Urban combatives

tip strikes to the eyes. The rest is made up of various armbars and sharp low kicks to the knees and shins. Over the years Charlie adapted and updated his system.

Some of his students from say the 60's and 70's have said that the curriculum during that time was often more striking orientated as compared to say the early 80's where Charlie was starting to adapt his system slightly incorporating more of the arm-bar kind of subject control, which incidentally was always, always preceded by striking or distraction. An example of this was the elimination of the groin kick in favour of the even lower kicks to the knees, shins and ankles.

Charlie would always say ''its all about the angles.'' He was a firm believer of the ''give way'' principle which he slightly modified by calling it the ''revolving door'' instead of just going with the force, Charlie added a slight body spin which causes him to glance off his attacker, much like a rock thrown at a revolving door would. Charlie advised against exerting strength against strength being small himself, Charlie was well aware of the outcome of such a contest.

He preferred instead, to remain just outside of his opponent's reach, but close enough to strike out at targets of opportunity. He would say ''ever see a mongoose fight a cobra?'' ''The mongoose evades just far enough to avoid being bitten, then while the snake is off balance, the mongoose rushes in for the kill.''

Footwork is the basis for evasion and Charlie made evasion a bedrock principle of his system. He incorporated the slipping and footwork from Western boxing along with his lightning fast side step to confuse his attacker. He always preferred to step or duck out of harms way, then either use his opponent's momentum against him with a foot trip or immediately launch as many hand and foot blows as was necessary to end the situation. Charlie was an intelligent man so of course he had a back up plan, should he have found himself backed up to a wall or cornered and denied of his evasive footwork, unable to avoid close contact here was his answer; ''move in on the guy with everything, including the kitchen sink,'' ''when on the offensive you're harder to hit. The other guy doesn't have a chance to put power into his punches, or even think about hurting you, as General Pattern used to say, ''to hell with protecting your flanks. Let the enemy worry about protecting his flanks.''