User:Akillian90/Edith Garrud

Early life:

Edith Garrud was a small woman, measuring only 4 feet 11 inches.

Edith fell in love with jiu jitsu. This method uses the attackers force against themselves. It targets pressure points, joints, and limbs of the attackers.This made Edith's smaller frame a very dangerous weapon. The police at this time were also trained in combat and were required to be 5 feet 10 inches tall.

Trainer of Bodyguards:

In 1910, at the Black Friday protest, more than 100 suffragettes were arrested. If women went on hunger strikes, they would be arrested and force fed through rubber tubes.Edith became a jiu jitsu instructor towards the beginning on WWI. She became one of the first female martial arts teachers in the west, and she was the first to officially bring martial arts to the Suffrage Movement. The campaign for votes for women in Britain were becoming increasingly violent and she wanted to teach the women how to protect themselves from the police or attackers sometimes twice their size. They would be manhandled and often knocked to the ground. They also learned many ways to trick their opponents using jiu jitsu. The classes she held for members of the Suffrage Movement were kept secret and would often move to different locations. They would often hide bats and clubs under the floorboards at the academy, as to not get caught by the police. They would make homemade armor from cotton and cardboard.

Later in Life:

During the article interview with journalist Godfrey Winn, she put him in a wrist lock just to show she still had the moves.

"Suffrajitsu" How the Suffragettes Fought Back Using Martial Arts by Camila Ruz and Justin Parkinson BBC News Magazine October 5,2015 www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34425615

The History of Fighting by Andrew Griffiths, 2012-2019 www.historyoffighting.com

Suffragist, Edith Margaret Garrud How the Vote Was Won www.thesuffragets.org/map/london-burroughs/westminster/edith-margaret-garrud

Royal Armouries 2019 by Bridget Clifford www.blog.royalarmouries.org

Edith Garrud and the Jiu Jitsu of the Suffragates Movement by Sarah Kurchak October 7, 2015 www.vice.com/en_us/article/pg5j48/edith-garrud-and-the-jiu-jitsu-of-the-suffragtes-movement