Citation

Bartitsu Society. (2017). Miss Phoebe Roberts, "Champion Lady Ju-Jitsu Wrestler of the World". The Bartitsu Society

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Phoebe Roberts

1887-10-22 - 1937-10

Description

Bartitsu Society article on Phoebe Roberts, originally published on bartitsu.org on 15 April 2017. Accounts her as one of the first female jiujitsu instructors in the Western world, training from about age fifteen circa 1904 and beginning to teach at Tani and Miyake's Japanese School of Ju-Jitsu in Oxford Street within a year or two. Publishes several period photographs (demonstrating a leg trip, a defensive finger lock, applications of a wrist-and-arm-lock on Yuzo Hirano, self-defence against a left-lead punch), discusses her costume, notes the "Phoebe Roberts" professional pseudonym underlying her birth name Phoebe Laughton Parry, her marriage to Yuzo Hirano during 1907, their arrival in Lisbon in January 1910 in the company of Sadakazu Uyenishi, and Hirano's disappearance during 1915.

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