Mike Griffin met and trained with Bill Underwood in his system of Defendo and was one of the few lucky enough to be certified in this simple yet effective system of Self Defense in 1980. Bill was a martial arts wizard and his Defendo is unique to the martial arts world.
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.
Combato had its beginning in the Liverpool theaters 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".
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 traveled in Canada, the United States and in the UK (1965) teaching his system. 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 honored 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. 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..., on all occasions promoting and teaching his system of Defendo.
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