Defendo

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please improve this article if you can. (January 2007)

Defendo is a martial art and self defense system created in 1945 for law enforcement by Bill Underwood, a British born Canadian. Underwood was originally the creator of Combato a "non-boxing or wrestling" unarmed combat system which he taught in Montreal, Quebec.

[edit] History

Combato had its beginning in the Liverpool theatres with jujitsu demonstrations of traveling Japanese wrestlers, Yukio Tani and Taro Miyake. As a boy, Underwood idolized these experts, rapidly establishing himself as a prodigy. The name "Defendo" was created on August 15, 1945 in New York City by Pat Underwood, the daughter of Bill Underwood.

Underwood modified his system to remove its lethal applications and focus on the Law Enforcement applications of self-defense, compliance and control tactics.He realized that he could not call this system Combato, so his daughter Pat Underwood proposed that he call the system "Defendo".^{[citation needed]}

[edit] A new name

From 1945 to 1950 Underwood began to teach his developing self-defense system in Canada and the USA under this name.In 1950 Bill Underwood published under copyright "Defendo, Police System of Self-Defense". From 1950 to 1969 Underwood travelled in Canada, the United States and in the UK (1965) teaching his system.^{[citation needed]} In 1969 Canada, under copyright Bill Underwood published "Defendo, Occidental System of Self-Protection".From 1969 to his death on February 8, 1986 in Newmarket, Ontario Canada Underwood was well known for his system and honoured and profiled frequently by the North American media.In 1980 a short documentary on Underwood's life and work with Combato and Defendo titled Don't Mess With Bill was nominated for an Oscar at the 53rd Academy Awards in 1981 [1][2]. Between 1980 and 1981 Underwood appeared 4 times on the Johnny Carson Show. He also appeared at that time on all of Hollywood's major talk shows including Real People, That's Incredible, Merv Griffin etc...^{[citation needed]} on all occasions promoting and teaching his system of Defendo.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Information sources

Underwood Family's Archives -
Publication: Bill Underwood's "Police System of Self-Protection", Toronto copyright 1950 -
Publication "Defendo" Occidental System of Self-Protection, Toronto, Copyright 1969 -

Current and past Canadian Forces Persons - Intelligence -