What are your thoughts on these systems?

:asian:

Defendo and Combato are the same thing unless you mean modern Defendo ala Bill Wolfe.

Defendu (Gutterfighting) is Fairbairn's system and one of the best Combat systems ever. The real expert on this is Carl Cestari. A google search will turn up alot of good material from him.

Defendo/Combato was designed by Bill Underwood around the same time Fairbairn was forumlating defendu. Underwood was a canadian and quite possible taught at Camp X around the same time as fairbairn. Their systems were designed independantly, however. My take on Defendo is that Bill Underwood was amazing but that stuff is a little hard for us normal folk to pull of.

Modern defendo is also a good system but is totally seperate from the other two. I have a theory that Wolfe was exposed to Defendo through the Canadian Army but I have no proof on that one. Wolfe's system is a mix of hapkido, boxing, greco roman wrestling and a few other things.

I would rate them Defendu 1st, Modern Defendo 2nd and Defendo/combato 3rd.

Tony

Originally posted by tmanifold
Modern defendo

There is an article on this in the current (Jan. 2004) issue of Black Belt.

I have a theory that Wolfe was exposed to Defendo through the Canadian Army but I have no proof on that one. Wolfe's system is a mix of hapkido, boxing, greco roman wrestling and a few other things.

H2H in the Canadian forces is based on Hapkido. It is very likely that Wolfe picked up his combatized Hapkido that way. Specifically for PPCLI and the now defunct Airborne. JTF2, our most elite unit (and considered very elite worldwide, more secret than SAS) also has H2H training that rumour has is directly descended from camp X.

It may be based on Hapkido now (If it is I haven't seen the pub. yet) but in the late 80's and early 90's it was shotokan karate. I know of a couple people who picked up some very defendo looking stuff in the 70's so they may have been doing that before the karate.

Recently I have heard that Wolfe was very critical of Underwood and denouced his methods so I could be wrong on that acccount as well.

Tony

Dredging this up from the murky past. What are people's current thoughts on these systems?

Dredging this up from the murky past. What are people's current thoughts on these systems?

I think that the arts mentioned, Defendu in particular, are the fastest most efficient means by which the average person could prepare for a life and death unarmed conflict.

The modern Defendo from Canada that is largely HKD and Western Boxing, is a completely different system, IMO, and emphasizes similiarities with "Defendu" and other WW2 systmes for marketing purposes. I'm sure it's an adequate system, just not the same.

I think that the arts mentioned, Defendu in particular, are the fastest most efficient means by which the average person could prepare for a life and death unarmed conflict.

The modern Defendo from Canada that is largely HKD and Western Boxing, is a completely different system, IMO, and emphasizes similiarities with "Defendu" and other WW2 systmes for marketing purposes. I'm sure it's an adequate system, just not the same.

Jonathan, I'm going to disagree with you,but only on a technicality. Defendu was the style that Fairbairn taught to the Shanghai police. It is preserved in his book Defendu(1926) and Scientific Self Defense(1931). Defendu covers a lot of control and restraint techniques that are not in the WWII syllabuses from Fairbairn and Applegate. These techniques were omitted due to impracticality for the task at hand, and time constraints in teaching.


I will absolutely agree that Bill Wolfe's Modern Defendo is predominantly HKD, boxing and greco-roman. There is no connection with Underwood's Defendo, and less with Fairbairn. His claim that boxing is the basis of the H2H taught at Camp X is questionable. The first H2H instructor at Camp X was an Olympic wrestler( Relekowsky), and examples of the syllabus Fairbairn taught have been available for years, in David Stafford's book on Camp X, as an example, or in the more recent How To Be A Spy book(Dennis Rigden)which has not just the H2H syllabus, but sections on camouflage, theatrics, guerilla tactics, etc.

Jonathan, I'm going to disagree with you,but only on a technicality. Defendu was the style that Fairbairn taught to the Shanghai police. It is preserved in his book Defendu(1926) and Scientific Self Defense(1931). Defendu covers a lot of control and restraint techniques that are not in the WWII syllabuses from Fairbairn and Applegate. These techniques were omitted due to impracticality for the task at hand, and time constraints in teaching.

Actually, I completely agree with you about Defendu - and I should have specified that I meant the core striking techniques and basic throws pulled from it to form WW2 Era Fairbairn Combatives.