philips, I don't know if your question was answered to your satisfaction, but here's my response to it. Did you navigate the
www.defendo.com site that you posted the link to? If you did then you found this bit of info that they prefer to keep obscure, and that is, that Bill Wolfe's defendo is really not defendo at all, but rather defendu from William Fairbairn, Rex Applegate, and Eric Sykes. The original and authentic Defendo is a government and law enforcement system developed by Bill Underwood in 1945. Prior to 1945, Underwood concentrated chiefly on the unarmed killing techniques of Combato. Combato was developed during world war one, and was already a proven and perfected system for world war two. Combato techniques were exclusive to assassins and spy type operatives. These techniques in no way lend themselves well to civilian applications. Combato trained individuals were not sent in to negotiate, bargain with, or reason with their assigned targets. They were sent in to kill them. The open-hand strikes, neck and spine manipulations, are specifically for killing. There is no in-between with Combato. People on the receiving end of Combato, die. Dave Walmsley (based in London Ontario) has a system called Canadian Combato htpp://www.dolfzine.com/page704.htm ,this system is not Bill Underwood's Combato. When WW2 ended Bill Underwood saw the danger of his system falling into disuse and being abandoned. He would not have any of that, and from Combato comes Bill Underwood's Defendo which is more pain compliance, and jointlocks than just outright killing. Defendo can be used to kill, but it can be applied more to a degree. It gives the user of it some discretion, which is what makes it more appropriate for government and law enforcement. It's also taught to civilians as a self defense method. Even though Underwood was a Canadian, the Canadian Government won't allow the Canadian Forces to learn Combato because they're concerned about legal liability. Underwood's Combato has been sealed and locked up, available to no one. After WW2 most veterans skilled in Combato went to their private lives, grew old, and took it to their graves. There are people that do know this system and NO they won't teach it to you. Why is Bill Wolfe, Fairbairn, Applegate, Sykes, Cestari's Defendu passed off as Defendo when in fact it is not? I don't know. Why did Dave Walmsley call his system of survival-defense, Canadian Combato? Bill Underwood's original Combato is Canadian. The applications of Underwood's Combato are strictly lethal. Self defense is not a consideration. Walmsley's Canadian Combato survival-defense is kind of misleading, isn't it? Mislabled too. You can find out more about the original and authentic Defendo/Combato at
www.underwoodsystems.com What do the military think of Defendo? They know that Defendo just isn't Combato and as long as there's a lid on it they look elsewhere to train, in Lotar/Kapap "for example". This is under the umbrella term Krav Maga. Lotar is the anti-terrorist training. Kapap is the military combatives. Interesting that someone qualified to teach Lotar/Kapap is also qualified to teach Krav Maga but not necessarily the other way around. There are Krav Maga instructors that know nothing about Lotar/Kapap. They're not privy to that training and I would say that if you're not special forces, or some government operative, neither are you. Not everyone in the military is special forces either so it's not unusual to see more CF members travelling in their civilian guises to take lessons in russian martial art, Systema. There is actually a gag order on just who the special forces members are and what they actually train in is not discussed. That is why I said Lotar/Kapap "for example", but you get the idea.