COMBAT JUDO: NOT FOR COUCH POTATOES OR CANDY ASSES

One of the questions I get asked consistently is…..What is Combat Judo? 

COMBAT JUDO was originally developed to address the needs of military personnel, facing new hand-to-hand combat challenges, as a way to ensure a streamlined, tested, and effective method of self-defense. 

Some very often misinterpret the word "streamlined" used in the description of Carlin’s Combat Judo to mean "simple" or "easy", something that one can be proficient in with little to no training. One description of combat judo that gets bantered around the internet a lot  is that it is"a easily learned dirty trick fighting method". This really couldn't be any further from the truth…….

Combat judo’s roots stem from WWI. It is a combination of judo and boxing. This method was basically recast years later as “Combat Judo”. This renaming so to speak was done to distinguish it from any of the classical/traditional martial art systems. 

CAPTAIN ALLEN CORSTORPHIN SMITH

What would later be referred to as Combat Judo began in WWI with CPT. Allen Corstorphin Smith of the United States Army. Smith had trained in judo at the Kodokan in Japan and earned his black belt from the Kodokan. He was the hand to hand combat instructor at the Infantry school in Ft. Benning, Georgia. Smith’s combatives program was a combination of boxing and judo. His methods are online on youtube, for all to see, in an old silent training film.  Though this system of fighting was brought out late into WWI Smith’s combatives method proved to be extremely effective in trench warfare. (See video of Cpt. Smith below)

By the start of WWII this fighting method had become wide spread through the different branches of the US military. During WWII it was taught to specialized units like the US Army Alamo scouts and other units for use in hand to hand combat situations in their operating areas during the war. “Combat Judo” became the name of this system utilized by the U. S. military primarily during this time.

SSG ROBERT CARLIN

SSG. Robert Carlin had been a amateur boxer who had boxed in the Golden Gloves, a wrestler and a Judoka. Carlin was honorably discharged from the United States Army when he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. It was there that he received his hand to hand combat training under Colonel Anthony Drexel Biddle. It is said that Carlin also excelled at Hand to Hand combat in Ranger training (Army) and commando training (British). 

Carlin would go on and teach Judo in the marines. Later he was the instructor of judo instructors for Captain Leland Hanley, officer in charge at Cherry Point, N.C.  of Combat Conditioning. Carlin instructed the bayonet and instructors for Captain Armitage at Guadalcanal and taught H2H to the 29th Marines under Colonel Victor F. Bleasdale. In his career as an instructor Carlin trained thousands of Marines. 

During this time Carlin started writing and completed his book Combat Judo. Carlin took two years to complete his book that was written for both military and civilian defense. Carlin self-published Combat Judo in 1945.

In Carlin’s writings he states that combat Judo is a more advanced method of fighting. He even goes further into the details of its training by likening it to the training in boxing. As an example, even novice boxers put in hours and hours and round after round in training just the fundamentals alone. 

Looking at the fact that Carlin had been a golden gloves boxer and a judoka and the fact that Combat Judo was rooted in both boxing and judo his comparing it to boxing training makes perfect sense. In this light Carlin’s comparison speaks volumes of the importance he emphasizes in his book on how Combat Judo is to be trained. Simply learning “tricks” as Carlin puts it is not enough, one needs to learn the fundamentals. Carlin goes so far as saying people who only learn “tricks” often find themselves in situations they cant “solve” or deal with in fighting. Carlin points out that the reason they fail is they didn’t take time to train in the fundamentals of a system to the advanced. 

Not a single Combatives luminary, from Fairbairn to O’Neill to Biddle to Applegate, etc. ever contradicted the statement; “The more you sweat in training the less you bleed in a fight.” Every one of them advocated daily regular training.  

Carlin very glaringly makes the point in his book that minimal training WILL NOT and DOES NOT work! He drives home, like a proverbial nail in the coffin, the fact that there is no skimping on training, otherwise he wouldn’t have compared training in combat judo to boxing and wrestling. 

Barron Shepherd is a 3rd degree black belt judo instructor and coach, a certified boxing coach and certified NASM Sports Performance Enhancement Specialist.