Baritsu--a professed form of Japanese wrestling--was mentioned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his 1905 Sherlock Holmes story The Adventures of the Empty House. Yet, for nearly a century no one could verify that baritsu actually existed.
That's because it didn't. According to CNN/Time, Doyle misspelled the word (it's bartitsu--two Ts, not one--because you've never seen a historian crippled to the knees like they are with misspellings), and not Japanese wrestling at all, but a Victorian England creation that incorporated a variety of martial arts styles.
Bartitsu--which consists of boxing, judo, and stick fighting--was largely ignored until Sherlock Holmes junkies started looking into it and developing an exercise routine, and by 2011 led to the Bartitsu Club in New York City.
Says Roxanne Henkle, a practitioner of bartitsu, to CNN, "I thought instead of seeing a show I could learn something and maybe apply it in the real world."
Cracking a rattan cane off someone's throat followed up by a judo chop to the ears--those are everyday applications you can use in the workplace.
