Combato (Canadian Tactical Combat)
A Canadian close-combat system from the early 20th century. It rests on leverage, not strength; after the war its author softened it into police-oriented Defendo.
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About Combato (Canadian Tactical Combat)
Combato is a close-combat system assembled by Bill Underwood, a Briton settled in Canada. Underwood began working on it around 1910 and taught it in Montreal and Toronto. During the Second World War it drew interest from Canadian and American armed and police services; among others, Underwood trained US Army Rangers and FBI agents. The system rests on a single idea: technique must not depend on strength. Underwood worked from the principles of leverage, so that a smaller person can handle a heavier opponent by acting on a joint at a disadvantageous angle rather than by overpowering him. The curriculum contains wrist and elbow control, chokes, takedowns and disarming; it has no sporting section, no forms and no competition. After the war came a turn that matters for understanding the system. Underwood refused further requests to teach on the grounds that Combato was too aggressive for civilian and police use, because its techniques aimed at injury rather than control. He was therefore asked to rework it into a form suited to law enforcement, where the point is to subdue and detain. The new name, Defendo, was proposed by his daughter Pat on 15 August 1945 in New York, and Underwood taught under it from 1945 to 1950. Combato and Defendo are thus two shapes of one method, differing in the degree of force applied. Underwood died on 8 February 1986 in Newmarket, Ontario.
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Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.