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When
you think of New York City, do you think of the Statue of Liberty or
maybe even the colorful people that live there? That's okay if you're
looking at NYC from the outside, but a different perspective arises if
you're on the inside. That perspective is surviving on the streets and
no one knows that better than Charles Nelson.
Charlie
Nelson has been teaching self-defense to New Yorkers since 1946 and, at
79 years old, is still going strong. He is a man who has dedicated his
life to helping ordinary citizens defend themselves against would-be
muggers and attackers. His methods are unique and his style unorthodox,
but his system, which took him a lifetime to perfect, works and works
well.
Charlie
began his training as a child in an orphanage, where he picked up
boxing at an early age. Along with the boxing, he was taught jiu-jitsu
by a marine who was returning to civilian life after serving in China.
Fascinated with this new style of fighting, Charlie became of age and
joined the only Marine Corp outfit that was teaching hand-to-hand
combat at the time.
Charlie's
first introduction to hand-to-hand combat in the Marine Corp came from
training with the famed Lt. Col. A.J. Drexel Biddle. The late Col.
Biddle's book Do or Die, A Supplementary Manual on Indiviual Combat, is
still in print since 1937. Another famous training partner of Charlie's
was John Styers, his bunkmate at Quantico. The late John Styers book,
Cold Steel: Techniques of Close Combat, is also still in print since
1952. The Marine's primary combat duty was to fight the Japanese in the
Pacific Theatre of War. The Japanese were the most formidable combat
troop that the Marine Corp ever had to face in battle. Japanese
soldiers had the reputation of being invincible in hand-to-hand battle,
due to their knowledge of jiu-jitsu, judo, and karate. The Marines
needed a fighting method that could defeat these feared Japanese
martial arts. They found such a method taught by a combat expert named
Dermot "Pat" O'Neill. Mr. O'Neil, formerly a detective with the
Shanghai International Police, taught police officers to defend
themselves against Asian criminals who used their martial arts skill to
evade arrest. The method he taught to the Marines was termed "Defendu",
to defend against Judo. Thus many Marine Corp hand-to-hand combat
instructors were taught this scientific method of self-defense.
Charlie's most personally important instructor, a sargean in the Marine
Corp named Kelly, taught Charlie these skills. The late Sgt. Kelly was
detailed to the US Marine Corp detachment in Shanghai China, a unit
known as the "Chine Marines". Sgt. Kelly assisted Dermot O'Neil as the
self-defense instructor to the Marines in China. Sgt. Kelly also
studied under Capt. W.E. Fairbairn and Capt. E.A. Sykes. These new
fighting techniques were sorely needed and were soon put to the test.
As anyone can see, Charlie trained with the giants of WWII-era
hand-to-hand combat. In turn, during his more than 10 years as a USMC
instructor, Charlie taught these skills to countless other Marines.
While
in the Marine Corp, Charlie would often hear through the grapevine
about soldiers who were excellent wrestlers, boxers, or streetfighters.
He would hunt around the base in search of these fighters he heard so
much about, until finally tracking them down. They would teach Charlie
many of the finer points of fighting. Charlie gained valuable knowledge
from the months that he trained together with them.
After
leaving the Marine Corp in 1946, Nelson opened the School of
Self-Defense in Manhattan. He taught his students the art of
hand-to-hand combat, the same fighting method he had instructed marines
for 10 years and refined over time. The types of students attending his
school at the time included bouncers, long-shoremen, and assorted
roughnecks.
Charlie
settled in and began examining other fighting systems. He began
practicing Kunf Fu with a Chinese emigrant in the back of the man's
Chinese hand laundry store. After learning as much as he could, he
moved on to train with college wrestlers, Judo players, and other
fighters.
By
combining all the fighting techniques he learned over the years,
Charlie developed his own brand of self-defense. He first began
teaching this fighting style, which he terms Chinese Mongolian
Wrestling, to interested businessmen as a hobby. When he wasn't
teaching the businessmen, he was teaching at the famed New York Judo
Academy, where he kept the upper hand on the other judo blackbelts
because of his knowledge of this Chinese Mongolian Wrestling. The
Philosophy underlying Charlie's techniques, which combine the grappling
skills of Chinese Mongolian Wrestling with the brutal efficiency of
Defendu, is deceptively simple but realistic. One principle, in
Charlie's own words, is "never take a fighting stance, pretend to
yield." Another is that you "never go to the ground on purpose, like in
judo, but you tie up your opponent with arm locks or clinches. In the
real world you get killed by a second assailant by going to the
ground." Yet another is to "evade your opponent's attack, escape his
hold, then immediately counter-attack-with crippling strikes," a
concept Charlie refers to as the "Mongoose and the Cobra."
