and do something with this myself, and to eventually publish not just a straight-up repub/translation but also some extra stuff on training and history.

Mr. Bonafont, I would love to correspond with you, I can't seem to send you a private message, however?

I've updated my profile to include my current email address so you should be able to email me using the link that DdlR provided.

Mr. Bonafont, I would love to correspond with you, I can't seem to send you a private message, however?

I've updated my profile to include my current email address so you should be able to email me using the link that DdlR provided.

I think the Bullshido.net private message system is only available to people with a post-count of 50 and over.

Good luck with the project.

Greetings,

I have owned scans of this book for a few years now and I can tell you that It is indeed a good book and extremely rare. Ralph and I had discussed a reprint for a while now , however I have concern about releasing it, not because I want to keep it secret but after seeing how the Bartitsu movement is going where many unqualified people came out of the woodwork and became "instructors" because they own the Compendium. I can only speculate that if a reprint is done the same will occour and we will suddenly see another influx of "Maestros" from a source that no one previously had access to.(this implies that there has been enough time for folks to train the material, which there hasn't been since the material wasnt available.)

That stated, I think the info is worth while to train and I have no issue with people training it, running a study group or even incorporating it into other methods, provided credit is given . I do however have a problem with people running commercial schools and teaching systems from books, it may not be an outright falsehood to do so, but it implies that they were trained in the method by a qualified instructor with lineage. Many of the recostructionists (not all) have no base in the respective arts they are attempting to reconstruct. All the "Neo and Modern" prefixes in the world doesnt change the fact that there is simply no lineage attached to this and other historical systems. If the intent is to study the material , learn it and share it fine, but be upfront about the history and lineage, which we know little to nothing about and there is no direct line. -Josh

after seeing how the Bartitsu movement is going where many unqualified people came out of the woodwork and became "instructors" because they own the Compendium.I haven't seen this phenomenon. I've seen exactly one study group pop up which the Bartitsu Society was completely ignorant of.

Further, I've never seen any indication that Bonafont taught his system much beyond his own local students. In fact, IMS, he had a hard time finding someone to write his Foreword. Yet he still published his manual anyway and sold who-knows-how-many copies, presumably most to folks who weren't already masters of his system nor his direct-lineage students.

So I rather doubt that there'd be much "danger" of having Bonafont's material misrepresented by self-appointed masters.

The man wanted his material to be read. I think it should be.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

Greetings,

I spoke to ralph last evening, since there was some renewed interest. I Inquired about the progress of the translation of this manual. Essentially,the translation is slow going as the challenge of finding a competant translator who was also a martial artist took some time and the translation is indeed underway but is slow going since it is written in an old-world dialect of spanish. Although it is in the origional spanish version and provided as a reference, many of the members of our training group have a pdf of the manual from the scans I made, the general concensus is that until the translation from Spanish to English is complete it seriously limits the appeal and viability of releasing it for republication. Once the translation is complete Mr. Grasso said that there is a high possibility that it will be offered to paladin as the first choice for republication. When this takes place Mr. Grasso intends to make an anouncement that the book will be available.

Mr. Grasso also asked me to state that although He/We do have access to the material, train it, and Incorporate some of the techniques in to our walkingstick Method , We do not teach the system as a whole and are hesitant to claim a rank or athourity in Maestro Bonafont's system due to the fact that there are no lineage instructors to have studied under. -Josh

"I've never seen any indication that Bonafont taught his system much beyond his own local students. In fact, IMS, he had a hard time finding someone to write his Foreword."

In regards to the Foreword, the issue wasn't that the Maestro couldn't find anyone to write the forword, the person Maestro Bonafont wanted to write the foreword was his fencing maestro, who admonished Bonafont for producing the book and refused to write the forward because he felt that this information should not be made available to the common man(ie: the poor) and kept in the salon with the "upper crust".

Interesting side note: of the copies that we are aware of, those copies are autographed by Maestro Bonafot or his son Roque, so it is possible that the inital books were printed in a small quantity and given as gifts- though this is just speculation. Vigilante, is your copy signed as well? Courious if this is consistant with the others.- Josh

Hi Josh,

Yes, my copy has been signed by Roque Bonafont.

I didn't know that you guys were working on a translation/transcription - in that case I shall butt out as you guys have way more knowledge and experience than I do.

Hi Josh,

Yes, my copy has been signed by Roque Bonafont.

I didn't know that you guys were working on a translation/transcription - in that case I shall butt out as you guys have way more knowledge and experience than I do.

Vigilante, Thank you for the reply, interesting, it is my assumption that since all surviving copies have been Autographed. The initial publication might have been a rather limited quantity, although I have no further evidence to confirm either way. What I find particulary of note is some copies seem to be signed by Maestro Bonafont, some by Roque Bonafont , one copy that is known is signed by both Bonafonts. Not sure what that means exactly but if all of the autographs have the same dates that may infer a book signing possibly leaning to a smaller quantiy of inital copies. Just a hunch.