The
closest way to describe Mongolian wrestling, Nelson explains, is
stand-up grappling. An element that he demonstrates to all of his
entering students, is that when the assailant attacks you, you escape
his hold and attack him back. "Another important aspect of the Chinese
Mongolian Wrestling," Charlie stated, "is that there are only two ways
of defending yourself counter-attack or attack. In the counterattack
the defender pretends to yield, only to trap the assailant and set up a
counter-attack."
Charlie has five main principles of Chinese Mongolian Wrestling:
1. Never take a fighting stance. Pretend to yield. Then attack suddenly without warning.
2. Never go to the ground.
3. A man's legs are his foundation. Take the foundation out from under him and he cannot stand to fight.
4.
An assailant's arms are like the tiller of a ship. Control his
arm and you control the direction of his power and his ability to
attack.
5.
Never place a restraining hold on an attacker without striking
him first. Use edge-of-hand, open hand, heel-of-palm strikes to soften
him up before attempting a wristlock or armlock.
When
Charlie formally opened his Self Defense School and started teaching
full time, he quit the New York Judo Academy. He helped Korean
emigrants get a start by letting them teach Korean Karate and Tae Kwon
Do at his school during the evening hours. Charlie also studied these
techniques, working out counters and evasion moves to these various
attacks.
The
door to Charlie's school has always been open to anyone who wandered in
off the street. He can teach anyone to defend themselves as long as
they want to learn. Charlie's School of Self-Defense was possible the
first martial arts school in the United States. I is definitely the
first martial arts school solely dedicated to the teaching of simple,
effective self-defense skills. At age 79 he still teaches anyone who
wanders in off the street and this is no small testimonial in a city as
ravaged by drugs, crime, and poverty as New York City. Charley has
undoubtedly taught self-defense to more people over the years than any
man alive.
Charlie's
system has never been fully or systematically codified in books or on
tapes. He states that only his long term students hold the true secrets
of Mongolian Wrestling. This policy follows the martial arts tradition
of handing down the art to truly deserving students and making sure
that dangerous techniques are not taught to anti-social individuals.
Charlie has a standard fifteen lesson course. Charlie has boiled down
his system to the smallest number of techniques and moves; in this way
the student does not have an extraordinary amount of techniques to
learn. Charlie's philosophy is the simpler the better.
Charlie's
genius is this Charlie has studied, over a lifetime, the typical
fighting habits of the average American street fighter and mugger. He
has developed a system of techniques that address the way a person
would be attacked by an assailant. These techniques are
interchangeable. A small number of principles to burn into muscle
memory can carry the practitioner of "Chinese Mongolian Wrestling"
through just about any violent conflict.
In
teaching his system, Charlie follows sort of an oral tradition. Every
one of his techniques comes with a story. He will relate how someone
attacked him or one of his students, and then demonstrated in detail
the attack and counter-attack. These stories put the techniques in
context and make them easy to remember.
Charlie
has been going strong for many years. He has taught men and women from
all walks of life, from everyday citizens to police officers to well
known martial artists, the latter remaining nameless by virtue of a
mutual agreement with Charlie. He has taught famous individuals,
including Donna Reed, Lou Reed, Robert Duvall, and Billy Squire.
Everyone who has ever trained with him develops a greater understanding
of the art of self-defense and the confidence to perform these skills
on the street. The students owe all this valuable knowledge to the man
who has dedicated his life to defending against the evil element of
society. He has generously shared his life work with those who have
been fortunate enough to have trained with him. He has been nicknamed
the "Last American Master" and "Little Bigman", and his "No Touch
System" evade the attack and strike method, rooted in Chinese
Mongolian Wrestling will remain as the ultimate martial arts maneuver
and the back-bone of The Charles Nelson Concept of Self Defense.
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